Congress approves Trump's $15b cuts to public broadcasting, foreign aid
The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won't be the last. Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda.
The House passed the bill by a vote of 216-213. It now goes to Trump for his signature.
'We need to get back to fiscal sanity and this is an important step,' said House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Opponents voiced concerns not only about the programs targeted, but about Congress ceding its spending powers to the executive branch, as investments approved on a bipartisan basis were being subsequently cancelled on party-line votes. They said previous rescission efforts had at least some bipartisan buy-in and described the Republican package as unprecedented.
ADVERTISEMENT
No Democrats supported the measure when it passed the Senate, 51-48. Final passage in the House was delayed for several hours as Republicans wrestled with their response to Democrats' push for a vote on the release of Jeffrey Epstein files.
The package cancels about US$1.1 billion (NZ$1.8 billion) for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and nearly US$8 billion (NZ$13 billion) for a variety of foreign aid programs, many designed to help countries where drought, disease and political unrest endure.
The effort to claw back a sliver of federal spending came just weeks after Republicans also muscled through Trump's tax and spending cut bill without any Democratic support. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that the measure will increase the US debt by about US$3.3 trillion (NZ$5.5 trillion) over the coming decade.
"No one is buying the the notion that Republicans are actually trying to improve wasteful spending,' said Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.
A heavy blow to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
This photo provided by Kanesia McGlashan-Price shows Lauren Adams, general manager of public radio station KUCB in Unalaska, Alaska, in the broadcast studio. (Source: Associated Press)
The cancellation of US$1.1 billion for the CPB represents the full amount it is due to receive during the next two budget years.
ADVERTISEMENT
The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense.
The corporation distributes more than two-thirds of the money to more than 1500 locally operated public television and radio stations, with much of the remainder assigned to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service to support national programming.
Democrats were unsuccessful in restoring the funding in the Senate.
Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced particular concern about what the cuts to public broadcasting could mean for some local public stations in their state.
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, said the stations are "not just your news — it is your tsunami alert, it is your landslide alert, it is your volcano alert'.
As the Senate debated the bill Wednesday, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck off the remote Alaska Peninsula, triggering tsunami warnings on local public broadcasting stations that advised people to get to higher ground.
Senator Mike Rounds said he secured a deal from the White House that some money administered by the Interior Department would be repurposed to subsidise Native American public radio stations in about a dozen states.
ADVERTISEMENT
But Kate Riley, president and CEO of America's Public Television Stations, a network of locally owned and operated stations, said that deal was 'at best a short-term, half-measure that will still result in cuts and reduced service at the stations it purports to save'.
Inside the cuts to foreign aid
Demonstrators and lawmakers rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk as they disrupt the federal government. (Source: Associated Press)
Among the foreign aid cuts are $800 million for a program that provides emergency shelter, water, and family reunification for refugees, and US$496 million (NZ$1.3 billion) to provide food, water, and healthcare for countries hit by natural disasters and conflicts. There also is a US$4.15 billion (NZ$6.9 billion) cut for programs that aim to boost economies and democratic institutions in developing nations.
Democrats argued that the Republican administration's animus toward foreign aid programs would hurt America's standing in the world and create a vacuum for China to fill.
'This is not an America first bill. It's a China first bill because of the void that's being created all across the world,' Jeffries said.
The White House argued that many of the cuts would incentivise other nations to step up and do more to respond to humanitarian crises and that the rescissions best served the American taxpayer.
ADVERTISEMENT
'The money that we're clawing back in this rescissions package is the people's money. We ought not to forget that,' said Representative Virginia Foxx, chair of the House Rules Committee.
After objections from several Republicans, Senate GOP leaders took out a US$400 million (NZ$669 million) cut to PEPFAR, a politically popular program to combat HIV/AIDS that is credited with saving millions of lives since its creation under Republican President George W Bush.
Looking ahead to future spending fights
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought speaks with reporters at the White House. (Source: Associated Press)
Democrats say the bill upends a legislative process that typically requires lawmakers from both parties to work together to fund the nation's priorities.
Triggered by the official rescissions request from the White House, the legislation only needed a simple majority vote to advance in the Senate instead of the 60 votes usually required to break a filibuster. That meant Republicans could use their 53-47 majority to pass it along party lines.
Two Republican senators, Murkowski and Senator Susan Collins of Maine, joined with Democrats in voting against the bill, though a few other Republicans also raised concerns about the process.
ADVERTISEMENT
'Let's not make a habit of this,' said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who voted for the bill but said he was wary that the White House wasn't providing enough information on what exactly will be cut.
Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the imminent successful passage of the rescissions shows 'enthusiasm' for getting the nation's fiscal situation under control.
'We're happy to go to great lengths to get this thing done,' he said during a breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
In response to questions about the relatively small size of the cuts - US$9 billion - Vought said that was because 'I knew it would be hard' to pass in Congress. Vought said another rescissions package is 'likely to come soon'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
2 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Populist makes ground in Japan with nationalist, anti-immigration rhetoric
'Japan must be a society that serves the interests of the Japanese people,' Kamiya told his applauding audience. Kamiya founded the party and is one of its two sitting members in the upper house. Elected to a six-year term in 2022, he is not on the ballot this year. But he has crossed Japan to campaign on behalf of Sanseito's 54 candidates, a large number that reflects the new party's big ambitions. Opponents and many domestic media reports have accused him of being xenophobic, saying he is directing public dissatisfaction with high prices and stagnant wages at Japan's growing population of foreign residents. At campaign stops, small numbers of protesters hold up signs saying 'no hate' towards non-Japanese. But his message has clearly struck a chord with many voters. Polls before voting in yesterday's upper house elections showed Sanseito is likely to place third. This would be a strong showing in a nationwide election by a party that did not exist five years ago and that has drawn mainly young, male voters. Kamiya said he learned many of his emotional button-pushing themes and norm-breaking language from Donald Trump, saying in an interview that he was Japan's closest equivalent to the divisive US President. His success in turning himself into a lightning rod for supporters and critics alike has left many in Japan wondering if their country is belatedly seeing the angry right-wing populism that has transformed the US and other developed democracies. 'This could be an epoch-making election,' said Jiro Mizushima, a professor of political science at Chiba University who has studied populist parties in Europe. 'For the first time, a radical populist party that is openly chauvinist and against austerity is winning support.' Other political scientists play down the significance of Sanseito, whose name roughly translates to 'participate in politics'. They call it one of many flash-in-the-pan protest parties that Japan has seen in recent decades. Kamiya was hoping a big win will show that his party has staying power as a growing generational divide splits Japan's voters. Analysts say Sanseito and a gaggle of other, more moderate nationalist parties have drained support from the pragmatic and conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which has led Japan for most of the past seven decades. Sohei Kamiya takes a populist approach that highlights immigration. Photo / Ko Sasaki, the New York Times They say the assassination three years ago of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a longtime party leader who dominated Japan's nationalist right, opened space for the outspoken newcomers. 'The LDP has been unable to hold onto the revisionist and xenophobic element that used to be contained in the Abe faction,' said Koichi Nakano, a visiting scholar at the Weatherhead Programme on US-Japan Relations at Harvard University. That loss is reflected in opinion polls, which show that support for the governing coalition has continued to slide. If the Liberal Democrats do poorly, there are widespread expectations that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will be forced to resign, though his successor would still most likely come from within the party, which remains the largest. Many voters have turned to Sanseito and other nationalist parties that have fed on anger about the status quo. To varying degrees, these parties rail against similar issues: the price of staples like rice rising while wages have remained flat; a tax burden that forces young people to pay for Japan's ageing population; and an over-reliance on the US, an ally whose threats of tariffs have stirred feelings of betrayal. The hottest of the hot-button issues, though, has been a rapid increase in foreign residents, whose number reached 3.8 million last year. While only 3% of Japan's population of 124 million, the number has risen by a third in three years as workers from other parts of Asia have come to fill jobs left vacant by the decline in the country's working-age population. On social media, immigrants have been blamed for disrupting Japan's prized social order, and for a host of misdeeds like not paying hospital bills and driving on the wrong side of the road. While police statistics show that non-Japanese commit crimes at roughly the same rate as Japanese nationals, populist candidates and supporters have seized on crimes by foreigners to argue that immigration should be restricted. 'We don't want to exclude all foreigners, but Japan should be for the Japanese,' said Yoko Kiba, 47, a hospital worker who came to hear Kamiya speak during the campaign stop in the southern city of Kagoshima. Seeking to address such discontent before the election, Ishiba announced last Tuesday that his Government would create a new office to address the crime issue and promote 'harmonious coexistence with foreign nationals'. In addition to wanting to limit immigration, Kamiya has opposed the use of some vaccines and criticised gender equality for 'going too far'. But his core message is that Japan has put the interests of foreigners over those of its own people. Kamiya, a boyish former Self-Defence Force reservist, warned in his Kagoshima speech of a different foreign threat: global capital, which he said has hijacked the economy. 'Under globalism, multinational companies have changed Japan's policies for their own purposes,' said Kamiya, 47, who did not name any companies, though his party's candidates have mentioned Chinese investors buying forests and other real estate. A survey found 28% of voters in Japan are most concerned about the high prices of rice and other foods. Photo / Chang W. Lee, the New York Times 'If we fail to resist this foreign pressure, Japan will become a colony!' He has called for a more equal relationship with the US by building a fully fledged military — and by refusing to cave in to Trump's market-opening demands, despite his professed admiration for the American president. 'President Trump would treat a more independent Japan with more respect,' Kamiya told the crowd, who stood on a paved square dusted with grey ash from the active volcano. His party's other headline-grabbing policy has been the call to eliminate a 10% national consumption tax, imposed to help pay the costs of Japan's growing population of retirees. In his speech, he said the tax placed an unjust economic burden on working-age citizens. This message appealed to many spectators, who said they felt alienated by the governing party's focus on older voters. 'Sanseito speaks from the younger people's perspective,' said Yuka Matsuki, 23, who recently quit her job at a retail store. 'It gives us hope that things will get better in the future.' In an interview, Kamiya said his positions were shaped by his experiences as an exchange student in Canada and by helping his father run the family supermarket, which went bankrupt. He later became involved in local politics and joined the governing Liberal Democratic Party, which he quit because he considered it too focused on fundraising. Five years ago, he started Sanseito, which shuns big donors, instead funding itself by asking supporters to become paying subscribers to its website. In elections in 2022, the party won its first seat in the upper house, which Kamiya now holds. He is not up for re-election until the next upper house contest in 2028. Sanseito gained one more seat last month when a lawmaker left another small opposition party to join it, and it won three seats in a lower house election last year. Recent polls show Sanseito with about 6% of the national vote, enough to give it between 10 and 20 of the 124 seats up for grabs. It often polls neck and neck with the Democratic Party for the People, a more moderate right-wing party that has also attracted younger voters. Kamiya hopes the momentum will help Sanseito grow into a larger national movement. He wants to create a Japanese cousin of Trump's 'America first' movement, though he will not follow Trump in every regard. 'Sanseito's vision is close to 'America first,' but not its leadership style,' Kamiya said. 'Trump's egotism is just too self-centred for Japanese.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Written by: Martin Fackler Photographs by: Ko Sasaki, Chang W. Lee ©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
NZ Herald
2 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Inside a 15-year bond between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein
Another accuser recalled being eyed by Trump during a brief encounter in Epstein's office and claimed that Epstein had told Trump at the time, 'She's not for you'. Another woman has said that Trump groped her when Epstein brought her to Trump Tower in Manhattan to meet him. This past week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump gave Epstein a note for his 50th birthday in 2003 that included a sketch of a naked woman and a cryptic reference to a 'secret' the two men shared. Trump has denied writing the message and filed a libel lawsuit challenging the story. The New York Times has not verified the Journal report. Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with the Epstein case and has said he had 'no idea' that Epstein was abusing young women. In response to a request for comment about the United States President's history with Epstein, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Trump had barred Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club 'for being a creep'. 'These stories are tired and pathetic attempts to distract from all the success of President Trump's Administration,' she said in a statement. Trump and Epstein largely went separate ways after a falling-out around 2004, taking drastically different paths — one towards jail and suicide, the other towards further celebrity and the White House. As criticism of the handling of Epstein's case mounted over the years, some of Trump's staunchest allies promoted theories that the government had covered up the extent of his network to protect what they have described as a cabal of powerful men and celebrities, largely Democrats. Now, that story has entangled Trump himself in what amounts to one of the biggest controversies in his second White House stint. The conflict has come primarily from his own appointees, who, after months of promoting interest in the files, abruptly changed course and said there was no secret Epstein client list and backed the official finding that Epstein had killed himself. Still, under mounting pressure from his own supporters to release the government's files on Epstein, the President ordered the Justice Department to seek the unsealing of grand jury testimony in the criminal case brought against Epstein in 2019 and one year later against his longtime partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence on a sex-trafficking conviction. She has asked the Supreme Court to consider her appeal. Even if they are released, the transcripts are unlikely to shed much light on the relationship between the two men, which did not figure prominently in either criminal case. What seemed to draw them together, according to those who knew them at the time, was a common interest in hitting on — and competing for — attractive young women at parties, nightclubs, and other private events. Virginia Giuffre, who maintained that she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to Prince Andrew and other famous men, and who died by suicide last April, speaks at a news conference outside court after Epstein's jailhouse suicide, on August 27, 2019. Photo / Jefferson Siegel, the New York Times Palm Beach neighbours Trump and Epstein appear to have met around 1990, when Epstein bought a property 3.2km north of Mar-a-Lago and set about staking a claim in Palm Beach's moneyed, salt-air social scene. Trump, who had purchased Mar-a-Lago five years earlier, had already established his own brash presence in the seaside enclave as a playboy with a taste for gold-leaf finery. The two had much in common. Both were outer-borough New Yorkers who had succeeded in Manhattan. Both were energetic self-promoters. And both had reputations as showy men about town. In 1992, an NBC News camera captured the pair at a Mar-a-Lago party that featured cheerleaders from the Buffalo Bills, who were in town that weekend for a game against the Miami Dolphins. At one point in the footage, Trump can be seen dancing amid a crowd of young women. Later, he appears to be pointing at other women while whispering something in Epstein's ear, causing him to double over with laughter. Months later, when Trump hosted a party at Mar-a-Lago for young women in a so-called calendar girl competition, Epstein was the only other guest, according to George Houraney, a Florida-based businessman who arranged the event. Houraney recalled being surprised that Epstein was the only other person on the guest list. 'I said, 'Donald, this is supposed to be a party with VIPs,'' Houraney told the New York Times in 2019. 'You're telling me it's you and Epstein?'' Houraney's then-girlfriend and business partner, Jill Harth, later accused Trump of sexual misconduct on the night of the party. In a lawsuit, Harth said Trump took her into a bedroom and forcibly kissed and groped her and restrained her from leaving. She also said that a 22-year-old contestant told her that Trump later that night crawled into her bed uninvited. Harth dropped her suit in 1997 after a related case filed by Houraney was settled by Trump, who has denied her allegations. Trump and Epstein were spotted again at a 1997 Victoria's Secret 'Angels' party in Manhattan. The lingerie company was run by Leslie H. Wexner, a billionaire businessman who handed Epstein sweeping power over his finances, philanthropy, and private life within years of meeting him. Court records show that Trump was among those who got rides on Epstein's private jet. Over four years in the 1990s, he flew on Epstein's Boeing 727 at least seven times, largely making jaunts between Palm Beach and a private airport in Teterboro, New Jersey, just outside New York. 'I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,' Trump told New York magazine in 2002. 'He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.' An Encounter at Mar-a-Lago In 2000, court records show, Maxwell, a British socialite who had long been tied to Epstein, struck up a conversation with a 17-year-old girl outside a locker room at Mar-a-Lago. Her name was Virginia Giuffre, and she was a spa attendant at the club, having got the job through her father, who worked there as a maintenance man. According to Giuffre, Maxwell offered her a job on the spot as a masseuse for Epstein after seeing that she was reading a book about massage, telling her that she did not need to have any experience. She said that when she was brought to Epstein's Palm Beach home, she found him lying naked on a table. Maxwell, she claimed, instructed her on how to massage him. 'They seemed like nice people,' she later testified, 'so I trusted them.' But over the next two years or so, Giuffre claimed that she was forced by Epstein and Maxwell to have sex with a series of famous men, including Prince Andrew. The prince has denied the accusations and declined to help federal prosecutors in their investigation of Epstein. Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, always maintained that she was trafficked to the prince and other men, once telling the BBC that she had been 'passed around like a platter of fruit' to Epstein's powerful associates. Some women who were in Epstein's orbit have said they encountered Trump during this period. One woman, Maria Farmer, who has said she was victimised by Epstein and Maxwell, described an encounter with Trump in 1995 at an office that Epstein once kept in New York City. An art student who had moved to New York City to pursue a career as a painter, Farmer recalled in a 2019 interview that when she was introduced to Trump, he eyed her, prompting Epstein to warn him, 'She's not for you'. Farmer's mother, Janice Swain, said her daughter had described the interaction with Trump around the time it occurred. Stacey Williams, a former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, has said she was groped by Trump when she was introduced to him by Epstein, whom she was dating at the time. It was 1993, she said, and she was on a walk with Epstein on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan when he suggested that they pop into Trump Tower to say hello to Trump. Williams thought nothing of it at the time because, as she later put it, 'Jeffrey talked about Trump all the time'. After Trump greeted them in a waiting area outside his office, Williams said, he pulled her toward him, touching her breasts, waist and buttocks as if he was 'an octopus.' She said she later wondered whether she had been part of a challenge or wager between the two men. 'I definitely felt like I was a piece of meat delivered to that office as some sort of game,' she recalled to the New York Times last year. At the time, Trump's presidential campaign denied that the episode had occurred, calling the allegations 'unequivocally false' and politically motivated. In an interview last week, Williams said she was upset to hear Trump referring to some of the Epstein story as a 'hoax' and 'boring' news. 'I mean, it's absurd,' she said of his speaking dismissively of the case. Attorney-General Pam Bondi speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. The Justice Department asked a federal judge to unseal grand jury testimony from the prosecution of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein as President Trump seeks to dispel a storm of criticism and conspiracy theories coming from many of his supporters. Photo / Eric Lee, the New York Times Parting Ways Eventually, in late 2004, Trump and Epstein ended up squaring off — this time, over a piece of real estate. It was the Maison de l'Amitié, a French Regency-style manse that sat along the ocean in Palm Beach. The two hypercompetitive men each had their lawyers bid on the property. Ultimately, Trump came out ahead, purchasing it for US$41.35 million ($70m). There is little public record of the two men interacting after that. Trump later told associates he had another reason for breaking from Epstein around that time. His longtime friend, he has said, acted inappropriately to the daughter of a member of Mar-a-Lago, and Trump felt compelled to bar him from the club. Brad Edwards, a lawyer who has represented many of Epstein's victims, said Trump told him a similar story in 2009. Not long after the standoff over the beachfront mansion, the Palm Beach police received a tip that young women had been seen going in and out of Epstein's home. Four months later, there was a more substantial complaint from a woman who claimed that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been paid US$300 by Epstein to give him a massage while she was undressed. That led to a sprawling undercover investigation that identified at least a dozen potential victims. Epstein hired a team of top lawyers to defend him — including Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor who would later represent Trump, and Ken Starr, the former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. The two men helped negotiate a lenient plea deal with R. Alexander Acosta, who was then the US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Under the deal, Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor. In exchange, he was granted immunity from federal charges, as were all of his potential co-conspirators. He also had to register as a sex offender. In the end, Epstein wound up serving almost 13 months in jail before he was released. For his part, Trump largely steered clear of the controversy. But in February 2015, as he was gearing up for what would end up being a hard-fought campaign against Hillary Clinton, he sought to connect Epstein to her husband. Bill Clinton has 'got a lot of problems coming up, in my opinion, with the famous island with Jeffrey Epstein', Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, referring to Epstein's private island where he resided and was suspected of trafficking underage girls. 'A lot of problems.' Clinton has denied visiting the island or having any knowledge of Epstein's criminal behaviour and has said he wishes he had never met him. 'I Wasn't a Fan' In July 2019, Epstein was arrested again. Prosecutors from the public corruption unit of the US Attorney's office in Manhattan charged him with sex trafficking and a conspiracy to traffic minors for sex. Trump, then in his third year in the White House, immediately sought to distance himself from his old friend. 'I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,' Trump told reporters after the charges were revealed. 'I mean, people in Palm Beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him in 15 years. I wasn't a fan.' The new charges brought renewed scrutiny to the original plea deal. Days after Epstein's arrest, Acosta, who had become Trump's Labour Secretary, announced he would resign amid criticism of his handling of the case. Speaking to reporters about Acosta's decision, Trump reiterated that he had broken off his ties with Epstein 'many, many years ago'. He added: 'It shows you one thing: that I have good taste'. Asked if he had any suspicions that Epstein was molesting young women, Trump replied, 'No, I had no idea'. The next month, after Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in Manhattan in what was later ruled a suicide, Trump weighed in again, reviving what was by then a years-old effort from his first campaign. He shared a social media post that tried to link the death to Bill Clinton. Days later, when pressed about his unfounded claims of Clinton's involvement, Trump did not let up, calling for a full investigation, even though he offered no facts to support his allegations. 'Epstein had an island that was not a good place, as I understand it,' he said. 'And I was never there. So you have to ask: Did Bill Clinton go to the island?' When Trump was asked about the arrest of Maxwell in the summer of 2020 on charges that included the enticement and trafficking of children, his answer left some of his own allies confused. 'I wish her well, whatever it is,' Trump said. In recent weeks, right-wing influencers and Trump's rank-and-file supporters expressed outrage over his Administration's conclusion that there were no revelations to share about the case — not least because some of the President's top law enforcement officials, including Attorney-General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, had promised to reveal more information about Epstein's crimes. Trump sought to quiet the demands, calling the Epstein scandal a 'hoax' made up by his Democratic adversaries. He also described it as a subject unworthy of further scrutiny. 'Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?' Trump asked reporters with exasperation at a Cabinet meeting on July 8. 'This guy's been talked about for years.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Written by: Alan Feuer and Matthew Goldstein Photographs by: Doug Mills, Jefferson Siegel, Eric Lee ©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
Trump says he will help Afghans stuck in the UAE
By Doina Chiacu , Reuters US President Donald Trump. Photo: Getty Images/CNN Newsource US President Donald Trump has said he would help Afghans detained in the United Arab Emirates for years after fleeing their country when the United States pulled out and the Taliban took power. Trump, a Republican who promised a far-reaching immigration crackdown, suspended refugee resettlement after he took office in January. In April, the Trump administration terminated temporary deportation protections for thousands of Afghans in the US. "I will try to save them, starting right now," Trump said in a post on Truth Social that linked to an article on the Afghans held in limbo there. Trump cited news website "Just the News" as saying that UAE officials were preparing to hand over some Afghan refugees to the Taliban. Reuters has not confirmed the report. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The UAE, a close security partner of the United States, agreed in 2021 to temporarily house several thousand Afghans evacuated from Kabul as the Taliban ousted the US-backed government during the final stages of the US-led withdrawal. Nearly 200,000 Afghans were brought to the US by former President Joe Biden's administration since the chaotic US troop withdrawal from Kabul. Canada agreed in 2022 to resettle about 1000 of the Afghans still held in the UAE after a US request. It is unclear how many remain in the Gulf country. Some countries have forced Afghan refugees to return to Afghanistan. Nearly 2 million Afghans were returned from Iran and Pakistan in the past seven months, the United Nations said last week. Germany on Friday deported 81 Afghan men to Afghanistan amid a tightening of refugee admissions. Some other European countries are pushing to tighten asylum rules in the bloc. In the United States, Democrats have urged Trump to restore temporary protected status for Afghans, saying women and children could face particular harm under the Taliban-led government in place since 2021. Refugees include family members of Afghan-American US military personnel, children cleared to reunite with their parents, relatives of Afghans already admitted and tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the US government during the 20-year war. Shawn VanDiver, president of the #AfghanEvac advocacy group, urged Trump to follow up on his post with action. "President Trump has the authority to do the right thing. He should instruct DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and the Department of State to expedite processing, push for third-country partnerships, and ensure that we never again leave our wartime allies behind," he said in a statement. -Reuters
