WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Friday signed a compromise budget deal adopted by Congress despite being “unhappy” with many of its provisions — thereby averting what would have been the third government shutdown this year.
“As a matter of national security, I’ve signed this omnibus budget bill,” Trump said in a statement from the White House, hours after tweeting a threat to veto the measure.
“There are a lot of things I’m unhappy about in this bill. There are a lot of things we shouldn’t have had in this bill but we were, in a sense, forced (to have) if we want to build our military,” he added.
Earlier during the day, President Trump provoked a fresh political crisis by threating to veto an already approved budget and shut down the federal government.
The Trump administration had categorically said he supported the deal brokered by the Republican-controlled Congress and passed in an ead-of-night vote, claiming it as victory before the 71-year-old’s change of heart.
Many lawmakers have already left Washington for two weeks recess, so a renegotiation is unlikely.
“I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill,” Trump tweeted, suggesting the deal did not do enough to help 800,000 immigrants holding a de facto amnesty, which he rescinded.
Trump has repeatedly tried to blame the looming end of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrival programme on Democrats.
Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2018
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