Pentagon to transfer $604m from Afghan forces fighting Taliban to fund Trump's border wall

Some are concerned loss of funds may weaken Afghan forces in fight against Taliban

Acting US defence secretary Patrick Shanahan has approved the transfer of $1.5bn of funds to pay for Donald Trump’s border wall.

The funds for the border wall, which was one of the president's best known campaign promises, are being pulled from an account meant for Afghan security forces in a sum of $604m, according to a report from Reuters.

The US delegated $4.9bn in support of the forces in 2018.

Some were concerned a loss of funds may weaken the Afghan forces fight against the Taliban, but a US official claims that the government found savings in contracts.

“The funds were drawn from a variety of sources, including cost savings, programmatic changes and revised requirements, and therefore will have minimal impact on force readiness.” Mr Shanahan said in a statement.

The transfer of funds was met with resistance from some democrats, particularly from Dick Durbin of Illinois, who serves on the appropriations defense subcommittee.

Mr Durbin tweeted on Friday: “Today, the defence department will divert another $1.5bin from our military to the “big & beautiful” border wall. The Pentagon has now reprogrammed 12 times more money to the wall than for repairs at Tyndall AFB, destroyed by Hurricane Michael. We should put troops first!”

Other democrats came out against the transfer, most notably all of the democrats currently on the defence and military construction subcommittees. In a joint letter, the group said “We are dismayed that the department has chosen to prioritise a political campaign promise over the disaster relief needs of our service members, given the finite reprogramming authority available.”

Reuters reports that the remainder of the money will be sourced from a chemical demilitarisation programme, a retirement account, and funds for Pakistan and Air Force programmes.