VOA常速英语2019--特朗普欲削减境外援助（在线收听）

President Trump has expressed ambivalence about U.S. foreign aid, calling it wasteful and unnecessary, and considering a proposal to stop funding it. We get billions and billions of dollars to countries that don’t like us, don’t like us even a little bit and I’ve been cutting that. But after both Democratic and Republican lawmakers objected to the White House effort, the Trump administration gave in. Some experts agree with the president that not all US funding that goes towards international organizations and foreign countries is well spent, but they objected to the proposed across-the-board cuts without justification. But if they, they hope to actually have that money be used better or reallocated in the future, they need to provide a justification for it, one that’s convincing both to the State Department, to USAID and also to members of Congress. Other experts and international development organizations welcomed the decision to abandon the cuts as a big win. It’s a big win for, frankly, the United States and its own interest as I think it was a short-sighted effort to politicize foreign assistance, you know, pegged under, under the auspices or, you know, or described as an effort to, to reduce the deficit when in fact foreign aid represents less than 1 percent of the federal budget.

特朗普表达了对美国境外援助的摇摆不定，他称境外援助为浪费资源的无用行为，还说自己正在考虑提议停止为境外援助出资。我们把大量资金投给了其他不喜欢我们美国的国家，这些国家甚至一丁点儿都不喜欢我们，我一直在削减这部分资金。但在许多民主党和共和党议员反对美国政府的这种举动后，特朗普政府妥协了。一些专家也认同特朗普的一点——并非美国的所有投给国际组织和外国的资金都花在了正处，但他们反对在没有正当理由的情况下反对提议的全面削减。但如果特朗普政府希望这笔钱今后能得到更好地利用或者重新分配的话，那他们需要给出合理的解释，一个能说服国务院、美国国际开发署（USAID）、国会议员们的解释。还有一些专家和国际开发组织对放弃削减出资的决定表示欢迎，他们认为这是极大的胜利。说实话，这是一种极大的胜利，对美国和美国的利益关切来说都是如此，因为我觉得将境外援助政治化的做法未免太过短视，沉浸在一种看似有预见性的想法下，认为这样的做法能减少赤字，但实际上，境外援助占联邦预算的比例还不到1%。

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in public has strongly agreed with the president that every single dollar of US taxpayer money must be spent carefully to reflect US priorities. But some leaders of the international development community have thanked Pompeo for fighting behind the scenes against major cuts to foreign aid. It’s certainly the case and was the case last year that the Secretary of Pompeo was a strong supporter of, for foreign assistance, quite frankly, so were the military leaders who spoke forcefully last year in support of continued development or continued funding for development assistance as a critical pillar to our national security. Under the president’s direction, the State Department has frozen US foreign assistance to the northern triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, saying those nations are not taking concrete actions to reduce the number of illegal migrants coming to the US border.

国务卿蓬佩奥曾在公开场合力挺特朗普，他表示，美国纳税人的每一分钱都必须花得认真仔细，要反映出美国的首要任务。不过，国际开发社群的一些领袖也感谢蓬佩奥在幕后为反对境外援助出现大幅削减而做出的努力。无论是现在还是去年都是这种情况——蓬佩奥强烈坦率地支持境外援助，此外还有一些军方领导人，他们去年曾铿锵有力地表达过对继续开发以及继续支持境外援助资金的支持，认为这是美国安全的重要支柱。在特朗普的指示下，国务院冻结了美国给北部三角的境外援助，即萨尔瓦多、危地马拉和洪都拉斯。特朗普认为，这些国家并没有采取切实行动来减少前往美国边境的非法移民数量。