Trump uses rare provision to cancel billions in foreign aid

Late Thursday night, President Donald Trump canceled $4.9 billion earmarked for foreign aid in an action commonly referred to as a pocket rescission. Trump sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to notify Congress about the changes. It is the first time a pocket rescission has been used in 48 years. The request cancels $3.2 billion in U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funds, $521 million from State Department contributions to other international organizations, $393 million for State contributions for peacekeeping, $322 million from a USAID-State Department fund, and $445 million in a separate peacekeeping aid program, according to court documents. Additionally, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Friday morning that Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought is taking over as the USAID administrator.

What is a pocket rescission? Typically, Congress manages the nation’s budget through appropriations that it passes into law, which the president must sign. If the president wishes to change that funding, he must send Congress a request and give them 45 days to respond. But the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. When the White House sends a request to rescind funding so close to the end of the year, it automatically takes effect, whether Congress approves it or not. No president has sent such a request, called a pocket rescission, since then-President Jimmy Carter in 1977.

Is it legal? According to the Government Accountability Office, a federal congressional watchdog, pocket rescissions are illegal. It characterized the practice as a loophole that skirts Congress’s power of the purse. Furthermore, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, or ICA, requires the president to use the money as Congress directed, with some exceptions, which it also outlines. But the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, argues that previous presidents used pocket rescissions and characterizes any current opposition as “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” OMB General Counsel Mark Paoletta posted on X last month that the ICA does not impose a timeline on the president. He also accused the Government Accountability Office of political motives for clarifying its position on pocket rescissions only during the Trump administration.

What was the money for? The OMB had already paused this funding earlier this year, but the Global Health Council sued, which left the funds in limbo for months while the case worked its way through court. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. on Thursday lifted an injunction, ruling that private litigants do not have the standing to sue over this matter. The Trump administration has claimed that much of the money was dedicated to wasteful projects, such as $24.6 million for a climate resilience program in Honduras, $3.9 million to promote democracy among LGBT people in the Western Balkans, and $1.5 million to market paintings of Ukrainian women, according to the New York Post. Other peacekeeping funds were being used in countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which recently signed a U.S.-brokered peace deal with Rwanda.

Dig deeper: Read Carolina Lumetta's report on the vacuum left by the USAID closure.