After months of back and forth and uncertainty about when — and if — it would come to fruition, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate have released a compromise foreign assistance appropriations bill.
The funding bill would provide some $50 billion for U.S. foreign assistance programs in fiscal year 2026, a roughly 16% cut from what was approved by Congress last year. Still, the total is higher than what the House Appropriations Committee approved in July and nearly $20 billion above President Donald Trump’s budget request, which recommended a 47.7% cut in foreign assistance funding.
Although the House and Senate appropriators have agreed to this package, the bill must still clear votes in both chambers before being signed into law, ahead of a Jan. 30 deadline when the stopgap funding bill expires.
About the author
Adva Saldinger@AdvaSal
Adva Saldinger is a Senior Reporter at Devex where she covers development finance, as well as U.S. foreign aid policy. Adva explores the role the private sector and private capital play in development and authors the weekly Devex Invested newsletter bringing the latest news on the role of business and finance in addressing global challenges. A journalist with more than 10 years of experience, she has worked at several newspapers in the U.S. and lived in both Ghana and South Africa.
