VOA常速英语:特朗普欲削减境外援助

President Trump has expressed ambivalence about U.S. foreign aid, calling it wasteful and unnecessary, and considering a proposal to stop funding it. We get billions and billions of dollars to countries that don’t like us, don’t like us even a little bit and I’ve been cutting that. But after both Democratic and Republican lawmakers objected to the White House effort, the Trump administration gave in. Some experts agree with the president that not all US funding that goes towards international organizations and foreign countries is well spent, but they objected to the proposed across-the-board cuts without justification. But if they, they hope to actually have that money be used better or reallocated in the future, they need to provide a justification for it, one that’s convincing both to the State Department, to USAID and also to members of Congress. Other experts and international development organizations welcomed the decision to abandon the cuts as a big win. It’s a big win for, frankly, the United States and its own interest as I think it was a short-sighted effort to politicize foreign assistance, you know, pegged under, under the auspices or, you know, or described as an effort to, to reduce the deficit when in fact foreign aid represents less than 1 percent of the federal budget.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in public has strongly agreed with the president that every single dollar of US taxpayer money must be spent carefully to reflect US priorities. But some leaders of the international development community have thanked Pompeo for fighting behind the scenes against major cuts to foreign aid. It’s certainly the case and was the case last year that the Secretary of Pompeo was a strong supporter of, for foreign assistance, quite frankly, so were the military leaders who spoke forcefully last year in support of continued development or continued funding for development assistance as a critical pillar to our national security. Under the president’s direction, the State Department has frozen US foreign assistance to the northern triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, saying those nations are not taking concrete actions to reduce the number of illegal migrants coming to the US border.
Cindy Saine VOA news Washington.