President Donald Trump

 

Nigerians might soon be affected by a new policy to be implemented by President Donald Trump of the United States of America. This has to do with the cutting of financial aid recipients in the country, especially Non-Governmental Organisations.

 

The revelation was made by a former US intelligence community’s top expert on Nigeria and publisher of nigeriaknowledge.com, Matthew Page. He revealed details of this on Twitter.

 

According to politico.com, the budget blueprint expected later this week will still trim funding for both the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development next year, but by less than the 37 percent initially floated in preliminary documents sent out by the White House in late February.

 

The budget revision is expected to include “staged cuts” spread out over several years, instead of the immediate hit, according to a senior administration official, who said that the White House is giving Tillerson time “to do a deeper analysis on foreign aid.”

 

It will affect Nigeria because the country is 5th largest U.S. aid recipient (mostly health NGOs), according to Page. Tillerson and his top aides are assessing how to restructure the State Department, another person with knowledge of the discussions said, and is willing to take a “significant” cut to the department's budget.

 

Tillerson wouldn’t agree to a 37 percent cut in the next fiscal year because he wants to decide how the cuts are made, this person said, focusing on departments, offices and issues that he doesn't think are important.

 

 

President Donald Trump said Obamacare would implode if the Republicans didn't intervene.

 

In the last week, Tillerson’s met twice with Trump, once over lunch and once in the Oval Office, and he’s scheduled to have dinner with Trump on Monday along with new National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. Including Monday’s dinner, Tillerson and Trump will have met six times in the last three weeks.

 

It wasn’t clear exactly how much the upcoming budget proposal would slash State Department funding right away, or if the staged cuts would eventually add up to 37 percent from this year.