REMITTANCES: President Trump Can Cut All The Foreign Aid He Wants — Billions Will Still Flow From US To Central American Countries

President Donald Trump said Monday he will move to slash foreign aid to three Central American governments as punishment for failing to stop a massive caravan of their citizens from trekking north toward the U.S. border.

“We will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid routinely given to them,” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

The White House did not elaborate on Trump’s threat, so it was not immediately clear how much money he would seek to withhold. Washington plans to send about $180 billion in foreign aid to the three Central American countries in fiscal year 2019 — $69 million for Guatemala, $66 million for Honduras and $45 million for El Salvador, according to the State Department.

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Other than Colombia, the so-called “Northern Triangle” countries are the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid in the Western Hemisphere. Most of the funding goes toward rule-of-law and democracy programs, as well as counternarcotics and border security initiatives.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut foreign aid or defense assistance to countries that don’t enact his administration’s preferred policies, but Central American governments may have less incentive to act than others. That’s because Washington’s foreign aid to the three countries is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money each receives in annual remittances from the U.S.

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