In this case, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said Tuesday's gift would go to a new grant program called Infrastructure for Building America. The program is intended to give high priority to state and local governments that have raised their own funds before asking for federal help.
The Transportation Department said this program has not made any grants yet, although it is already considering applications. Trump's donation will be a tiny fraction of the whole: The program is expected to give away about $1.5 billion, with the rest supplied by taxpayers.
Previously, Trump announced quarterly donations to the National Park Service, the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Park Service grant will be spent to fix a historic fence and house at Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland, a park official said. The other two donations are intended for programs that do not exist yet: a science-based camp at the Department of Education and an opioid-awareness program at Health and Human Services.
Trump's presidential budget, unveiled on Monday, included a call to spend $200 billion on infrastructure projects over the coming decade. At the same time, Democrats said they had found Trump had proposed cutting more than that amount — at least $240 billion — from existing infrastructure programs.