White House proposes to cut sharply to the State Department and provide funding for the United Nations, NATO and other groups | World News
Washington: The White House Office of Management and Budget has proposed to reduce the State Department’s budget by nearly 50%, shutting down many overseas diplomatic missions, cutting the number of diplomatic personnel, and eliminating funding from almost all international organizations, including the United Nations, many agencies, and NATO headquarters.
The proposal, presented to the State Department last week, is still in a highly preliminary stage and is not expected to pass the department’s leadership or Congress, and will eventually require a vote on the entire federal budget in the coming months. Officials familiar with the proposal say it still has to go through several rounds of review before it can reach lawmakers who have revised and even rejected White House budget requirements in the past. While the proposal is preliminary, it shows the priorities of the Trump administration and aligns with a large amount of federal work and cuts in funding, from the Department of Health and Human Services to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Notes from internal meetings in the online chat group of diplomats have been distributed in the online chat group since the weekend, but the State Department was about to propose a separate irrelevant restructuring plan to OMB since Monday. A senior U.S. official familiar with the OMB proposal called it “motivation” in cutting costs, but also stressed that it was an early outline reflecting what OMB chief Russell tried to do in his first administration while he was in the same job as President Donald Trump. The official discussed the internal management review on anonymity.
Two people familiar with the matter also confirmed the proposal, one of which also said it originated in OMB. “The final funding decision has not been made yet,” said OMB spokesman Alexandra McCandless. OMB’s efforts to severely lower the State Department’s budget during Trump’s first term were fiercely resisted on Capitol Hill and largely failed.
But Trump’s second administration has acted quickly to reduce the federal government and cut the work and funding of agencies. It has been removed from the US Agency for International Development and has revoked the foreign policy importance of so-called other “soft power” institutions such as Voice of America, Free Europe Broadcasting, Middle East Broadcasting Network, Radio Free Asia and Radio/TV Marti, which broadcast to Cuba.
As a result, State Council officials and others have expressed increasing concern about the possibility of actually implementing the proposed drastic cuts. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democratic New Hampshire, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said she was “deeply troubled” by the proposed cuts.
“When the United States becomes the United States first, our economy, security and prosperity will suffer from the gaps left by the Trump administration,” Shahain said in a statement. “Investing in diplomatic programs that promote peace and stability and improving U.S. national security interests is a common sense priority and should be reflected in the State Department’s budget request.
