The longest shutdown in US history has ended

US President Donald Trump has signed a government funding bill, ending the longest shutdown in US history, which lasted 43 days and caused significant losses to the country’s agricultural sector – in particular due to the lack of key USDA reports.

Trump signed the bill a few hours after it was approved by the House of Representatives by a vote of 222 to 209. The Senate approved the bill a few days earlier. Six Democrats left their party to vote for the bill.

Trump’s signature on the bill will allow federal employees, including thousands of employees of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) who were on leave due to the 43-day shutdown, to return to work as early as Thursday.

At the same time, the adopted bill is a compromise because it provides temporary funding for the government – until January 30, 2026. The deal also leaves unresolved the issue of the expiration of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) tax breaks, which most Democrats have demanded be extended as part of any deal to reopen the government.

The spending standoff has been the biggest showdown between Democrats and Republicans in Congress since Trump returned to the White House earlier this year. It has led to unprecedented disruptions to government services, with the Trump administration ordering commercial air travel across the country to be cut and the largest federal food assistance program to be suspended for the first time.

The shutdown began on October 1, placing about 700,000 federal employees on unpaid leave. Hundreds of thousands more, from active-duty military personnel to law enforcement officers and airport security guards, have remained on the job without pay.

Many economists estimate that the shutdown of the economy reduced gross domestic product by more than one-tenth of a percentage point during each of the roughly six weeks of the shutdown, although most of the lost output is expected to be made up in the coming months.

Tags: USA