In an effort to protect the unborn and cut spending, Trump is planning on cutting even more abortion funding:
CBN NEWS – A senior Trump administration official tells CBN News that the White House plans to cut abortion funding in West Africa as part of their goal to drastically cut America’s international foreign aid around the world.
Specifically, the blueprint would no longer provide ‘voluntary family planning money’ to the countries of Sierra Leone, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Benin.
“The President himself has stated that there is a lot of fat in the foreign assistance we provide,” according to the senior official. “While there are many great programs we support around the world, taxpayer dollars should not be spent on ‘voluntary family planning’ in Africa—which could include abortion. This administration is committed to cutting wasteful spending and protecting the unborn.”
The release of the specific international aid cuts is expected as early as Tuesday.
The moves are part of what is known as a “rescissions package,” meaning the canceling of billions of unspent foreign assistance funds, which could total more than four billion dollars. Administration officials tell CBN News more than 100 countries overall will be targeted for international aid cuts.
As for the ‘voluntary family planning’ funds, they are typically dispersed through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The administration has discovered that some of those family planning funds used in West African nations actually evade or skirt around what is known as America’s, ‘Mexico City Policy,’ which requires non-governmental organizations to agree not to “perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.” That is the reason the rescissions money specifically looks to get rid of funds going to those individual programs in West Africa.
They aren’t just cutting funding for abortions, but other items as well:
Beyond family planning, White House officials are also looking to cut funding to many other programs including investing in Guatemalan agriculture technology, solar panels in Central Asia, crop diversity in Bangladesh, desert survival courses in Egypt and cuts to border security funds provided to more than a dozen countries including El Salvador.
If it really does end up being four billion in cuts overall, I’d say that’s a decent start. Although there’s only so much Trump can do on his own.
While it’s really just a drop in the bucket against our overall annual spending, I’m glad to see that Trump has ‘cutting’ on the brain. But winning back the House is essential to making serious cuts, as well as growing the Republican Senate. Whether that’s possible at this point, I really don’t know.