Trump signs budget to avoid US government shutdown

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Friday he had signed a compromise budget deal adopted by Congress despite being "unhappy" with many of its provisions -- thereby averting what would have been the third government shutdown of 2018.

"As a matter of national security, I've signed this omnibus budget bill," Trump said in a statement from the White House, hours after tweeting a threat to veto the measure.

"There are a lot of things I'm unhappy about in this bill. There are a lot of things we shouldn't have had in this bill but we were, in a sense, forced (to have) if we want to build our military," he added.