Desert survival courses in Egypt? Trump administration eyes wasteful foreign aid programs for budget cuts

The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s daily Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:

What will be in the Trump administration’s upcoming list of proposed foreign aid budget cuts? Blaze Media has learned a few of the likely details.

According to a source in the administration with knowledge of the talks between the White House and the State Department, programs likely to be listed in the upcoming package of proposed cuts include desert survival courses in Egypt, crop diversity in Bangladesh, diversion programs for felons in El Salvador, providing solar panels in central Asia, and Guatemalan agricultural technology investment. The proposed cuts will reportedly also target funds used to help secure the borders of several other countries, but not the U.S.

The White House’s budget office sent off a list of cuts “north of $4 billion” to the State Department for review on Thursday, despite complaints from Congress and concerns from the foreign aid world.

“While there are many great programs we support around the world, these are the ones most riddled with abuse and waste,” a senior administration official told Blaze Media about the upcoming budget proposal. “The United States should not be financially responsible for crop diversity in Bangladesh, purchasing solar panels in Central Asia, and footing the bill for border protection in Central and South Asia — when we can’t even get Congress to secure our own borders.”

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