After announcing a $4 billion rescission to halt foreign aid mostly to the globalist United Nations, President Donald Trump has done a complete reversal after consulting with Congressional swamp rats and neocon globalists within his administration.
The fiscal hawks in the Trump administration have lost once again, and they are placing the blame on Congress for convincing Trump to do the wrong thing and reverse the cuts.
“The president has been clear that there is fat in our foreign assistance and we need to be wise about where U.S. money is going,” a senior administration official said. “Which is why he asked the administration to look into options to doing just that. It’s clear that there are those on the Hill who aren’t willing to join in curbing wasteful spending.”
However, it is more likely that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were more influential in convincing the the President to reverse course. According to a Politico report, these neoconservatives got into Trump’s ear and tricked him into believing that the foreign aid cuts would hurt national security and alienate Democrats before upcoming negotiations over a shutdown deadline.
Globalists who are opponents of Trump’s ‘America First’ mandate are doing victory laps because of the President’s capitulation.
“A huge shout-out to Secretary Pompeo who — for the second summer in a row — brought his swagger and fought for his department alongside strong bipartisan leadership in Congress,” said Liz Schrayer, who works as head of U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, in a statement.
Congressional Democrats are celebrating on Twitter as well, as Trump has done a big favor for his political enemies:
This is a win. We pressured the White House to call off these proposed cuts. The Constitution grants Congress the power of the purse, and we will not cede that authority to this Administration and their constant executive overreach. https://t.co/E0BUeub741
— Rep. John Yarmuth (@RepJohnYarmuth) August 22, 2019
It is a good thing that President @realDonaldTrump has backed off his rescission threat. The power of the purse is one of Congress’s most fundamental responsibilities. I hope he has learned the lesson not to play games with the budget. https://t.co/ZjEnjYBSRE
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) August 22, 2019
The proposed rescission would have caused the expiration of $2.3 billion of USAID funds, and the State Department would have lost $2 billion in funds. The cuts would have hit the globalists where it hurt, showing that Trump is serious about reducing the influence of internationalist, anti-American bureaucracies.
It would have removed $787 million in funds for U.N. international peacekeeping activities, $522 million in U.N. core funding, and $364 million for a variety of the organization’s wasteful humanitarian and human rights programs.
Because Trump lacked the resolve to go through with the cuts, the swamp realizes that his bark is much worse than his bite. Federal spending is skyrocketing under the Trump administration, and any hopes of fiscal restraint happening under his stewardship have become a pipe dream.
