The Trump administration announced it will cancel $5 billion in foreign aid through a historic “pocket rescission,” marking the first use of this Presidential power in 50 years.
The White House said the cuts target “woke, weaponized, and wasteful spending” across multiple federal agencies, including USAID and the State Department.
The elimination of these funds represents a significant shift in U.S. foreign policy priorities. The administration is using authority under the Impoundment Control Act to bypass Congress and unilaterally cancel appropriated spending.
“A pocket rescission occurs when a president asks Congress to rescind (or cancel) funds very close to the end of the fiscal year [September 30]— so close that the funds expire before they can be used for new obligations,” a Watchblog post from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) explains.
However, the GAO states that pocket rescissions are illegal because they “cede Congress’s power of the purse by allowing a president to, in effect, change the law by shortening the period of availability for fixed-period funds,” adding that the Impoundment Control Act “does not provide that authority.”
The largest cut targets USAID’s Development Assistance account, slashing $3.2 billion from programs the administration claims “bankroll initiatives that are antithetical to American values and represented the worst of USAID’s woke excesses.” The account has funded climate change projects, diversity initiatives, and LGBTQ activities worldwide.
Among the programs facing elimination: $400 million annually for “global climate grift projects,” including partnerships with the Green Climate Fund and climate resilience efforts in Honduras. The administration also highlighted $60,000 for listening tours in Timor-Leste and $12,000 for “telling the USAID story” in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Democracy Fund faces a $322 million cut. The administration argues these “so-called democracy promotion activities undermine American values” and “interfere with the sovereignty of other countries — including our allies.”
Specific programs targeted include $2.7 million for South Africa’s Democracy Works Foundation, which published articles titled “The Problem with Whiteness” and “The Problem with White People.” Another $4 million went to advance “global LGBTQI+ awareness.”
State Department contributions to international organizations will be reduced by $521 million. The cuts affect U.S. funding for UNESCO, which the administration says “has long fostered antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment,” and the World Trade Organization, accused of enabling “global trade cheating by the Chinese Communist party.”
UN peacekeeping operations face nearly $840 million in combined cuts. The administration cited “thousands of credible allegations of sexual abuse” against peacekeepers, including cases where “underage girls in Kosovo were kidnapped, tortured, and prostituted.”
Additional cuts target peacekeeping infrastructure projects, including $11 million for armored personnel carriers for Uruguay and $3 million for barracks for Kazakhstan peacekeepers. Somalia programs face nearly $300 million in annual cuts.