According to a New York Post report, President Donald Trump is moving to cancel nearly $5 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid and peacekeeping funds in a rare “pocket rescission” — a maneuver not attempted in nearly half a century.
Trump on Thursday night notified Congress of his intent to cancel the funds, which had been tied up in a lawsuit until the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction earlier in the day.
🚨 BREAKING: President Trump cancels nearly $5 billion in wasteful FOREIGN AID at USAID and the State Department via a pocket recission. Let's go.
Trump used the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, reporting 15 recissions. pic.twitter.com/r733hVlEdp
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 29, 2025
A pocket rescission occurs when a president sends a cancellation request so late in the fiscal year — which ends Sept. 30 — that it takes effect regardless of congressional action. The last such attempt was in 1977.
The clawback includes $3.2 billion in USAID development assistance, $322 million from the USAID-State Department Democracy Fund, $521 million in State Department contributions to international organizations, $393 million for State Department peacekeeping, and $445 million in separately budgeted peacekeeping aid.
The spending, originally set for nonprofits and foreign governments, had been frozen earlier this year by the White House Office of Management and Budget before being challenged in court by the Global Health Council.
The Trump administration has highlighted what it calls wasteful allocations, including $24.6 million for “climate resilience” in Honduras, $2.7 million for the South African Democracy Works Foundation — which published an article titled “The Problem with White People” — and $3.9 million to promote LGBT democracy programs in the Western Balkans. Another $1.5 million was earmarked to market paintings by Ukrainian women.
Roughly $838 million in peacekeeping cuts include U.S. payments to United Nations missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo — where the Trump administration recently brokered a peace deal with Rwanda — and the Central African Republic, where the mission has faced criticism for ties to Russian business interests.
Full story over at The New York Post:
Trump scraps $5B in foreign aid in rare ‘pocket rescission’ https://t.co/ZJBvU9SiZu pic.twitter.com/NDFZ9L0o1V
— New York Post (@nypost) August 29, 2025
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