Trump Signs Bill To End Longest US Government Shutdown In History

US President Donald Trump signed the spending package on Wednesday night, formally ending the shutdown. The House voted 222 to 209 to pass the interim funding, drawing opposition from most Democrats.

Fully restarting the federal bureaucracy after the longest US government shutdown in history could still take days. According to a Bloomberg report, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told reporters he anticipated waiting a week to start lifting flight restrictions at major airports.

The prolonged government shutdown has taken a toll on the US economy. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a six-week closure would reduce real gross domestic product growth for the current quarter by around 1.5 percentage points. The agency expects a little more than half of that loss to be recovered early next year, once federal programmes resume and government employees receive their back pay, reported Bloomberg.

Trump has claimed the end of the shutdown as a political victory, telling reporters earlier this week that his stance had forced Democrats to compromise. However, analysts note that the economic and political impact of previous shutdowns has tended to fade quickly and is unlikely to significantly influence voter sentiment by the time of the 2026 midterm elections, reported Bloomberg.

The shutdown is concluding in a familiar pattern, similar to previous funding standoffs since they became common in the late 1970s: the side attempting to use the shutdown as leverage for policy concessions has ultimately backed down under public pressure.

Senate Democrats used procedural tactics to block a Republican-backed temporary funding bill aimed at keeping the government open, relying on Senate rules that require 60 votes to overcome determined opposition. Eventually, seven Senate Democrats and one Democratic-aligned independent broke ranks to support a new stopgap spending measure. In return, they secured a promise of a Senate vote on extending Obamacare subsidies by mid-December.

Nonetheless, the fate of that extension remains uncertain. Even if it passes in the Senate, House Speaker Mike Johnson has declined to guarantee a vote in the House, raising the likelihood that the issue will re-emerge as a political flashpoint in the run-up to the 2026 elections.

The new interim funding bill finances most government operations through Jan. 30, setting up the possibility of another budget confrontation early next year. However, key programmes such as food stamps are secure until Sept. 30, as are the budgets for the Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments, the Food and Drug Administration, military construction projects, and Congress itself.

The bill also includes a ban on federal layoffs until Jan. 30 — a condition pushed by Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, who represents a large number of federal workers in the Washington suburbs and worked with other centrist Democrats to support the stopgap measure.

Progressive groups have criticised centrist Democrats for compromising on health care priorities during the negotiations. Activist organisations such as MoveOn have gone further, calling for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to resign, though there is little indication that his fellow Democrats in the Senate are rallying behind that demand.