
The Trump budget would completely zero out funding for the U.S. Institute for Peace, contributing a whopping $35 million to its $15.2 billion in proposed cuts. (Wikipedia photo)
The Trump administration’s 2018 budget request is out. Though the next year’s budget request to Congress is normally due the first Monday in February, a new administration is traditionally given a few months (usually until sometime in April) to come up with the whole thing.
The document that came out today is called the “skinny budget,” because it contains very little detail. We don’t know yet what worldwide programs would be cut by how much—much less which countries would get what.
What we can see today is skinny, but it’s horrifying. It proposes cutting all diplomacy and foreign assistance by 29 percent in one year: from $52.8 billion in 2016 to $37.6 billion in 2018.
Imagine that: trying to slice nearly one out of every three dollars from all embassies and all assistance, both military and economic, worldwide. Abruptly, for a fiscal year that starts on October 1.
By the time this gets through Congress, there will probably be cuts, though they won’t be this deep. Leading Republican appropriators, especially Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), chairman of the subcommittee that drafts the foreign aid bill, have already objected. (The phrase Graham used was “dead on arrival.”)
But for now, imagine that it was your job to cut this key government function by nearly one-third, as the White House proposes. Here are the diplomacy and foreign aid accounts, as they appeared in the 2016 State and Foreign Operations budget appropriation [PDF]. (That’s the last time Congress passed a budget bill; we currently continue at 2016 levels.) What on earth would you cut to get down to $37.6 billion?
Item (including “overseas contingency” funds) | Amount, millions of US$ |
---|---|
All administration of foreign affairs (diplomacy, embassy security, cultural programs, etc.) | 11,439 |
Global Health Programs | 8,503 |
Foreign Military Financing | 6,026 |
($3.1 billion of the above account goes to Israel, and the Trump administration’s 2018 budget proposal won’t cut it.) | |
Economic Support Fund | 4,318 |
Migration and Refugee Assistance | 3,059 |
International Disaster Assistance | 2,794 |
Development Assistance | 2,781 |
Contributions to international peacekeeping missions | 2,461 |
USAID administration | 1,517 |
Contributions to all international organizations (UN, OAS, etc.) | 1,446 |
International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement | 1,267 |
World Bank International Development Association | 1,197 |
(Everything below this row makes up only 13 percent of the total) | |
Assistance for Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia | 930 |
Millennium Challenge Corporation | 901 |
Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining and Related Programs | 885 |
International broadcasting | 750 |
Peacekeeping Operations | 600 |
Peace Corps | 410 |
Assistance through international organizations | 339 |
African Development Bank | 210 |
World Bank International Bank for Reconstruction and Development | 187 |
World Bank Clean Technology Fund | 171 |
National Endowment for Democracy | 170 |
World Bank Global Environment Facility | 168 |
Democracy Fund | 151 |
International commissions | 123 |
International Military Education and Training | 108 |
Asian Development Fund | 105 |
Inter-American Development Bank | 102 |
U.S.-Mexico Boundary and Water Commission | 74 |
Transition Initiatives | 67 |
Trade and Development Agency | 60 |
Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund | 50 |
World Bank Strategic Climate Fund | 50 |
Global Agriculture and Food Security Program | 43 |
United States Institute of Peace | 35 |
International Fund for Agricultural Development | 32 |
U.S. African Development Foundation | 30 |
USAID Complex Crises Fund | 30 |
International Affairs Technical Assistance | 24 |
Inter-American Foundation | 23 |
Asia Foundation | 17 |
East-West Center | 17 |
North American Development Bank | 10 |
Development Credit Authority | 8 |
Asian Development Bank | 6 |
Commission on International Religious Freedom | 4 |
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission | 4 |
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe | 3 |
Congressional-Executive Commission on the People’s Republic of China | 2 |
Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad | 1 |