GOP Rep. Bacon says foreign aid freeze ‘needs to be temporary’

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said on Tuesday that he hopes President Trump’s pause on foreign aid is temporary.

In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Bacon stressed the importance of U.S. assistance to allies including Ukraine and Taiwan.

“It needs to be temporary,” Bacon said when asked if he’s concerned about freezing foreign aid. “Because we have, like, Russia invading Ukraine, and we need to respond to that. We can’t just freeze that spending that’s been promised to Ukraine.”

“So I just hope it’s, all this is temporary,” he added.

Trump, on his first day in office, signed an executive order suspending any new U.S. foreign development assistance for three months, and directed a review of foreign assistance programs to ensure they line up with his “America First” foreign policy approach.

The order included a waiver for the secretary of State to waive the rules for “specific programs.”

On Friday, the State Department imposed a wide-ranging halt of U.S. funding for projects abroad, excluding military aid and food programs for Egypt and Israel, multiple outlets reported.

Bacon, on Tuesday, said he hopes to see Ukraine and Taiwan added to the list of exceptions.

“There’s things that we know that we prioritize, and I’m grateful that the administration did not freeze the Israeli aid,” Bacon said. “I would like to see them do the same thing with Ukrainian aid and other things like Taiwan. Taiwan is in desperate need of us continuing the aid so we can deter China from ever invading Taiwan, as another example.”