President Trump Threatens 35% Tariffs on Japan
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Here is your Morning Brief for Wednesday, July 2nd. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. Japanese shares slipped today following a threat by President Trump to raise tariffs on Japan to as high as 35 percent after he appeared to cut off trade talks with Tokyo earlier this week.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said it's unlikely the sides will reach an agreement ahead of the July 9th deadline for trade deals set by his administration. Japanese officials have said repeatedly they can't agree to any deal that doesn't reduce industry-specific tariffs. So far, the administration has cut only a limited trade agreement with the U.K. and struck a tariff truce with China, though Trump said yesterday the U.S. was nearing a deal with India.

Well, a day after the Senate backed the president's tax and spending mega bill, a number of House Republicans are lining up to oppose it, and their numbers appear large enough to block its passage. Among them are House Freedom Caucus members who've taken issue with the decision by senators to forego standard accounting rules and declare that extending tax cuts would have no impact on the federal budget.

Though skeptics on Capitol Hill predict fiscal conservatives and other holdouts will fall in line when the president gets directly involved.

And Paramount Global has agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit with President Trump over a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. In the settlement, which doesn't include an apology, Paramount also agreed that 60 Minutes will release transcripts of interviews with presidential candidates in the future. It caps a months-long legal saga after Trump alleged that the network edited the interview to make Harris sound better.

CBS has said it didn't doctor her comments, but rather aired a more succinct version of her response. Asian markets have end-of-the-day mixed, European shares are gaining in midday trading, and U.S. stock futures are pointing to a higher open ahead of the ADP employment report due out at 8.15 a.m. Eastern.

And we have got a lot more coverage of the day's news on the WSJ's What's News podcast. You can add it to your playlist on your smart speaker or listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. The spirit of innovation is deeply ingrained in America, and Google is helping Americans innovate in ways both big and small.

The Department of Defense is working with Google to help secure America's digital defense systems, from establishing cloud-based zero-trust solutions to deploying the latest AI technology. This is a new era of American innovation. Find out more at g.co slash American innovation.