WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump has initiated a controversial move to slash nearly $5 billion in foreign aid that had already been approved by Congress. The White House announced the plan on Friday, a decision that has been met with fierce opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans and raises the likelihood of a federal government shutdown later this year.
In a letter to the House of Representatives, Trump outlined the $4.9 billion in cuts, which primarily target programs within the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). A White House post on social media stated that the president “will always put AMERICA FIRST” as it released a copy of the letter.
The president is using a legislative tactic known as a “pocket rescission,” a maneuver that has been criticized as a way to bypass Congress’s constitutional authority over spending. The tactic involves the president proposing to cancel funds so late in the fiscal year—this time just before the September 30 deadline—that Congress does not have time to vote on the matter before the funding expires.
Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, described the move as illegal and warned that it would “doom negotiations to avoid a painful and entirely unnecessary shutdown.” He added that it’s clear neither the Trump administration nor Congressional Republicans have a plan to avoid a budgetary paralysis.
A White House official told reporters that the administration has a “solid legal basis” for the maneuver and is confident it would withstand any challenge in court. However, the Government Accountability Office has previously argued that pocket rescissions are unconstitutional.
The majority of the new cuts—$3.2 billion—are aimed at USAID, the world’s largest humanitarian aid agency. The Trump administration has already significantly downsized the agency’s operations since the president took office, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio slashing 85% of its programming. Rubio has defended these cuts as a way of “rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse from the U.S. government.”
However, the impact of these cuts could be severe. A study published in The Lancet journal estimated that the previous round of USAID cuts could result in the preventable deaths of more than 14 million vulnerable people worldwide, a third of whom are small children.
The cuts also include $838 million from U.N. peacekeeping missions. Stéphane Dujarric, a U.N. spokesman, stated that this would make the organization’s budget situation “that much more challenging.”
The U.S. government last averted a shutdown in March. These events can be highly disruptive, potentially furloughing up to 900,000 federal employees and forcing another million essential workers to work without pay until a budget is approved.
Trump Moves To Cut $4.9 Billion In Foreign Aid, Raising Risk Of Government Shutdown
