VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Entering the New Year 2019, the United States federal government once again stopped the operation of some federal government agencies known as “shutdown”. In United States politics, a government shutdown occurs when Congress fails to pass, or the President refuses to sign, appropriations legislation funding federal government operations and agencies.This kind of problem had actually occurred in the first year of President Donald Trump's administration. The reason for the current shutdown is the negotiation issue over the 2019 Budget due to disputes between the Government and Congress. President Donald Trump and Congress on December 22, 2018 faced a deadlock in terms of budget approval to build the country's border wall with Mexico. Back in the beginning of 2018, part of the United States federal government agencies also experienced a weeklong shutdown. Unlike this year, the cause of the shutdown was the failure to reach an agreement on the immigration policy of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the deportation of people who were part of the program. Although not exactly the same, the main cause of both shutdowns was the problem of migration and immigration.This year, the difference in view between the government and Congress is the demand of President Donald Trump for Congress to approve a budget of 5 billion dollars to build a border wall with Mexico. Though towards the close of the year Donald Trump declared canceling his demands, the deadlock still happened. The congressional element questioned the budget proposal because while campaigning Donald Trump had stated that the financing of the construction of the barrier wall would be funded by Mexico. It became a problem when Trump would eventually finance the construction of the border wall by using tax payers’ fund.The case of a shutdown at the beginning of the year did not only occur in the era of Donald Trump. It had already occurred during the previous administrations.For other countries, the shutdown of a number of United States federal government agencies has no significant impact. One possibility is only the delay in US assistance to certain countries whose commitments were made early in the year, and could be constrained due to the non-operation of the institutions that deal with it. In addition, domestic problems that have caused a shutdown, may only provide an overview of the turmoil of US domestic politics which has an impact on budget approval.