Trump's 'magic' budget: cuts to environment and health, more spending on defence and security

An American budget that flies Maga flags, with drastic cuts of 163 billion dollars to environmental and renewable energy programmes, social spending and public health, education and diversity initiatives denounced as 'woke', foreign aid. Increases instead for security, border security against migrants, alongside the Pentagon and law enforcement: the 'security budget' grows by 13% and exceeds one trillion, a record and almost double the rest of US discretionary spending.

Donald Trump has finalised his first federal budget proposal since taking office in the White House. Guidelines known as the 'skinny budget', because they present without too many details recommendations for the fiscal year 2026, coming up in October. They translate the priorities and values of the new presidency into big numbers: a profound transformation of the role of government, which becomes the vanguard of its conservative crusades.

The initial diktats will be followed by a more comprehensive document towards the end of the month. All of the president's wishes, starting as of last night with the skinny budget, are forwarded to Congress, the real author of financial laws. And from the House Trump has already made it clear that he expects this and more: by the summer he wants a ten-year 'big, beautiful bill', centred on generalised tax cuts of 4.5 trillion, including renewed and strengthened tax measures. The Senate and the House, with a Republican majority, are debating the project in order to pass it by 4 July, although delays have emerged in the face of the complexity of finding resources to finance it (they have identified at most 1.5 trillion in cuts).

The fiscal offensives in gestation at the White House do not stop there: they include a 'retroactive' package, prepared by budget chief Russell Vought, one of the brains behind the Project 2025 agenda. It intends to rescind funds now earmarked for 2025, some 9 billion that include humanitarian aid and support for public broadcasting.

However, the new budget becomes the symbolic yet indispensable stepping stone of Trump's fiscal design: it proposes 557 billion in discretionary spending, excluding defence, which the White House estimates represents a 22.6 per cent reduction. Among the programmes that vanish Head Start, childcare for less affluent families, and 40 billion subtracted from healthcare, from rural hospitals to teenage pregnancy prevention. Much of the funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education has been cancelled.