Trump cuts $200 million in aid to Palestine

A USAID mural, to commemorate the building of supportive walls and road shoulders, is pictured in the village of al-Badhan, north of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on August 25, 2018.

(Image credit: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Getty Images)

published 25 August 2018

The Trump administration has cut about $200 million in development aid to Palestine, announcing Friday the money would be allocated to "high-priority projects elsewhere."

"At the direction of President Trump, we have undertaken a review of U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority and in the West Bank and Gaza to ensure these funds are spent in accordance with U.S. national interests and provide value to the U.S. taxpayer," said the State Department. "This decision takes into account the challenges the international community faces in providing assistance in Gaza, where Hamas control endangers the lives of Gaza's citizens and degrades an already dire humanitarian and economic situation."

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Trump on Twitter earlier this year claimed "we pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect." He threatened to withdraw U.S. aid as a means of forcing Palestinian leaders to the negotiating table with Israel. Trump cited his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as a boon to peace talks, but most experts believe the recognition made diplomacy more difficult.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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