Trump Just Halted All Foreign Aid, Except To Israel And Egypt
This post was originally published on this site
You can rest assured that Donald Trump’s order (no doubt approved by Shadow President Elon Musk) will do nothing to help struggling Americans with the price of groceries, housing or health care. But I’ll bet you four year’s worth of soaring egg prices that it will help Trump’s bottom – uh, line.
From NBC News:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered an immediate stop to the flow of almost all U.S. foreign assistance Friday pending a review, according to an internal State Department cable obtained by NBC News.
The directive sent to all consular and diplomatic posts follows President Donald Trump’s executive order Monday pausing new obligations and disbursements of foreign aid pending reviews “for programmatic efficiency and consistency” with U.S. foreign policy, within 90 days of the order.
Speaking of “consistency,” did I mention that the order is likely illegal? NBC put it this way: “It is not immediately clear if Rubio’s directive will hold up under U.S. law.”
The directive calls for the development of “appropriate review standards” for foreign aid, NBC News further reported. I think we all know that “appropriate review standards” under a Musk/Trump administration will have nothing to do with protecting and enriching anyone but Musk and Trump as well as their lickspittles and stooges. NBC noted that the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance says its request is less than 1% of the total federal budget. So, while implementing new “efficiency and consistency” will do little to reduce overall spending, there could still be a nice chunk of change or other financial benefits to Presidents Musk and Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump’s buddy in corruption and autocracy, Benjamin Netanyahu, got a “waiver for foreign military financing,” as did Egypt. NBC News suggests both waivers have a legit foreign policy purpose because those two countries are “among the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid.”
But NBC left out the part about Egypt’s very suspicious generosity to Trump, which he returned with policy favors in his first term. Last summer, I wrote about what looked a heckuva lot like a $10 million bribe from Egypt to Trump, just when he was running low on cash near the end of his 2016 campaign. That was followed by a promise the U.S. would be a “loyal friend” to Egypt’s “fantastic” president – who just happened to be Trump’s first guest at the White House, despite a U.S. policy of distancing itself from him. The reporting came from a blockbuster Washington Post investigation we may never see the likes of in the next four years, unless it involves Democrats.
So how are the Democrats responding to this? NBC reported that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in response, “To impound these funds would be unconstitutional. Absolutely.” There was nothing in the report about Schumer or any other Democrat saying or doing anything more.