Trump, this morning, cancelled $4.9 billion in “congressionally approved foreign aid, effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch,” as media reported. Trump is making use of what is called a pocket rescission, which AP defined as “when a President submits a request to Congress to not spend approved funds toward the end of the fiscal year, so Congress cannot act on the request in a 45-day timeframe and the money goes unspent as a result. It’s the first time in nearly 50 years a President has used one.”
The funding is cut from the State Department and its AID, which State oversees. AP reports: “The funds in the pocket rescission package include $3.2 billion in development assistance grants, $520 million for the United Nations, $838 million for international peacekeeping operations and $322 million to encourage democratic values in other countries.” It can be presumed that the last category is worthy of defunding, but cutting funding for “development assistance” can mean cutting funds for agriculture and infrastructure assistance, and other worthwhile purposes.
Trump’s recourse to this means to get around Congress is in line with his other summary interventions to fire staff at many federal agencies, make use of tariffs for foreign policy purposes, and so on.
