New York Post: Trump cancels $5 billion in foreign aid. Program promoting paintings by Ukrainian artists also included in the cuts

The US President Donald Trump intends to cancel nearly $5 billion approved by Congress for foreign aid and peacekeeping spending, using a rare mechanism that has not been used for 48 years.

The New York Post writes about this.

According to media reports, on the evening of August 28, Trump notified Congress of his request to cancel funds that had previously been frozen due to the lawsuit.

To do this, he used the “pocket resection” mechanism — a request submitted to Congress so late in the fiscal year (which ends on September 30) that it takes effect regardless of whether Congress approves it.

The abbreviation covers:

• $3.2 billion in development assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID);
• $322 million from the Democracy Fund (USAID — State Department);
• $521 million in State Department contributions to international organizations;
• $393 million for State Department peacekeeping activities;
• $445 million in separately earmarked peacekeeping assistance.

The funds were allocated to various non-governmental organizations and foreign governments, but were frozen by the White House Office of Management and Budget at the beginning of the year, after which they fell into legal uncertainty due to a lawsuit by the Global Health Council.

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals lifted the injunction on August 28, paving the way for the first attempt to use pocket resection since 1977.

The Trump administration, in explaining its decision, points to expenditures it considers wasteful. Among them:

• $24.6 million for “climate resilience” in Honduras;
• $2.7 million to the Democracy Works Foundation in South Africa, which published controversial racial materials;
• $3.9 million to support democracy among LGBT communities in the Western Balkans;
• $1.5 million to promote paintings by Ukrainian female artists.

The roughly $838 million in peacekeeping funds to be canceled include payments to support UN forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (where the Trump administration recently helped broker a peace deal with Rwanda) and the Central African Republic (where the mission has come under fire for ties to Russian businesses).

What preceded

After Donald Trump became president of the United States, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was established in Washington, which is supposed to improve the efficiency of the American government.

As part of the governmentʼs spending cuts, the US government, among other things, suspended aid programs to other countries, offered federal officials to resign and receive compensation. The US also decided to liquidate the Department of Education, and the US Central Intelligence Agency began laying off recently hired employees.

Also, within the framework of the departmentʼs work, the US decided to reorganize (and, in fact) close USAID — a program that fought poverty and hunger around the world and was an essential tool of US soft power.

In mid-May, Reuters reported that Trumpʼs decision to cut foreign aid was causing food for millions to spoil in US warehouses. The Trump administration is now planning to burn 500 tons of food intended for children in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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