President Donald Trump’s administration has raised the stakes in a showdown with US Senate Democrats over a looming partial government shutdown, threatening to permanently remove workers from some federal agencies if funding runs out next week.

Late Wednesday, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) — which has played a key role in Trump’s campaign to reduce the size of government — sent a memo out to federal agencies. It instructed the departments to identify programmes, projects and activities where discretionary funding will lapse on October 1 if the US Congress does not pass legislation to keep the federal government open.

“Programs that did not benefit from an infusion of mandatory appropriations will bear the brunt of a shutdown,” it said.

The memo, which the White

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