Trump says all foreign aid should be made as loans as national debt surpasses $34 trillion

Former President Donald Trump said that all foreign aid should be issued as loans from this point forward, rather than giveaways, as the United States is more than $34 trillion in debt. 

In a post Saturday on Truth Social, which was originally in all capital letters, Trump wrote: "From this point forward, are you listening U.S. Senate(?), no money in the form of foreign aid should be given to any country unless it is done as a loan, not just a giveaway. It can be loaned on extraordinarily good terms, like no interest and an unlimited life, but a loan nevertheless." 

Trump singled out the U.S. Senate as it is considering a foreign aid package that would allocate more than $95 billion to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as humanitarian assistance to Gaza. 

"The deal should be (contingent!) that the U.S. is helping you, as a nation, but if the country we are helping ever turns against us, or strikes it rich sometime in the future, the loan will be paid off and the money returned to the United States," Trump also wrote. "We should never give money anymore without the hope of a payback, or without 'strings' attached. The United States of America should be 'stupid' no longer!"

U.S. debt topped $34 trillion in January for the first time in the nation's history. 

Trump's criticism of foreign aid also comes after Senate Republicans blocked a $118 billion deal last week that would have allocated money to both the border and foreign aid. 

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