Congress can use federal spending to challenge President Donald Trump's foreign policy, but approving money alone cannot ensure his administration spends it, according to a Brookings Institution discussion published Nov. 14.
The discussion, “The foreign policy standoff after the midterms,” described a Democratic Congress's ability to influence the administration as depending on its willingness to confront the president over spending. The supplied remarks did not identify the speakers.
The Constitution gives the president broad power over foreign policy, and Trump is prepared to claim more. Congress's principal means of checking that power is its control over federal funding, described in the remarks as the “power of the purse.”
Congress had refused to exercise that power under Mike Johnson. Lawmakers could use it by approving or withholding a Pentagon budget, or by taking the same approach to funding for the State Department.
Whether Democrats would take those steps depends on their willingness to enter a confrontation with the administration. The remarks offered those funding decisions as possible ways to influence foreign policy, without saying Democrats had committed to using them.
Ukraine aid illustrated the limits of Congress's authority. Lawmakers can approve assistance, but the president can veto it. Even when Congress sets aside money, lawmakers cannot compel the president to distribute the aid simply by approving the funds.
“Congress can appropriate all the money it wants.” Forcing the executive branch to spend that money as directed requires a willingness to threaten other actions the administration opposes. Approving aid and securing its delivery are therefore separate hurdles.
The administration's failure to spend money as Congress directed had affected a wide range of policy areas over the past two years. The remarks did not identify individual spending disputes or provide amounts for money that had gone unspent.
One possible response would tie funding for the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the federal budget, to compliance with congressional spending instructions. The example was a threat to cut the office's budget by $1 million a day until the administration spent money as directed.
That example was a hypothetical means of applying pressure, rather than an announced congressional measure. The alternative was a political change in which Republican lawmakers stopped seeing their interests as inseparable from Trump's and pressed the administration to act differently.
The remarks left open whether Democrats would use funding threats or whether Republicans would change their approach. They offered no commitment to either course and no timetable for resolving the dispute over spending.
