J.R.BIDEN PRESIDENT-ELECT USA: WASHINGTON- Trump says US should not send foreign aid to Cambodia, money should be spent on US instead

US President Donald Trump called the spending package agreed to by the US Congress earlier this week a “disgrace” during an online video posted on Twitter yesterday.

According to the video message from the White House, Trump baulked at foreign aid spending earmarked for countries including Cambodia. Trump  argued that this money should go to struggling US citizens instead.

In opposition to the spending package, Trump said: “This bill contains $85.5 million for assistance to Cambodia, $134 million to Burma, $1.3 billion for Egypt and the Egyptian military, which will go out and buy almost exclusively Russian military equipment, $25 million for democracy and gender programmes in Pakistan and $505 million to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.”

“It’s called the COVID relief bill, but it has almost nothing to do with COVID… Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists and special interests while sending the bare minimum to the American people,” he concluded.

The document agreed to by congress includes provisions for “not less than $85,505,000 to be made available to assist Cambodia”.

The document does, however, stipulate that none of the funds appropriated by this act are to be made available unless the US Secretary of State certifies and reports to the Committees on Appropriations that the Cambodian government is taking effective steps to requirements stipulated in the bill.

Some of those requirements include the strengthening of regional security and stability, particularly regarding territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the enforcement of international sanctions concerning North Korea.

The spendin package document, however, outlines that these restrictions only pertain to aid given directly to the Cambodian government. Certification does not apply to funds made available for democracy, health, education and environment programmes, programmes to strengthen the sovereignty of Cambodia and programmes to educate and inform the people of Cambodia of the influencing activities of the People’s Republic of China in Cambodia.

It should be noted that most US aid to Cambodia goes to nongovernmental agencies.

Khmer Times contacted the US embassy in Phnom Penh and was told by spokesman Chad Roedemeier: “The embassy has no comment for now because it would be speculative since there’s no approved budget yet.”