President Trump vowed to reduce foreign aid to Central American countries whose citizens are marching toward the U.S. border, saying Sunday that the money “is probably just stolen” by corrupt leaders.
“We pay these countries by the way — Honduras, El Salvador — we pay these counties hundreds of millions of dollars, which by the way we will be stopping very soon,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Georgia.
“They don’t do a damned thing, they don’t do a damned thing for us,” Trump said.
After a crowd of thousands of asylum seekers entered Mexico, Trump announced in an Oct. 22 tweet that he would “begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid” to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
The large caravan includes many people concerned about poverty, violence, and corruption in their home countries. Trump argues, however, that the march amounts to an attempted “invasion” of the U.S., with many criminal members.
[Trump: Caravan migrants are ‘not legitimate asylum seekers’]
“I asked Vice President Mike Pence to call up the head of Honduras, to call up the heads of all. He called ’em. He said, ‘Listen, we don’t want you to allow the formation of caravans in your country. We pay you hundreds of millions of dollars a year’ — which is probably just stolen — ‘and we we don’t want it,'” Trump told the crowd.
“In the meantime, nothing, they do nothing for us,” he said.
U.S. foreign aid to El Salvador was at least $115 million in 2017, according to partially reported U.S. government figures. Guatemala received at least $249 million last year, and Honduras $175 million.
“You know what’s amazing?” Trump said Sunday. “We give billions and billions of dollars to these foreign countries that don’t give a damn about us, and we can’t get a couple of bucks to farmers who get wiped out by a hurricane. And we’re going to take care of our farmers.”
