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President Trump initiated a powerful move to cancel nearly $5 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid and peacekeeping funds through a rare “pocket rescission,” a tactic not used in 48 years.
On Thursday night, the 47th president notified Congress of his intent to withhold these funds, which were previously stalled by a lawsuit until the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction earlier that day.
A pocket rescission involves requesting Congress cancel funds late in the fiscal year, which ends on September 30. It effectively bypasses legislative approval if Congress fails to act within 45 days.
The targeted cuts include $3.2 billion from USAID development assistance, $322 million from the USAID-State Department Democracy Fund, $521 million in State Department contributions to international organizations, $393 million for peacekeeping activities and $445 million in separate peacekeeping aid. These funds were allocated for various nonprofits and foreign governments, but the White House Office of Management and Budget paused them earlier this year, which led to legal challenges from the Global Health Council.
The Trump administration has flagged specific allocations as wasteful, including $24.6 million for “climate resilience” in Honduras, $2.7 million for the South African Democracy Works Foundation, which published articles like “The Problem with White People,” and $3.9 million for promoting democracy among LGBT communities in the Western Balkans, according to the New York Post.
Additionally, $1.5 million was allocated for marketing paintings by Ukrainian women. The cuts also target $838 million in peacekeeping funds, including support for UN missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Trump recently brokered a peace deal, and other programs, such as $11 million for Uruguay’s military and $3 million for Kazakhstani peacekeeper barracks. Funding for the Egyptian-Israeli border peacekeeping mission remains unaffected, the outlet reported.
The Government Accountability Office claimed pocket rescissions were illegal in 2018, which OMB General Counsel Mark Paoletta recently wrote was “solely for political anti-Trump reasons.”
Paoletta and OMB Director Russ Vought have both cited historical precedents for pocket rescissions from Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.
“Carter sent several rescission proposals to Congress in July of 1977. Funds from two of those proposals lapsed on September 30, 1977, in one case prior to the expiration of the 45-day ICA withholding period, and in another case five days after the withholding period ended,” Paoletta wrote in a 2018 letter to the GAO.
In a post on X, Paoletta argued a 1975 GAO opinion supports the practice, claiming the agency’s reversal during Trump’s first term was due to “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”