White House says it will use tariff money to fund nutrition program amid shutdown

The White House said Tuesday it will use money from tariff revenue to fund a supplemental nutrition program facing a funding shortage amid the ongoing government shutdown.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on the social platform X that President Trump and the White House had identified the “creative solution” to shift tariff funds to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, commonly known as WIC, which was set to run out of money in the coming days.

“The Trump White House will not allow impoverished mothers and their babies to go hungry because of the Democrats’ political games,” Leavitt said.

It was not immediately clear how much money the Trump administration intended to infuse into the WIC program, or whether the White House could reallocate the funds without Congress. President Trump has regularly suggested funds brought in from tariffs on imports could be used for other purposes, mainly paying down the deficit.

WIC provides vouchers to low-income families to buy infant formula and other healthy foods. Millions of American rely on the program, which faced a funding crisis after Congress failed to pass appropriations bills at the end of the fiscal year.

Some states had indicated they would dip into their own funds to help cover WIC costs, but not all states could afford to do so, and it was not clear how long that would be sustainable.

The government shutdown was set to hit the one-week mark early Wednesday morning after Senate Democrats blocked the GOP’s “clean” stopgap funding bill from advancing for a fifth time on Monday.

Democrats are demanding the stopgap bill include an extension of Affordable Care Act premium tax credits that are slated to expire at the end of the year.