US President Donald Trump has canceled nearly $5 billion in foreign aid approved by Congress, using a maneuver that has not been used in the US in nearly 50 years.
The freeze includes $3.2 billion in United States Agency for International Development (USAID) development assistance, $322 million from the USAID-State Department Democracy Fund, $521 million in State Department contributions to international organizations, $393 million in State Department contributions to peacekeeping activities, and $445 million in separately budgeted peacekeeping assistance.
The spending was intended for a wide range of nonprofits and foreign governments and was halted earlier this year by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and then remained in legal limbo due to a lawsuit subsequently filed by the Global Health Council.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a restraining order in the case, opening the door for Trump to proceed with the first attempt to cancel the aid since 1977.
The Trump administration has highlighted spending items that are allegedly wasteful, such as $24.6 million for "climate resilience" in Honduras, $2.7 million to the Democracy Works Foundation in South Africa, which published racist inflammatory articles including "The Problem with White People," and $3.9 million to promote democracy among LGBT people in the Western Balkans.
Other notable allocations include $1.5 million to market paintings of Ukrainian women.
The roughly $838 million in peacekeeping funds being eliminated include payments to support United Nations peacekeeping forces in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Trump administration recently brokered a peace deal with neighboring Rwanda, and the Central African Republic, where the mission has been criticized as being tied to Russian business interests.
Funds allocated for peacekeeping include $11 million to provide armored personnel carriers to the Uruguayan army, $4 million for a training center in Zambia, and $3 million for barracks to house Kazakh peacekeepers.
The return of funds will not affect US support for the Multinational Force and Observers peacekeeping mission along the Egyptian-Israeli border.
The legality of fund withdrawals is a matter of debate, but there is little judicial precedent.
The legislative Government Accountability Office considers the practice illegal; Trump's OMB team says otherwise.
OMB Director Russ Vought and General Counsel Mark Paoletta have pointed to instances where Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter apparently made cancellations in the 1970s. /Telegraph/
