President Donald Trump has certainly ruffled some feathers in Washington, D.C. and around the world through his executive order to pause foreign aid and to open up the books at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in the process tasking the newly minted U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Service — spun off from the 2014-created U.S. Digital Service — to go through the budget to identify wasteful, illegal and fraudulent spending that runs afoul of the new president’s foreign policy and U.S. laws.
For example, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) falsely described the effort as an “unelected shadow government conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government”.
But that’s not true. President Trump was elected on Nov. 5, winning both the popular vote and the Electoral College, rather easily in hindsight, over former Vice President Kamala Harris, and rallied Republicans to majorities in the House and Senate, in part on promises to realign U.S. foreign policy including foreign and military aid, to create DOGE to identify wasteful spending and so forth, including any that is going overseas.
The two executive orders of importance to this endeavor were both signed on Jan. 20, the day Trump was sworn into office, enacting the 90-day pause in new foreign aid pending a review and the establishment of DOGE in the Executive Office of the President.
The first, “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” enacted the 90-day pause, calling for a “90-day pause in United States foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.”
To that end, all departments and agencies were directed to pause all obligations being sent overseas to reevaluate U.S. foreign policies priorities, stating, “All department and agency heads with responsibility for United States foreign development assistance programs shall immediately pause new obligations and disbursements of development assistance funds to foreign countries and implementing non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and contractors pending reviews of such programs for programmatic efficiency and consistency with United States foreign policy, to be conducted within 90 days of this order. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) shall enforce this pause through its apportionment authority.”
The second, “Establishing and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’”, again, spun off from the 2014-created U.S. Digital Service into DOGE, under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 3161 as a temporary organization in the Executive Office of the President.
The order stated “There shall be a USDS Administrator established in the Executive Office of the President who shall report to the White House Chief of Staff. There is further established within USDS, in accordance with section 3161 of title 5, United States Code, a temporary organization known as ‘the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization’. The U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization shall be headed by the USDS Administrator and shall be dedicated to advancing the President’s 18-month DOGE agenda. The U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization shall terminate on July 4, 2026.”
Well, that’s exactly what the law says: “the term ‘temporary organization’ means a commission, committee, board, or other organization that… is established by law or Executive order for a specific period not in excess of three years for the purpose of performing a specific study or other project; and… is terminated upon the completion of the study or project or upon the occurrence of a condition related to the completion of the study or project.”
So, Trump chose to dedicate his White House political staff to direct the efforts of DOGE, by definition, establishing them as White House employees and political appointees. Their job is to coordinate with “DOGE Teams” at each department and agency to identify wasteful spending and to otherwise modernize hardware and software used by each department and agency, and provides the White House DOGE personnel — that is, the President’s designees — access to all of the information technology infrastructure at each department “ensure USDS has full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems. USDS shall adhere to rigorous data protection standards.”
So just like National Security Advisor Mike Waltz or other members of the National Security Council appointed by the President for example can go over to a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) to access classified records to advance U.S. policy, the White House, whether via the Office of Management and Budget or other civilian designees tasked to the budget, can access the unclassified budgets of every single department and agency, looking at every line if that is what the President directs to ensure it complies with the law and is advancing U.S. policies, especially abroad.
To the extent that there is crossover, say sensitive military or intelligence programs and budgets, the President can even task everyone to work together to best get the budget in order, including assigning appropriate security clearances to any personnel who might be working on sensitive matters, in order to best ensure the President’s policies are being executed.
In the meantime, Trump has made Secretary of State Marco Rubio now the acting director of USAID as the White House gets a handle on the agency’s $42.8 billion budget. Many media commentators and other journalists have described the budget as a “drop in the bucket” but there it is, a $42.8 billion a year “drop in the bucket” that the executive branch often has discretion to direct towards the President and Congress’ foreign policy goals. But USAID is not the only agency that does foreign aid, so does the Department of Defense, the Department of State and so forth. Enough drops in the bucket to fill up the bucket, no doubt.
And it’s all sacred, or so the President’s critics would attest. But nothing is sacred when it comes to foreign and military aid.
John Kennedy pulled the plug on Cuba.
Congress and Gerald Ford pulled the plug on South Vietnam.
Jimmy Carter pulled the plug on Iran.
Congress pulled the plug on Nicaragua in the 1980s.
Ronald Reagan pulled the plug on nuclear weapons in Europe when he signed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev.
Joe Biden pulled the plug on Afghanistan, and so forth.
Certainly, during their times, these were all controversial decisions, some popular, others not so much, but they were all made by presidents and on occasion by Congress, too, all under their constitutional responsibilities under Article I and Article II of the Constitution’s legislative and executive powers. But none of these operations are sacred, especially foreign commitments, which is well established since the 1793 Proclamation of Neutrality by George Washington that tore up military alliance treaty with France following the French Revolution. Not even treaties are immune to the power of the President take U.S. foreign policy in a different direction.
Obviously, the President as the sole executive under Article II of the Constitution has a lot of power to direct U.S. foreign policy, and certainly to direct White House staff and departments and agencies to ensure that the money being spent is done so in accordance with the law and the President’s stated policies. No one except who the President delegates has the authority to speak on behalf of the U.S., and certainly not by directing foreign aid that runs counter to the President’s intent.
Some of the monies we were sending overseas to Syria went to al Qaeda to blow things up. Some of the monies we sent to Iran were quite fungible and went to Hezbollah, Hamas and Tehran’s nuclear weapons programs. Some of the monies we send to China via trade deficits is directed to building up their navy and other armed forces.
Former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden might have prioritized those things but President Trump has the same exact discretion to say no and especially to stop payments that run counter to current policy. No question. The things we were funding might not be priorities anymore.
Turns out, elections really do matter. Sure, open the books up and certainly direct U.S. departments and agencies to fulfill the President’s agenda and the law. Isn’t that what the President is supposed to do?
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
Reproduced with permission. Original here: Foreign And Military Aid Is Not Sacred, And President Trump Is Right To Open Up The Books