Trump administration pulls $4bn in funds for high-speed rail in California

United States President Donald Trump has pulled the plug on $4bn in funding for a long-delayed high-speed rail line in California, blasting the project as a “boondoggle” and a “train to nowhere”.

Trump said in a social media post on Wednesday that he had “freed” taxpayers from the “disastrously overpriced” proposed railway linking Los Angeles and San Francisco, which has been plagued by delays and cost overruns.

“This boondoggle, led by the incompetent Governor of California, Gavin Newscum, has cost Taxpayers Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we have received NOTHING in return except Cost Overruns,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, using a nickname he commonly deploys to mock the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.

“The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will.”

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy accused Democrats of wasting taxpayers’ money and said federal money was not a “blank cheque”.

“It’s time for this boondoggle to die,” Duffy said in a statement.

Newsom slammed the Trump administration’s move as illegal and said the state would put “all options on the table” to oppose the funding cut.

“Trump wants to hand China the future and abandon the Central Valley. We won’t let him,” Newsom said in a statement.

The 1,249km (776-mile) rail line, which was approved by California voters in a 2008 plebiscite, was initially envisaged for completion in 2020 at a cost of $33bn.

The project’s estimated cost has since ballooned to $89bn to $128bn with services not expected to begin until 2033 at the earliest.

The US currently does not have a high-speed rail service, but a 354km (220-mile) high-speed link between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is scheduled to begin operations in 2028.