President Donald Trump is terminating $4 billion in funding for California‘s high-speed rail project, which aims to connect Los Angeles with other major cities in the state, he announced Wednesday.
Trump terminated the project’s funding because it has cost taxpayers “hundreds of billions” and is “disastrously overpriced.”
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“To the Law-abiding, Tax-paying, Hardworking Citizens of the United States of America, I am thrilled to announce that I have officially freed you from funding California’s disastrously overpriced, ‘HIGH SPEED TRAIN TO NOWHERE.’ 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 in a Truth Social post.
“The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will,” he added. “This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED. Thanks to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, not a SINGLE penny in Federal Dollars will go towards this Newscum SCAM ever again. This was an ill-conceived and unnecessary project, and a total waste of Taxpayer money — But no more!”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the money amounted to unspent federal funds and that the project hasn’t produced any track after “16 years and roughly $15 billion spent.”
“This is California’s fault,” Duffy said in a statement. “Governor Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years. Federal dollars are not a blank check; they come with a promise to deliver results. After over a decade of failures, CHSRA’s mismanagement and incompetence has proven it cannot build its train to nowhere on time or on budget. It’s time for this boondoggle to die.”
Governor Newsom and California’s high speed rail boondoggle are the definition of government incompetence and possibly corruption.
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) July 16, 2025
The price tag has gone from $33B to $135B with no completion date in sight.
We could give every single LA & SF resident almost 200 free flights… pic.twitter.com/19lyBzPZ62
The Department of Transportation shared a letter from Federal Railroad Administration acting Director Drew Feeley to California High Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri justifying the cuts by saying that he does not believe the rail will be finished by its deadline of Dec. 31, 2033.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) said they will fight the action and will consider their options.
“Trump wants to hand China the future and abandon the Central Valley. We won’t let him. With projects like the Texas high-speed rail failing to take off, we are miles ahead of others. We’re now in the track-laying phase and building America’s only high-speed rail. California is putting all options on the table to fight this illegal action,” Newsom said in a statement.
Choudri said pulling the funding is illegal. “These are legally binding agreements, and the Authority has met every obligation, as confirmed by repeated federal reviews, as recently as February 2025,” he said in a statement. “America’s only high-speed rail project underway is fast approaching the track-laying phase, with 171 miles under active construction and design, 15,500 jobs created, and more than 50 major structures completed. This is no time for Washington to walk away on America’s transportation future.”
Newsom’s office said the project has completed an environmental review “spanning 463 miles from Los Angeles to the Bay Area” and broke ground on the railhead in January. They wrote that the project will transport passengers “between 2030 and 2033.”
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The project is the country’s largest high-speed rail plan and aims to allow passengers to travel up to 220 mph on the proposed trains.
America is unlike nations in Europe, where high-speed rail is common. China also has an extensive high-speed rail network.