Trump moves to cancel $4.9 bn in foreign aid, clashing with US Congress

US President Donald Trump seeks to cancel $4.9 bn in foreign aid using a 'pocket rescission', bypassing Congress. Lawmakers say the move is illegal under US budget law

The White House on Friday (local time) notified the US Congress of its plan to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid spending that lawmakers had already approved, triggering a fresh battle over budgetary powers.

 

According to documents seen by The New York Times, the administration invoked a mechanism called a “pocket rescission,” under which a president can propose cancelling funds so late in the fiscal year that Congress has no time to act.

 

The US fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30. This means that the US Congress would not have the required 45 days to consider it. As a result, the money would remain unspent and expire.

 

 

If allowed to stand, the move would effectively bypass Congress’s power of the purse — the constitutional authority to decide how taxpayer money is spent.

 

Foreign aid programmes targeted in US budget cut

The White House said the funds targeted for cancellation were largely foreign aid programmes run by the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), including contributions to the United Nations, overseas peacekeeping, and democracy-promotion funds.

 

The single largest cut is $445 million from US peacekeeping contributions. Another $132 million is proposed to be withdrawn from the State Department’s Democracy Fund.

 

What is the pocket rescission mechanism?

A pocket rescission is a little-used budget manoeuvre in the United States that allows a president to propose cancelling funds already approved by Congress.

 

The mechanism has not been used in nearly five decades. The last attempt came in 1977 under President Jimmy Carter. At the time, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent watchdog, declared the tactic unlawful, though the Supreme Court has never directly ruled on the issue.

 

Lawmakers call White House funding cut 'illegal'

Several senior members of both political parties have called the move illegal under the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which was designed to prevent presidents from withholding congressionally approved funds.

 

Senator Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, called the move a clear breach of the law. Democratic leaders also said the action threatened to derail budget negotiations to avoid a government shutdown on October 1.

 

US govt shutdown looms

The dispute comes as Congress is working to pass a bipartisan funding bill before the start of the new fiscal year. Without agreement, the federal government faces the risk of a shutdown. a shutdown. Earlier this year, Congress narrowly avoided a shutdown in March 2025, passing a full-year continuing resolution to extend funding through the fiscal year, making this a recurring feature under Trump’s presidency.