Congress appropriated foreign aid set to expire at the end of this month. Trump was not releasing it in accordance with the appropriation even after ordered by Appeals and Circuit courts in DC. The admin then filed in the Supreme Court for a stay of the order to release the money.
With the shadow docket, SCOTUS favors Trump.
I wonder how they're going to like this...
America First!
UPDATE 02:19 pm: Maybe they won't need a bailout.
Jesus wept.The Trump administration plans to incinerate $9.7 million worth of contraceptives intended for poor nations, after declining offers from the United Nations and reproductive organizations to buy or ship the supplies instead, the State Department confirmed to Axios on Thursday.
Axios
Recissions bill to cancel foreign aid and NPR passes Senate.
"Countries that hate us." Yeah, well, they all hate us now, don't they? Maybe not Israel.On Friday the Trump administration froze all foreign aid appropriated by Congress. “We get tired of giving massive amounts of money to countries that hate us, don't we?" Trump said on Monday, but the truth is that American soft power has been crucial in maintaining U.S. global influence since World War II. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) called it “dumb and murderous,” adding: “Tons of kids are just going to die needlessly” as U.S.-funded food supplies for famine-stricken Sudan stop. “The terrorists will benefit” as U.S. money for prisons holding ISIS members dries up. “The point of all this is to destroy U.S. power in the world,” Murphy wrote. “That primarily helps China, who is INCREASING its aid programs as we disappear. China—the place where all of Trump’s billionaires make their products and want deals to open markets. Think there’s a connection?”
Heather Cox richardson
That's a damned good reason.The 70-29 vote capped nearly a week of floor debate and four months of wrangling over President Biden’s request to fund the war in Ukraine, which he submitted to Congress in October.
Weary senators voted on the legislation shortly before sunrise after conservatives, led by Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), spoke through the night to vent their objections to the bill.
[...]
Twenty-two Republican senators voted to pass the bill, a greater number than voted to advance it in any of the earlier procedural votes.
Two Democrats — Sens. Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Peter Welch (Vt.) — voted no, citing deep concerns over supporting Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military campaign in Gaza. The measure would provide $14 billion in security assistance to Israel.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also voted against it for the same reason.
The Hill
So we'll provide some aid to the Palestinians we're providing money to destroy.In addition to military and economic aid to Ukraine and Israel, the measure will provide $9 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza, the West Bank and Ukraine, and $4.8 billion to deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.
It would also provide $2.4 billion to help the U.S. forces defend against Iranian-backed Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
The package includes the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, which would require Biden to sanction transnational criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl and allow the use of proceeds from property seized from traffickers to fund law enforcement operations.
“[Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer told members of his caucus and the White House last week that if the Republicans scuttled the bipartisan border and supplemental agreement, he had prepared a plan to use the motion to reconsider to force Republicans to vote on the supplemental without border [reforms,]” [a Senate Democratic] aide added.
The motion to reconsider would allow Schumer to immediately require senators to vote a second time on a legislative vehicle to move funding for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific.
The first time senators will vote on ending debate to move to the legislative vehicle, it will be with the understanding that the Ukraine funding package would include border security reforms.
Most Republicans will vote to block that bill from moving forward.
Then, Schumer will hold a second vote on proceeding to the same legislative vehicle, but this time with the understanding it will be used to carry funding for Ukraine, Israel and other foreign assistance priorities but without the negotiated border security reforms.
Enough Republicans are expected to vote to move this bill. It needs 60 votes to advance.
The Hill
Farmer welfare.Lora Iannotti, a nutrition and public health researcher at the Washington University in St. Louis, [...], who has worked in Haiti for decades, says [there are persistent problems with U.S. food aid. "It's this facade of doing good," she says, while also serving a less altruistic goal: Putting cash into the pockets of U.S. farmers by buying their grain and shipping it abroad.
Organizations in Haiti had previously questioned the wisdom of shipping U.S.-grown food there. They said the country had limited capacity to store imported grain, and feared the imports would actually discourage local food production. They'd proposed using locally grown food instead, but this isn't allowed under the rules that govern U.S. food aid for "non-emergency" situations, such as in Haiti.
In addition, Iannotti says, the U.S. often sends commodities that American farmers want to sell, not foods that Haitians need most.
[...]
Those criticisms lie at the heart of a fresh debate on Capitol Hill over the rules governing America's international food aid programs, which spent roughly $6 billion last year. Congress is about to rewrite some of those rules, as it does every five years when renewing a law called the Farm Bill.
[...]
The U.S. Agency for International Development has begun buying food in foreign markets, close to where it is needed. It also distributes aid in the form of cash and vouchers, which people can use to buy food in local markets.
These "market-based" pathways can deliver food more quickly and often more cheaply. About 60% of U.S. international food aid is now handled this way. Yet "non-emergency" aid, such as in Haiti, still has to be delivered in the form of commodities that are grown by American farmers.
NPR
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.Much of it, by law, also has to be shipped on vessels that are registered in the U.S. and owned by U.S. companies. There's a limited supply of such ships, and a USAID official told Congress last year that this adds about 25% to the cost of shipping.
The Biden Administration, supported by some aid organizations, is now asking Congress to drop some of these restrictions on non-emergency aid.
American farm groups and shipping companies, however, are fighting back.
[...]
Dozens of groups, including the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Association of Wheat Growers, are backing a new bill in Congress called the American Farmers Feed the World Act. The proposal would prevent Food for Peace from using any of its roughly $2 billion budget to buy food abroad or distribute cash and vouchers. The bill also would shift control of some parts of Food for Peace from USAID to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
[...]
In a statement to NPR, USAID said that these proposed provisions would "severely limit emergency programs" and reduce the agency's ability to make sure that aid actually reaches the most vulnerable. But in a nod to the political influence of U.S. farm groups, the agency also said that it intends to "keep U.S. commodities at the center of these programs."
Check out other myths about American foreign aid in that article.Opinion polls consistently report that Americans believe foreign aid is in the range of 25 percent of the federal budget. When asked how much it should be, they say about 10 percent. In fact, at $39.2 billion for fiscal year 2019, foreign assistance is less than 1 percent of the federal budget.
[...]
There is a broad international commitment that wealthy countries should provide annually 0.7 percent of GNP to assist poor countries. Five countries (Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark, and the U.K.) exceed that benchmark. The average for all wealthy nations is around 0.4 percent. The U.S. ranks near the bottom at below 0.2 percent.
Brookings Institute
OK, I'll suggest it: he's seeking "a favor."The Trump administration is withholding more than $100 million in U.S. military assistance to Lebanon that has been approved by Congress and is favored by his national security team, an assertion of executive control of foreign aid that is similar to the delay in support for Ukraine at the center of the impeachment inquiry.
The hold came up in impeachment testimony by David Hale, the No. 3 official in the State Department, according to the transcript of the closed-door hearing released this week. He described growing consternation among diplomats as the administration would neither release the aid nor provide an explanation for the hold.
“People started asking: What's the problem?” Hale told the impeachment investigators.
As with the Ukraine assistance, the Office of Management and Budget has not explained the reason for the delay. However, unlike Ukraine, there is no suggestion that President Donald Trump is seeking “a favor” from Lebanon to release it, according to five officials familiar with the matter. The White House and OMB have declined to comment on the matter.
NBC
The United States is cutting off aid to the "Northern Triangle," otherwise known as the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, the State Department told CNN Saturday, one day after President Donald Trump said they had "set up" migrant caravans for entry into the United States.
CNN
