VOA Focus of the Day (June 26, 2026)
This episode of VOA Focus primarily reports on the United States joining Gulf allies to demand that Iran not develop nuclear weapons and to guarantee the interests of regional allies; the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee holding a hearing focusing on U.S.-Taiwan arms sales and freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific; multiple U.S. departments jointly writing to state governors and business leaders across the country to support U.S.-Taiwan cooperation; Anthropic accusing Alibaba of launching a large-scale model distillation attack; as well as the latest match results and fan voting outcomes for the 2026 World Cup group stage.
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Welcome to VOA Focus for June 26. I am Fan Dongning, broadcasting live from Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. Every day we bring you up to speed on the latest developments in the U.S. and around the world in 15 minutes. Here are today's top stories. The United States and its Gulf allies have drawn a red line for Tehran, demanding that Iran never develop or acquire nuclear weapons. U.S. Central Command has deployed Coast Guard cutters to the Philippines to ensure sufficient resources to meet challenges in the Pacific.
The United States on Thursday joined Gulf allies in drawing a red line for Tehran, demanding that Iran never develop or acquire nuclear weapons, and that its armed proxies in Lebanon must also disarm. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured countries in the Middle East that negotiations with Iran will not harm the interests of regional allies. Please watch this television report from Voice of America. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that he had productive talks with Gulf allies and assured them that negotiations between the U.S. and Iran will not undermine the security and stability of countries in the region.
Rubio made these comments on Thursday while attending the ministerial meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the United States in Manama, Bahrain. The message I brought on this trip is that we want to ensure any decisions made throughout the negotiation process always take into account the interests of our regional partners and allies, and that no terms of any agreement should in any way compromise the security, stability, or prosperity of partners in the Gulf region, Rubio said. Gulf nations shared some very specific concerns and ideas, including the desire for information regarding negotiations with Iran, both at the technical and political levels. He encouraged all viewpoints to be reflected, Rubio said.
Gulf nations showed zero support for the issue of collecting tolls or user fees for the Strait of Hormuz and vowed that the United States would not accept it either. You can call it a toll, you can call it a user fee, whatever you call it, it is just conceptual packaging. The fact is that no country in the world has the right to charge fees for the use of international waterways, and this will never become an acceptable condition in any agreement. The President has been very clear about this consistently, Rubio said.
The United States will judge Iran by its actions in implementing the recently signed memorandum of understanding rather than by the rhetoric of its maximalist demands, it said. He stated that the US will give diplomatic efforts a chance, but he warned that President Donald Trump has options, and if they choose another path, it obviously will not lead to a positive outcome. We hope the outcome will be positive while remaining realistic. Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani stated that regional countries welcome diplomatic efforts to halt the conflict and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Rubio also met with Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa on Thursday in Manama, as Bahrain was the final stop of his Gulf tour.
Next, shifting the focus from the Middle East to East Asia and the Pacific. The US House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on Thursday regarding the implementation of the America First approach in East Asia and the Pacific, addressing the progress of US arms sales to Taiwan and the redeployment of some US military resources from the Middle East to the Asian region. Below, we immediately connect with Voice of America reporter Wang Yuhe to introduce the detailed situation for us. At the very beginning, Indo-Pacific Subcommittee Chairman Kim Young-ok specifically pointed out that the Trump administration and Congress stand firmly with Taiwan to counter the threats and coercion of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He stated that with US support, a bipartisan consensus is to enhance Taiwan's defense and anti-blockade capabilities. He mentioned that the $11 billion arms sale passed late last year is currently being implemented, and the follow-up $14,050,000,000 package disclosed by Secretary of State Rubio last month is also under review. Chairman Kim Young-ok and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs DeSombre, who attended to testify, also focused on freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific waters; let's listen to what they have to say.
The future of Taiwan must be determined by the people of Taiwan rather than Beijing. Beijing's aggressive behavior has extended beyond Taiwan into the South China Sea. The CCP continues its actions to dominate international waters, transforming small geographic features into military bases near Scarborough Shoal, which is claimed by the Philippines. These actions taken by China risk further militarization, and we must work closely with our allies and partners to defend freedom of navigation and uphold international law. On freedom of navigation, we stand with our allies and partners, frequently conducting our freedom of navigation operations around Taiwan and in the Taiwan Strait. We have also deployed additional assets in the surrounding area, such as recently transferring some coast guard vessels from the Central Command to be stationed in the Philippines. In addition, coast guard vessels have been increased in Guam. Obviously, the Indo-Pacific Command is particularly focused on ensuring that we have sufficient resources in the Pacific to meet these challenges.
From Assistant Secretary DeSombre's testimony, it can be seen that the US side has substantially mobilized law enforcement and military assets to address Beijing's gray-zone threats, assisting allies such as Taiwan and the Philippines in facing the CCP's encirclement network. Alright, we thank Voice of America reporter Wang Yuhe for the report. Okay, let's turn our attention to the US Department of State, Department of Commerce, and Department of Agriculture jointly sending a letter to governors and business leaders across the United States, warning that Chinese diplomatic missions in the US are attempting to obstruct local governments and businesses from developing relations with Taiwan, which does not align with US policy towards Taiwan.
In the joint letter written to all US governors, the three departments stated that Taiwan is an important partner of the US and a successful model of democratic institutions, and government departments hope that US states can fully utilize all the opportunities provided by the shared values between the US and Taiwan and their solid relationship. The letter also encourages US states and businesses to expand cooperation with Taiwan in areas such as trade, investment, education, and agriculture, emphasizing that Taiwan has already become the fourth-largest trading partner of the US and an important source of investment. In response, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated its opposition to any form of official exchanges between the US and Taiwan, while Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed welcome, believing this shows that the US remains committed to deepening its partnership with Taiwan despite pressure from Beijing.
Taiwan's Legislative Yuan President Han Kuo-yu led a cross-party delegation of legislators to visit the US, and multiple US members of Congress received the delegation in Washington, D.C., reiterating their firm support for Taiwan. More than 30 members of the House of Representatives from both the Democratic and Republican parties attended a reception held in Congress on Wednesday, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Michael McCaul, who formerly served as the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Pelosi stated that support for Taiwan is bipartisan and bicameral, true for both parties in the House and the Senate. On the same morning, the delegation met with senators in the Senate, including Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Continuing our coverage of the latest developments in the US-China tech war. US artificial intelligence company Anthropic sent a letter to the US Senate accusing Alibaba of launching a large-scale model distillation attack, illegally acquiring the capabilities of the Claude AI model. Anthropic stated that this distillation technology could help China narrow the gap with the US in advanced AI capabilities. Tu Yi-jen, founder of the Taiwan AI Labs, stated in an interview with Voice of America that model distillation is actually very common in the industry, and this incident highlights the intense AI competition between the US and China; however, he believes that US AI computing power still holds an advantage, and China's system may restrict the further development of China's artificial intelligence.
According to details of the letter disclosed by Reuters, CNBC, and other US media outlets, US artificial intelligence company Anthropic accused Chinese tech giant Alibaba of illegally acquiring its Claude AI technology, calling it the largest-scale attack of its kind. Anthropic stated that Alibaba carried out model distillation operations between April and June of this year, using the outputs of the powerful Claude AI model to train its lower-cost models, thereby disguisedly copying its capabilities. In a letter dated June 10 to Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, Anthropic stated that the operation utilized nearly 25,000 fake accounts to interact with Claude AI more than 28.8 million times. The company pointed the operation to individuals associated with Alibaba and its AI laboratory, Artificial Intelligence Model.
Tu Yi-jen, founder of the Taiwan AI Labs, stated that model distillation is common in the industry, but this event shows that Alibaba is actively catching up with the US by learning the performance results of US frontier models to make its own models perform better. Based on the statement released by Anthropic in the context of US-China tech competition, Alibaba did learn from Anthropic's model so that its own model would perform as well as Anthropic's; in terms of this statement, this did happen. This is somewhat like the top US graduates taking the GRE, and Chinese graduates also taking the GRE; to get a better score, the Chinese graduates look at the US graduates' test questions and study their answers. This indicates that both sides are very close in scores and are in a competitive relationship, and China may have used some methods that the West—specifically the US—considers unacceptable to win the score test results.
Anthropic warned that this distillation technology could help China narrow the gap in advanced AI capabilities, coming just as the US Senate Committee on Banking is about to hold a hearing on AI issues. As early as February this year, Anthropic stated that it had been targeted by attacks from Chinese artificial intelligence companies, including DeepSeek. Despite US concerns over China's rapid AI development, Tu Yi-jen, founder of the Taiwan AI Labs, believes that China's political system may restrict the further development of its artificial intelligence.
For China's artificial intelligence to achieve such development, it actually faces many restrictions. For example, some restrictions are quite interesting, such as requiring its answers to comply with the country's ideology and not violate the party's requirements and constraints. In fact, it is very easy to see that when highly talented people develop to a certain extent, they flee to the US, which is something we can observe. Therefore, as recently seen, the US Pentagon released the 1260H list for December 2026 earlier this month, placing Alibaba on the list of 188 Chinese entities associated with the Chinese military. Regarding this latest accusation, Alibaba did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The most anticipated event of the 2026 World Cup today, Thursday, is the match between the US and Turkey kicking off at 10:00 PM Eastern Time. The biggest highlight is whether the host nation, the US, can defeat Turkey to set a record of three consecutive wins. In addition, the heavily favored Japan team will also face Sweden at 7:00 PM Eastern Time tonight, fighting for a ticket to advance. Meanwhile, the match currently taking place at the New Jersey stadium is between Germany and Ecuador, with the current score tied at 1-1; Germany and Ecuador are temporarily drawing. As key group matches continue to progress, the favorite teams to win the championship are gradually emerging.
Voice of America's Chinese website also held a poll on our website for the favorites to win the championship. We see that the current latest voting results on the Chinese website show that 30% of fans support Argentina, 20% of fans support the French team as potential champions, and 16% of Chinese fans believe that the German team is very likely to win the World Cup in 2026. We also warmly welcome our audience to go to Voice of America's Chinese website to participate in this online poll for the World Cup favorites; our website is voachinese.com.