Trump cancels nearly $5 billion in foreign aid approved by Congress

New York [US], August 30: US President Donald Trump is using tactics to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid approved by Congress.
In a letter posted online on the evening of August 28, President Trump informed US House Speaker Mike Johnson that he intended to withhold funding for 15 international programs, including some overseen by the State Department and the US Agency for International Development ( USAID ), according to Reuters on August 30.
The US Constitution gives the power to approve the budget to Congress, which must pass laws each year to fund government operations.
The White House must get congressional approval to not spend that money. Congress did so in July when it canceled $9 billion in foreign assistance and public broadcasting funding.
According to AP, President Trump has used a rarely used tactic to block spending of funds approved by Congress without formal approval from the legislature.
Specifically, the president submits a request to cancel or not spend a budget approved by Congress near the end of the fiscal year (which ends on September 30 each year). The law provides that Congress has 45 days to consider the request to cancel the budget. If the request is submitted late, Congress does not have enough time to act, and when the fiscal year ends, the unspent budget automatically expires, meaning the money is not used.
The nonpartisan advocacy group Project Democracy said the tactic hasn't been used since 1983.
Democrats say the Trump administration has frozen more than $425 billion in funding, something even some Republicans say is illegal.
"Control of the budget belongs to us and we have to take that seriously," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, said in an interview in July.
However, other Republicans, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, have said they support spending cuts of any kind.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper