US Congress approves US$9bil in Trump cuts to foreign aid, public media
The cuts achieve only a tiny fraction of the US$1 trillion in annual savings that tech billionaire and estranged Trump donor Elon Musk vowed to find before his acrimonious exit in May from a role spearheading federal cost-cutting.
But Republicans – who recently passed a domestic policy bill expected to add more than US$3 trillion to US debt – said the vote honored Trump's election campaign pledge to rein in runaway spending.
"President Trump and House Republicans promised fiscal responsibility and government efficiency," House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement just after the vote.
"Today, we're once again delivering on that promise."
Both chambers of Congress are Republican-controlled, meaning a party-line House of Representatives vote of 216 to 213, moments after midnight, was sufficient to rubber-stamp the Senate-passed measure.
Most of the cuts target programs for countries hit by disease, war and natural disasters but the move also scraps US$1.1 billion that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was due to receive over the next two years.
Conservatives say the funding – which goes mostly to more than 1,500 local public radio and TV stations, as well as to public broadcasters NPR and PBS – is unnecessary and has funded biased coverage.
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