The Donald Trump administration has cut financial aid to Central American countries, accused by the US president of “doing nothing” to prevent migrants from traveling to the United States, the State Department announced on Saturday.
At the request of the Secretary of State (Mike Pompeo) we are implementing the president’s directive to end the foreign assistance programs for the Northern Triangle for the 2017 and 2018 fiscal years,”
a State Department spokesman told AFP.
The fiscal year 2018 ended last fall, and the State Department has not specified how many unexpended funds were actually affected by this measure, which could be primarily symbolic.
The “Northern Triangle” includes El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, from which tens of thousands of migrants have come trying to reach the United States, fleeing poverty and violence in their countries.
Trump denounced on Thursday the inaction of their governments against these caravans.
Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have taken our money for years and are not doing anything,”
he said on Twitter.
In the last two years, the United States has allocated 1.3 billion dollars to Central America as part of official development assistance, most of them to these three countries.
Trump also accused Mexico of not doing enough to stop the wave of migrants entering the United States illegally, and threatened to close the border between the two countries next week.
In December, Washington and Mexico committed to making significant investments in the Northern Triangle and in southern Mexico in an effort to curb the flow of migrants.