Congress may pass a $50B foreign aid bill. Will Trump spend the money?

U.S. lawmakers are on the verge of passing a $50 billion foreign aid funding bill that stands in stark contrast to proposals by President Donald Trump’s administration to slash assistance spending. According to experts who spoke during a Devex Pro Briefing on Wednesday, that global development disconnect between the U.S. Congress and the White House is both reassuring and cause for concern. On one hand, the bipartisan budget bill — which the Senate is expected to consider next week and the House of Representatives has already approved — stands as a refutation of Trump’s proposals to cut foreign aid funding in half and wipe out numerous program areas. The congressional bill still includes a significant 16% cut, but also maintains funding in areas — such as international family planning — that the White House has sought to eliminate. But on the other hand, that wide gulf between two visions of U.S. foreign assistance raises the question: Even if Congress passes this budget bill, will the Trump administration spend the money as directed? “What if the administration pushes back? What if there are a ton of rescissions? What if there's just a lack of implementation?” asked Jim Kunder, principal at the international development consulting firm Kunder/Reali Associates. “It’s one thing to pass the bill. It’s one thing to set the funding levels, but after its performance in the last year, is the Congress really going to insist that the U.S. foreign aid program looks like what’s in the bill? To me, that’s the big operative question,” he said. Others argued that the fact that the bill exists at all is significant. First, because bipartisan budget legislation has been hard to come by in recent years — with lawmakers often resorting to “continuing resolutions” that just carry funding levels over from previous years. And second, because Congress has shown little appetite in the last year for pushing back against the Trump administration’s scorched-earth campaign against U.S. aid programs. “We had all hoped for this result. Maybe we thought that was overly optimistic to get to this place, but here we are, and it took a lot of hard work by both sides of the aisle on [Capitol] Hill,” said Lisa Bos, vice president, global development policy, advocacy, and learning at InterAction. “It’s mapping a new future for U.S. international assistance,” said Erin Collinson, director of policy outreach at the Center for Global Development. “It looks different, but notably, it’s not walking away from the provision of lifesaving aid. It’s not turning our back on key multilateral fora, and it’s affirming … a critical role for international assistance in the U.S. foreign policy toolkit,” she said. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons voiced confidence that the Senate would pass the bill next week, and that Trump would sign it into law.