Trump proposes $18 billion budget cuts to pay for border wall

TIL Desk/World/Washington-United States President Donald Trump is proposing immediate budget cuts of $18 billion (Rs 1.20 lakh crore) from programmes like medical research, infrastructure and community grants so American taxpayers, not Mexico, can pay for the border wall envisaged by him.

The White House documents were submitted to the Congress amid negotiations over a catchall spending bill that would avert a partial government shutdown at the end of next month, the American media reported. The latest Trump proposal, disclosed on Tuesday, would eliminate $1.2 billion (Rs 8,000 crore) in National Institutes of Health research grants, a favourite of both parties.

The community development block grant programme, also popular, would be halved, amounting to a cut of $1.5 billion (Rs 10,000 crore), and Trump would strip $500 million (Rs 3,350 crore) from a transportation project known as TIGER grants. Like Trump’s 2018 proposed budget, which was panned by both Democrats and Republicans earlier this month, the proposals have little chance of being enacted.