WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has told House Speaker Mike Johnson that he won’t be spending $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch.
Trump, who sent a letter to Johnson on Thursday, is using what’s known as a pocket rescission — when a president submits a request to Congress to not spend approved funds toward the end of the fiscal year, so Congress cannot act on the request in a 45-day timeframe and the money goes unspent as a result. It’s the first time in nearly 50 years a president has used one. The fiscal year draws to a close at the end of September.
The letter was posted Friday morning on the X account of the White House Office of Management and Budget. It said the funding would be cut from the State Department and the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, an early target of Trump’s efforts to cut foreign aid.
If the White House standardizes this move, the president could effectively bypass Congress on key spending choices and potentially throw into disarray efforts in the House and the Senate to keep the government funded when the next fiscal year starts in October.
The use of a pocket rescission fits part a broader pattern by the Trump administration to exact greater control over the US government, eroding the power of Congress and agencies such as the Federal Reserve and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others. The administration has already fired federal workers and imposed a historic increase in tariffs without going through Congress, putting the burden on the judicial branch to determine the limits of presidential power.
A White House official, who insisted on anonymity on a call with reporters to discuss the move, declined to say how the administration might use pocket rescissions in the coming years or what the upper limits of it might be as a tool. The official expressed confidence the administration would prevail in any legal challenges and said a goal of the proposed spending cuts was to make the cleanest case possible for these types of clawbacks.
Winding down USAID
Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X that USAID is essentially being shuttered and congratulated White House budget director Russ Vought for managing the process.
“USAID is officially in close out mode,” Rubio said. “Russ is now at the helm to oversee the closeout of an agency that long ago went off the rails.”
The 1974 Impoundment Control Act gives the president the authority to propose canceling funds approved by Congress. Congress can within 45 days vote on pulling back the funds or sustaining them, but by proposing the rescission so close to Sept. 30 the White House argues that the money won’t be spent and the funding lapses.
What was essentially the last pocket rescission occurred in 1977 by Democratic then-President Jimmy Carter, and the Trump administration argues it’s a legally permissible tool despite some murkiness as Carter had initially proposed the clawback well ahead of the 45-day deadline.
Pushback against pocket rescissions
The move by the Trump administration drew immediate backlash in parts of the Senate over its legality.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement that the Constitution “makes clear that Congress has the responsibility for the power of the purse” and any effort to claw back funds “without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”
“Instead of this attempt to undermine the law, the appropriate way is to identify ways to reduce excessive spending through the bipartisan, annual appropriations process,” Collins said. Congress approves rescissions regularly as part of this process.”
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned that Trump’s use of the pocket veto could undermine the normal funding process and risk “a painful and entirely unnecessary shutdown.” After all, any budget agreements reached in the Senate could lack authority if the Trump White House has the power to withhold spending as it sees fit.
Schumer said in a statement that Republican leaders have yet to meet with Democrats on a path to fund the government after the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30 just as Trump tries an “unlawful gambit to circumvent the Congress all together.”
“But if Republicans are insistent on going it alone, Democrats won’t be party to their destruction,” Schumer said.
‘No exceptions’
Eloise Pasachoff, a Georgetown University law professor and expert on federal spending issues, has written that the Impoundment Control Act allows rescissions only if Congress acts within 45 days, meaning the the White House alone cannot decide to not spend the funds.
“This mandatory language admits no exceptions, indicating that Congress expects the funds to be used as intended before the end of the fiscal year if it does not approve the proposed rescission,” Pasachoff wrote in an academic paper last year.
What’s in the funding?
The funds in the pocket rescission package include $3.2 billion in development assistance grants, $520 million for the United Nations, $838 million for international peacekeeping operations and $322 million to encourage democratic values in other countries.
Trump had previously sought to get congressional backing for rescissions and succeeded in doing so in July when the House and the Senate approved $9 billion worth of cuts. Those rescissions clawed back funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid.
The Trump administration has made deep reductions to foreign aid one of its hallmark policies, despite the relatively meager savings relative to the deficit and possible damage to America’s reputation abroad as foreign populations lose access to food supplies and development programs.
In February, the administration said it would eliminate almost all of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall assistance abroad. USAID has since been dismantled, and its few remaining programs have been placed under State Department control.
The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court on Wednesday to stop lower court decisions that had preserved foreign aid, including for global health and HIV and AIDS programs, that Trump has tried to freeze. But on Friday, the administration withdrew its appeal to the Supreme Court, after a favorable appeals court ruling late Thursday.
The New York Post first reported the pocket rescission.