Aid agencies and experts slam Trump’s proposed spending cuts

The US president's first budget, unveiled on Tuesday, eliminates funding for the UN children’s agency, Unicef, as part of a $780 million cut to international organisations.

A photo dated August 27, 2012 shows Syrian children playing in front of their tent at Zaatari Syrian refugee camp in Mafraq, Jordan. Jamal Nasrallah/EPA

New York // Humanitarian agencies, international development experts and some Republicans have condemned proposed cuts of billions of dollars to US aid and diplomatic spending, calling for Congress to block Donald Trump’s first budget.

They warn an emerging “Trump doctrine” of using aid for geostrategic purposes consigns millions of people to hardship.

The State Department, the arm of US diplomacy around the world, is one of the biggest losers. The Trump cuts would slash about 32 per cent from diplomatic and aid budgets, or about $19 billion (Dh70bn).

The spending plan, unveiled on Tuesday, eliminates funding for the UN children’s agency, Unicef, as part of a $780 million cut to international organisations.

It also includes cuts of about $850m to assistance to Middle Eastern and North African countries, according to the Project on Middle East Democracy.

Paul O’Brien, Oxfam America’s vice president for policy and campaigns, said Congress must block a budget that translated Mr Trump’s “America first” slogan into condemning the rest of the world to hell.

“President Trump’s budget proposal is immoral, short-sighted, and un-American. It would make the world more callous, reward oppression and violence, and damage long-term US interests,” he said.

“If enacted, this budget would mean death for many vulnerable women, children and men around the world.”

Overall, the blueprint for the financial year beginning in October reduces funding for most government departments to prepare the way for tax cuts coupled with greater military spending.

Global health programmes such as those to tackle HIV, malaria and tuberculosis would lose about a quarter of their US funding under the proposals.

American support for international peacekeeping would fall to about $1.5bn, less than half 2017 spending.

The United States is the biggest contributor to the United Nations, paying 22 per cent of its $5.4bn core budget and observers say they are still waiting to find out how cuts will affect the UN.

Congress controls the federal government’s budget and the polarised reactions to Mr Trump’s proposals shows a gulf between moderate and conservative Republicans – much as happened over plans for health care and tax reform.

Critics say the US risks losing its position of global leadership and that the new administration has underestimated the value of soft power wielded through international spending.

Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican chairman of the subcommittee responsible for diplomacy and foreign aid spending, said: “If we implemented this budget, you’d have to retreat from the world or put a lot of people at risk.”

He added that cuts to diplomatic security could lead to “a lot of Benghazi situations”, referring to the 2012 attack when militants killed four Americans in the Libyan city which some said was caused by economising on protection for US facilities.

Administration officials defended the cuts, saying they would better target American help to where it was needed.

Outlining the plans, Hari Sastry, director of the State Department’s office of US foreign assistance resources, said: “This budget still allows the United States to be the leader in humanitarian assistance and global health assistance, and it’s really looking to refocus our efforts into those areas that are closely aligned with the president’s priorities and also asking the rest of the world to step up and do a little bit more than they have in the past.”

Analysts said that attitude – aligning assistance with Mr Trump’s priorities - marked a break with the past, when global development programmes tended to receive bipartisan support rather than becoming the subject of political battles.

Scott Morris, a senior fellow at the Centre for Global Development, identified a “Trump doctrine” in a budget that protected aid to two key allies while cutting cash for disease eradication and humanitarian crises.

“Emerging from the president’s budget proposal is an approach that sees foreign aid overwhelmingly as an instrument of geostrategic interests,” he wrote. “Protecting military aid to Israel and Egypt amidst deep cuts elsewhere is one striking element of this approach.”

Peter Yeo, president of the Better World Campaign to promote relations between the US and UN, said campaigners would now work with Congress to to try to safeguard foreign spending.

“The United Nations and its agencies make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous,” he said. “However, the proposed cuts to the UN outlined in the administration’s budget request are highly problematic, as they would, if enacted, greatly undermine a range of peacekeeping operations and global health and humanitarian assistance programs that save lives and further US interests.”