President Donald Trump recently read a list of absurd spending projects that tax dollars have funded in recent years. Trump outlined bizarre international initiatives that spent tens of millions of tax dollars, including $10 million for circumcisions in Mozambique and $25 million for biodiversity in Colombia.
In the first few weeks of his second term, Trump has unleashed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, charging him with cutting wasteful spending, identifying and eliminating fraud, and improving the efficiency of the federal government to work in the interest of United States taxpayers.
“Where’s the money being spent? Right? Let’s go into that for just a second,” Trump began. “$520 million
for a consultant on the environment. It’s called Environmental Social and Governance Investments in Africa and mobilizes private sector resources. $520 million, somebody got $520 million for an environmental sounds like an environmental studies.”
Trump quipped, “I’ve always been one that paid a lot of money for my environmental studies, but they, you know, I paid like $50,000 not 520 million. $520 million for ESG.” He continued, “$25 million to promote biodiversity conservation and promote licit livelihoods by developing socially responsible behavior in the country of Colombia. Well, it’s nice 25 million down to Columbia for something that nobody ever heard of, $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants.”
“$42 million for Johns Hopkins, great place, to research and drive social and behavior change in Uganda. 42 million,” Trump said, before questioning why the United States is not receiving that money for domestic initiatives. “What about us? What about social change in our country?” he asked.
Running down the list, Trump stated, “$70 million for a center at Purdue to research university sourced, evidence based solutions to developmental challenges. I mean, these are massive numbers on things that nobody ever heard about. Ten million for Mozambique voluntary medical male circumcisions. Ten million for circumcisions in another country.”
“$9.7 million for UC Berkeley. To develop a co a cohort of Cambodian youth with enterprise driven skills. In other words, let’s teach them something about enterprise,” Trump read. Once again, the president asked why the American people were not the recipients of this grant. “What about our people? Can we teach them about enterprise?”
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Watch the president below:
“$2.3 million for strengthening independent voices in Cambodia. $32 million to the Prague Civil Society Center, which is a very liberal group of people. Wonder how much of that money came back to the people that approved it,” he said questioning the dynamics behind the decision to allocate that tens of millions of tax dollars.
Trump laster said, “$21 million for voter turnout in India. Well, why are we giving $21 million to India? They got a lot of money. They’re one of the highest taxing countries in the world in terms of us. We can hardly get in there, because their tariffs are so high. I have a lot of respect for India. I have a lot of respect for the prime minister just left, as you know, two days ago, but we’re given $21 million for voter turnout. It’s voter turnout in India. What about like voter turnout here?”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.