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The White House has notified Congress that President Donald Trump will cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid funding through a rarely used budget maneuver known as a “pocket rescission,” drawing bipartisan criticism and sparking questions about its legality.
The move — not attempted in nearly 50 years — would slash $3.2 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development, $322 million from the State Department’s Democracy Fund, and hundreds of millions from global peacekeeping initiatives, according to congressional sources and documents reviewed Friday.
“Last night, President Trump CANCELLED $4.9 billion in America Last foreign aid using a pocket rescission,” the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a post on X. “@POTUS will always put AMERICA FIRST!”
What is a pocket rescission?
Under the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, the president can propose rescinding congressionally approved funds, but Congress must approve the changes within 45 days. A “pocket rescission” instead seeks to run down the clock in the final days of the fiscal year — which ends Sept. 30 — leaving Congress no time to respond before the money expires.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned earlier this month that the tactic is unlawful. “A pocket rescission is illegal,” GAO lawyers wrote in a blog post, arguing it undermines Congress’ constitutional “power of the purse.”
Bipartisan pushback
Critics swiftly condemned the White House’s plan, including some Republicans.
“Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. She urged Trump to work with lawmakers through the “bipartisan, annual appropriations process” instead.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, called the move “quite frankly, unconstitutional.” In a video posted on X earlier this month, Merkley said: “The Constitution gives the power of the purse to Congress and then the president is supposed to execute that. This is not acceptable.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., accused Republicans of planning to “go it alone” on government funding negotiations when lawmakers return in September. “As the country stares down next month’s government funding deadline … it is clear neither President Trump nor Congressional Republicans have any plan to avoid a painful and entirely unnecessary shutdown,” Schumer said.
What comes next
Congressional Democrats and outside watchdog groups are preparing to challenge the rescission in court, setting up another separation-of-powers battle between Trump and lawmakers.
Senators on both sides of the aisle had already raised concerns in July when Trump’s first rescissions package — which included cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — was approved. At the time, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., warned that rescissions risked surrendering Congress’ budget authority to the White House.
The new clash comes just weeks before government funding runs out Sept. 30, leaving lawmakers little time to pass a spending package and avert a shutdown.
