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WASHINGTON: Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday he believes US military members will be paid at the end of the week, though he did not specify how the Trump administration will reconfigure funding as pain from the second-longest shutdown spreads nationwide.
The funding fight in Washington gained new urgency this week as millions of Americans face the prospect of losing food assistance, more federal workers miss their first full paycheck and recurring delays at airports snarl travel plans.
“We do think that we can continue paying the troops, at least for now,” Vance told reporters after lunch with Senate Republicans at the Capitol. “We’ve got food stamp benefits that are set to run out in a week. We’re trying to keep as much open as possible. We just need the Democrats to actually help us out.”
The vice president reaffirmed Republicans’ strategy of trying to pick off a handful of Senate Democrats to vote for stopgap funding to reopen the government. But nearly a month into the shutdown, it hasn’t worked. Just before Vance’s visit, a Senate vote on legislation to reopen the government failed for the 13th time.
Federal employee union calls for end to shutdown
The strain is building on Democratic lawmakers to end the impasse. That was magnified by the nation’s largest federal employee union, which on Monday called on Congress to immediately pass a funding bill and ensure workers receive full pay. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the two political parties have made their point.
“It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship,” said Kelley, whose union carries considerable political weight with Democratic lawmakers.
Still, Democratic senators, including those representing states with many federal workers, did not appear ready to back down. Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said he was insisting on commitments from the White House to prevent the administration from mass firing more workers. Democrats also want Congress to extend subsidies for health plans under the Affordable Care Act.
“We’ve got to get a deal with Donald Trump,” Kaine said.
But shutdowns grow more painful the longer they go. Soon, with closures lasting a fourth full week as of Tuesday, millions of Americans are likely to experience the difficulties firsthand.
“This week, more than any other week, the consequences become impossible to ignore,” said Rep. Lisa McClain, chair of the House Republican Conference.
How will Trump administration reconfigure funds?
The nation’s 1.3 million active duty service members were at risk of missing a paycheck on Friday. Earlier this month, the Trump administration ensured they were paid by shifting $8 billion from military research and development funds to make payroll. Vance did not say Tuesday how the Department of Defense will cover troop pay this time.
Larger still, the Trump administration says funding will run out Friday for the food assistance program that is relied upon by 42 million Americans to supplement their grocery bills. The administration has rejected the use of more than $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits flowing into November. And it says states won’t be reimbursed if they temporarily cover the cost of benefits next month.
A coalition of 25 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Massachusetts that aims to keep SNAP benefits flowing by compelling the Agriculture Department to use the SNAP contingency funds.
Vance said that reconfiguring funds for various programs such as SNAP was like “trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with the budget.”
The Agriculture Department says the contingency fund is intended to help respond to emergencies such as natural disasters. Democrats say the decision concerning the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, goes against the department’s previous guidance concerning its operations during a shutdown.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the administration made an intentional choice not to the fund SNAP in November, calling it an “act of cruelty.”
Another program endangered by the shutdown is Head Start, with more than 130 preschool programs not getting federal grants on Saturday if the shutdown continues, according to the National Head Start Association. All told, more than 65,000 seats at Head Start programs across the country could be affected.
Judge blocks firings
A federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday indefinitely barred the Trump administration from firing federal employees during the government shutdown, saying that labor unions were likely to prevail on their claims that the cuts were arbitrary and politically motivated.
US District Judge Susan Illston granted a preliminary injunction that bars the firings while a lawsuit challenging them plays out. She had previously issued a temporary restraining order against the job cuts that was set to expire Wednesday.
Federal agencies are enjoined from issuing layoff notices or acting on notices issued since the government shut down Oct. 1. Illston said that her order does not apply to notices sent before the shutdown.
Will lawmakers find a solution?
At the Capitol, congressional leaders mostly highlighted the challenges many Americans are facing as a result of the shutdown. But there was no movement toward negotiations as they attempted to lay blame on the other side of the political aisle.
“Now government workers and every other American affected by this shutdown have become nothing more than pawns in the Democrats’ political games,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
The House passed a short-term continuing resolution on Sept. 19 to keep federal agencies funded. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, has kept the House out of legislative session ever since, saying the solution is for Democrats to simply accept that bill.
But the Senate has consistently fallen short of the 60 votes needed to advance that spending measure. Democrats insist that any bill to fund the government also address health care costs, namely the soaring health insurance premiums that millions of Americans will face next year under plans offered through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
Window-shopping for health plans delayed
When asked about his strategy for ending the shutdown, Schumer said that millions of Americans will begin seeing on Saturday how much their health insurance is going up next year.
“People in more than 30 states are going to be aghast, aghast when they see their bills,” Schumer said. “And they are going to cry out, and I believe there will be increased pressure on Republicans to negotiate.”
The window for enrolling in ACA health plans begins Saturday. In past years, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has allowed Americans to preview their health coverage options about a week before open enrollment. But, as of Tuesday, Healthcare.gov appeared to show 2025 health insurance plans and estimated prices, instead of next year’s options.
Republicans insist they will not entertain negotiations on health care until the government reopens.
“I’m particularly worried about premiums going up for working families,” said Sen. David McCormick, R-Pennsylvania “So we’re going to have that conversation, but we’re not going to have it until the government opens.”

TOKYO: US President Donald Trump heads Wednesday for South Korea, where a key meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping could produce a truce in the blistering trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
Trump’s two-day visit to key US ally South Korea is the third leg of a trip to Asia that has seen him lauded at a regional summit in Malaysia and flattered as a “peacemaker” by Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
But the eyes of the world will be on a meeting set for Thursday — the first time in six years Trump sits down with Xi.
It could determine whether the United States and China can halt a trade war that has roiled global markets and sent international supply chains into panic.
Negotiators from Beijing and Washington have both confirmed a “framework” has been agreed.
It is now down to Trump and Xi, who will meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the city of Gyeongju, to sign off on it.
“There seems to be a mismatch in terms of where both countries are, heading into the Trump-Xi summit,” said William Yang, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
The United States “is eager to reach any trade deal that Trump could declare as a victory,” while China is focused on “building more mutual trust, managing longstanding differences, and steadying the bilateral trade relationship,” he added.

- ‘Complicated’ -

Trump is due to land in the South Korean city of Busan, fresh from two days in Tokyo, where Japan’s new conservative premier Takaichi hailed a “golden age” in bilateral ties.
The US president will head to Gyeongju for a summit with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung — their second in-person talks just two months after a meeting in Washington.
Discussion will likely be focused on trade, with the two sides still deadlocked over a deal between the major economic partners.
In July, Trump said Washington had agreed to cut tariffs on South Korean imports to 15 percent in exchange for a $350 billion investment pledge by Seoul.
Steep auto tariffs, however, remain in place, and the two governments remain divided over the structure of the investment pledge.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent admitted Monday there was still “a lot of details to work out” in what he said was a “complicated” deal, while Trump has denied that there was a “snag” in the talks.
Activists plan to welcome the US leader, whose sweeping tariffs triggered the trade war, with anti-Trump demonstrations in Gyeongju condemning his “predatory investment demands.”

- DMZ meeting? -

Adding to the diplomatic high drama, Trump has also extended an invitation to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to meet while he is on the peninsula.
The two leaders last met in 2019 at the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), the fraught Cold War frontier that has separated the two Koreas for decades.
Trump has said that he would “love to meet” Kim and even suggested sanctions could be a topic for conversation.
But North Korea is yet to respond publicly to the invitation. Officials in Seoul appear divided as to whether it will go ahead.
Kim said last month he had “fond memories” of his meetings with Trump.
He also expressed openness to talks if the United States dropped its “delusional” demand that Pyongyang give up its nuclear weapons.
“Trump’s made it clear he wants to meet,” Chad O’Carroll, founder of the specialist website NK News, told AFP.
“The ball is in Kim Jong Un’s court.”
But the US leader now faces a different Kim than in 2019 — one emboldened since their diplomatic love affair during Trump’s first term, having secured crucial backing from Russia after sending thousands of North Korean troops to fight alongside Moscow’s forces.
“North Korea has time on its side and isn’t as isolated as before,” said Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification.
“A surprise event to show personal rapport is possible, but a negotiation with tangible results — like denuclearization talks — will not happen,” he told AFP.