Trump Is Right. How Can A President Be Able To Cancel Treaties But Not Foreign Aid? https://dailytorch.com/2025/03/trump-is-right-how-can-a-president-be-able-to-cancel-treaties-but-not-foreign-aid/
At his recent address to a joint session of Congress on March 4, President Donald Trump noted that upon taking office he had “imposed an immediate freeze… on all foreign aid” via a January 20 executive order. Under the Jan. 20 Trump executive order, departments and agencies were to stop all “new obligations and disbursements”. Under Article II of the Constitution, Presidents set American foreign policy, whether in negotiating new treaties or in terminating old ones— see George Washington’s 1793 Proclamation of Neutrality that ended the U.S. military treaty with France, George W. Bush’s withdrawal from the 1972 the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and Trump’s withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, among others. In terminating the ABM Treaty, the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel offered this opinion in 2001: “Presidential authority over treaties stems from the President’s leading textual and structural position in foreign affairs generally, from the text and structure of Article II’s vesting of all of the federal executive power in the President, and from the specific manner in which the Constitution allocates the treaty power. Construing the Constitution in this manner comports with the President’s Article II responsibilities to conduct the foreign affairs of the nation, to act as its sole representative in international relations, and to exercise the powers of Chief Executive… The historical evidence supports the claim that the President has broad constitutional powers with respect to treaties, including the powers to terminate and suspend them.” If the President can terminate treaties — which required two-thirds of the Senate to approve — including those that established military alliances, as an inherent exercise of Article II executive power, how can he not stop foreign aid to countries who might no longer be considered allies by the President?
