The White House is abandoning plans to slash billions of dollars in foreign aid, according to senior officials, who blamed Congress for derailing what they said was an important effort to cut waste.
President Trump had faced deep criticism for a package of cuts totaling $4 billion and said on Tuesday he was considering scaling back the plans.
Officials said the projects being targeted included money for training Egyptian troops how to survive in the desert and for what they dismissed as a “safe space” for young Irish people to discuss Brexit.
They also included money for the United Nations and funding for the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
However, on Thursday a senior administration official confirmed that the president had dropped the plan.
“The president has been clear that there is fat in our foreign assistance and we need to be wise about where U.S money is going. Which is why he asked the admin to look into options to doing just that. It’s clear that there are those on the Hill who aren’t willing to join in curbing wasteful spending,” said the official.
The cuts were packaged into a “rescissions” bill.
As well as opposition from Democrats, the measures had divided the administration.
Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, was in favor while Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, was one of several who argued that the cuts to State Department and US Agency for International Development budgets would be detrimental to national security.
