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Trump administration pledged billions in aid and investment to strengthen government and economic development in Central America and southern Mexico. This move is a massive change from previous threats of slashing funding to Central American countries from President Donald Trump over the arrival of thousands of migrants at the border hoping to claim asylum in the United States. The U.S totally pledged $5.8 billion in aid and investment for Central America and $4.8 billion in development aid for southern Mexico. The pledge was announced in a joint U.S-Mexico statement released by the U.S State Department and read out by Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard in Mexico City.

The U.S State Department said, “The United States is committing $5.8 billion through public and private investment to promote institutional reforms and development in the Northern Triangle”. Ebrard said that the announcement came as just good news, but very good news for Mexico”. Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador echoed those sentiments and said that he hopes the investment would help deter people from wanting to leave Mexico and Central America. He said, “I have a dream that I want to see become a reality—that nobody will want to go to work in the U.S. anymore”.

The funding promise from Trump comes just weeks after he vowed to start cutting off or at least substantially reducing foreign aid for Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. He blamed the 3 countries of failing to stop a caravan of Central Americans from making their way to the United States. Trump’s threat put in peril as much as a combined $180 million in foreign assistance planned for the fiscal year 2019.