(Washington) Donald Trump expressed in the American Congress his desire to eliminate additional $ 4.9 billion in international aid, an announcement said on Friday, an announcement that increases the probabilities of paralysis of the federal state at the end of September.
The removal of the state programs of the State Department programs as well as the United States agency for international development, and international assistance programs, “said the letter sent to the Republican President of the House of Representatives and shared by the White House budget office.
President Trump “will always put America first,” wrote the office on X.
The Democrats had recently warned that any desire to return to funds already approved by the congress would destroy the possibilities of negotiating with them to avoid budgetary paralysis, the famous “Shutdown”, before the end of September 30.
Congress has until this date to adopt a budget, even temporary. Otherwise, hundreds of thousands of civil servants would be unemployed, without pay. Air traffic would be disrupted, such as the payment of certain food aids to low -income families, among other consequences.
A highly risky and politically risky situation, which Donald Trump narrowly avoided in March with the contrary support of ten democratic senators.
“Illegal maneuver”
The decline in these opposition elected officials had caused a lively controversy in their ranks and their supporters, who accused them of not resisting the Republican President with sufficient firmness.
The American Constitution provides that the congress only has the power to allocate federal public funds. To validate this new budgetary abolition, Donald Trump must therefore normally obtain the approval of the two parliamentary chambers, where the Republicans are in the majority.
But this request for cuts arrives so late in the fiscal year that the congress may not have time to vote the text before the funding of the funds on September 30. For the White House, this lack of approval would still release the government from its legal obligation to spend these funds.
An “illegal maneuver,” said the chief of the Democrat minority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, who denounces Donald Trump’s desire “to bypass the congress”.
His republican colleague Susan Collins, considered as an elected official of moderate trend, abounded in the sense of the Democrat.
“Any attempt to revoke funds allocated without the approval of the congress is a clear violation of the law,” she warned.
Usaid
The vast majority of cuts – $ 3.2 billion – would concern funds allocated to the American Agency for International Development (USAID), according to legal documents consulted by AFP, and confirming information from Tabloid New York Post.
Since his return to the White House in January, Donald Trump has already frozen billions of dollars intended for international aid and has formally dismantled USAID, now absorbed in the State Department, in charge of American diplomacy.
The largest humanitarian agency worldwide, USAID was involved in health and emergency aid programs in around 120 countries.
In July, an international study revealed that the collapse of American funding dedicated to international aid could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030 among the most vulnerable, including a third of children.
Some $ 838 million intended for peacekeeping missions are also affected by the cuts requested by Donald Trump.
The 79 -year -old billionaire has been committed personally for several months in a campaign to obtain the Nobel Peace Prize, arguing that he alone has ended more than six conflicts since the start of his second term.
