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WASHINGTON – President Trump on Thursday rejected the proposal of the administration budget hawks to cut spending on foreign aid after the objections of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and lawmakers of both parties, have announced officials.
The White House Office of Management and Budget, headed since 2017 by White House Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, spent much of August working on this proposal. It reportedly imposed about $ 4 billion of foreign aid cuts on aid funding that Congress had approved, but that the State Department and the US Agency for the international department had not yet designated for specific programs.
In recent days, members of Congress, Mr. Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have lobbied against the package, challenging the legality and effects of the move less than two months before the end of the fiscal year. Mr. Pompeo, the top official in Trump's cabinet, won a similar argument against the budget office last August.
The last retreat is another case in which the administration and Capitol Hill, faced with a huge deficit and a huge public debt after the last round of tax cuts, have struggled to get into trouble. agreement on how to reduce public spending. A senior administration official, who requested anonymity, said the proposal was motivated by the president's desire to reduce the amount of money spent on foreign aid, a tiny portion of the federal budget, but conservatives deemed unnecessary.
But the reports of the proposal prompted legislators of the House and Senate to oppose widely bipartisan opposition, as well as the opposition of Mr. Pompeo and other officials of the House of Commons. l & # 39; administration.
Mr. Trump, who had been involved in many conversations this week about cuts, spoke on Thursday morning at the Oval Office with lawyers on both sides of the issue. John Sullivan, Deputy Secretary of State, and Mr. Mnuchin argued against budget cuts, while Russell T. Vought, Acting Director of the Budget Office, and Mr. Mulvaney, both opponents of government spending have lobbied for these cuts.
The president, who often talks about cutting spending but has little political strength in his efforts, finally decided that the $ 4 billion battle was not worth it, because of the Mr. Pompeo's pressure campaign and the many calls of his allies. on Capitol Hill. The budget deficit will reach $ 960 billion this year for the fiscal year ending September 30, the Congressional Budget Office announced on Wednesday.
"Taxpayers want to make sure we are deploying it properly," Pompeo said of foreign aid by addressing reporters in Ottawa Thursday. "The discussion we have on the resolution is certainly part of this broader discussion."
Congress leaders strongly opposed these cuts.
"I ask you to work within the administration to put an end to this motion for a resolution," California President Nancy Pelosi wrote in a letter to Mnuchin on Friday. The proposal, she added, "derogates from the most fundamental constitutional power of Congress" to set government spending.
The Republicans had also urged the administration to avoid carrying out the maneuver, allegedly carried out under a 1974 finance law authorizing the president to ask lawmakers to vote to dismiss the government. money to the Treasury Department.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Representative Harold Rogers of Kentucky, the main Republicans of the sub-committees on Credits charged with overseeing foreign aid allocations, have been among lawmakers who have warned that the government will not be able to help. all proposed cuts could not only derail diplomatic efforts, but also jeopardize negotiations to fund the government in the new fiscal year.
"These cuts may undermine the important efforts of our diplomats and international partners abroad to strengthen national security and fight terrorism," the two men wrote in a joint letter. "We are concerned that such a cancellation plan may complicate the ability of the administration and Congress to work constructively on future credit agreements."
The Trump administration had previously tried in the past to stop spending money already appropriated by Congress. In May 2018, the Office of Management and Budget submitted to Congress a budget of $ 15 billion covering budget cuts in several agencies. The cuts were approved by the House but were blocked by the Senate.
This year's efforts truly began on August 3, when the Budget Office sent a letter to the State Department and the Humanitarian Aid Agency ordering them to freeze the expenses. of all funds in ten major external aid accounts. The office also said it wanted the agencies to do a complete accounting of all the funds not yet allocated to the programs.
The budget office has given way to the freeze by preparing the train of reductions. It imposed strict limits on the use of funds, so that the State Department and aid agencies could not spend on average more than 2% of unallocated funds per day, according to the people informed of the process.
Democrats said Trump's decision on Thursday upheld their arguments that foreign aid was valuable to the United States and that Congress had the constitutional power to decide government spending levels.
"It is important for all of us to first and foremost recognize our national security interests and the constitutional power of the Congress on the stock market, as was recognized bipartisanally in the debate on the resolution," Pelosi said in a statement. communicated.
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