(Newswire.net — March 30, 2019) — Donald Trump, United States President, has recently announced that he will cut off all foreign aid towards three countries in South America, after claims that they are not cooperating with helping America stop illegal immigration.
This announcement came while the opposing democrats were on a congressional visit to El Salvador. The democrats have since remarked that this cut of aid to these countries will only increase immigration, and even perhaps illegal immigration to the US, an issue that Mr trump feels very strongly against.
The aid to these 3 countries amasses to hundreds of millions of dollars, and could have serious negative consequences for these south American areas. Furthermore, the democrats have argued that this move is ‘entirely counter-productive’, as it will make natives from this country more likely to try and immigrate to America, searching for more money now it is no longer receiving help from America.
Trump has also stated that unless Mexico stops all illegal immigration to America, he will completely close the American border. He further specified that this border could include ‘all trade’.
One former US official has stated that it is currently chaos in the state department and embassies for these countries, as they painstakingly work out which contracts may need to be edited.
Trump told reporters ‘We were giving them $500 million. We were paying them tremendous amounts of money, and we’re not paying them anymore because they haven’t done a thing for us.”
Perhaps the most interesting opinion about this matter came from Jim Nealon, who seemed to suggest that Trump didn’t understand how these aid programmes actually worked. He stated that the US don’t actually give money to the foreign governments, but rather to programs designed and implemented by the US. Furthermore, unlike Trump’s claims that these 3 countries have done nothing to help kerb immigration, Nealon suggests that the have actually cooperated with Trumps demands.
This stoppage in aid will come as a huge blow to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, as they are already some of the poorest countries in the southern hemisphere, and possibly some of the most violent in the world.