Trump officially pulls $4bn in funding for California High Speed Rail

A viaduct constructed to carry California high-speed rail over the San Joaquin River. (Image: California High-Speed Rail Authority)

US President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy had already signalled that the project was likely to lose access to the funds.

In a social media post yesterday (16 July), Trump called the project “severely overpriced, overregulated, and never delivered”.

Duffy described it as a “boondoggle” and claimed “not one high speed track” has been laid by the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA), after 16 years and $15 billion spent.

In addition to cancelling the $4 billion in unspent funds to CHSRA, Duffy said he has instructed the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to review other obligated and unobligated grants to the project.

The move comes after a 300-page report published by the FRA Compliance Review Board in June found that the project was “in default of the terms of its federal grant awards”.

But CHSRA CEO Ian Choudri disputed this. In response to Duffy’s announcement, he said, “Cancelling these grants without cause isn’t just wrong — it’s illegal. These are legally binding agreements, and the Authority has met every obligation, as confirmed by repeated federal reviews, as recently as February 2025. 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.”

Voters approved $10 billion for California High-Speed Rail in 2008 and the Transportation Department under former President Joe Biden awarded the project another $4 billion.

The project has seen sharply rising costs. Its original estimated cost was $40 billion but estimates now put that at anywhere between $89 billion to $128 billion for the entire line, running from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

A shorter section between Merced and Bakersfield will now cost more than the original total, according to the US Department of Transportation.

In a politically charged statement about the decision to remove the funding, Duffy said, “This is California’s fault. Governor Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years. Federal dollars are not a blank cheque – 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.”

Newsom vowed to continue with the project. In a response to the Department of Transportation’s announcement, he said, “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.”