Trump administration plans to completely cut off funding for UN and NATO - Washington Post
Donald Trump's administration proposes to cut the budget of the US State Department by almost half. Humanitarian aid may be cut by 54%, and funding for the UN and NATO may be cut off completely.
This is reported by the Washington Post, Censor.NET informs with reference to RBC-Ukraine.
The White House Office of Management and Budget memo offers to leave a total budget of $28.4 billion for all activities carried out by the State Department for the next fiscal year. That represents a decline of $27 billion from funding levels approved by Congress for 2025.
Under the proposed budget, which remains subject to deliberations within the administration and, crucially, in Congress, USAID is assumed to have become fully a part of the State Department. Humanitarian assistance would face cuts of 54 percent, while global health funding would fall by 55 percent.
Support for international organisations will be cut particularly sharply - by 90%. Funding for the UN, NATO and 20 other organizations would be ended, the memo states.
While contributions to several organisations, including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the International Civil Aviation Authority, would remain. The memo also describes a total cut in funding for international peacekeeping missions, citing "recent mission failures" without providing details.
It is unclear whether such steep cuts would secure approval in the Republican-controlled Congress. President Donald Trump’s aggressive bid to cut government spending and drastically reduce the federal workforce, including through the work of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, which led the dismantling of USAID, has faced strident opposition in some GOP districts.
The proposed funding cuts coincide with Trump’s attempt to reorient the United States’ relationship with the world, with Washington abruptly pulling back from its history of membership in international organizations and use of humanitarian assistance to build and maintain alliances.
The department, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a former US senator with a record of touting foreign engagement, is preparing its own downsizing plan that includes laying off tens of thousands of the department’s 80,000 employees and closing numerous U.S. consulates and facilities, said officials familiar with the matter. It’s unclear where the State Department may look to shutter facilities overseas.
In a statement issued after reviewing the memo, the American Foreign Service Association called on Congress to reject any budget that proposes such cuts, calling the proposal "reckless and dangerous" and suggesting that it "would empower adversaries like China and Russia who are eager to fill the void left by a retreating United States."
The memo describes significant proposed changes for the State Department’s workforce, detailing a pay and hiring freeze, a reduction in benefits and travel for members of the Foreign Service, and the consolidation of positions.
Some offices, such as the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, which aims to anticipate and prevent global conflict, would be closed. All educational and cultural programs administered by the State Department, including the Fulbright Program, which was established by Congress in 1946 and has led to educational exchanges involving more than 40 future heads of state or government, would be terminated.
"It is essentially the demolishing of our international influence instruments," said Brett Bruen, a former State Department and National Security Council official who served as director of global engagement during the Obama administration.
The memorandum is dated 10 April. According to the memorandum, Rubio has to respond to the proposal by 15 April, including any desired changes.
The final budget proposal is expected to be presented to Congress in late April. Some aspects could face pushback from lawmakers, and some critics maintain that the executive branch cannot shutter USAID, a government agency, without congressional approval.
"This is an unserious budget. I predict it will hit a wall of bipartisan opposition," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (Maryland), the top Democrat on the State Department and USAID subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group, said that while funding cuts for international organizations had been expected, there was some hope among U.N. officials that it would be limited, as Trump had said that the U.N. needed to refocus on its original priority of peace and security.
A move to end funding sent via the State Department to the NATO military alliance could also cause a backlash. During his first term, Trump negotiated a decline in the U.S. share of NATO’s budget, which is separate from the indirect funding in military spending by each of the alliance’s 32 members.
Julianne Smith, the U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Biden administration, said such a move could create "serious problems" within the alliance, as other nations would have to make up the shortfall. Or they might seek to cut their own contributions to the common fund, which is set for about $5 billion this year.
The memo states that the Trump administration’s budget proposal does retain funding for some programs popular within Congress, including $5.1 billion in foreign military financing grants for allies such as Israel and Egypt and $2.9 billion for the global health program known as PEPFAR, or the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
