US diplomacy in crisis amid cuts and confusion at state department
Source: The Guardian
US diplomacy in crisis amid cuts and confusion at state department
Critics says Americas soft power could be dramatically diluted
if it does not find a way to stop alienating allies around the world
Julian Borger in Washington
Wednesday 22 March 2017 10.30 GMT
The US state department is hosting a 68-nation meeting on Wednesday aimed at consolidating the international effort against Islamic State.
But the foreign ministers are convening in Washington at a time when the state department itself is under siege, facing swingeing budget cuts by a hostile White House, and led by a former oil executive who has said he did not want the job in the first place.
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Its budget proposals would see a cut for the state department and US foreign aid of 28% of its current budget to less than $26bn (£21bn). When other cuts to contingency funds are taken into account, the effective funding decrease is about a third. Meanwhile, under the Make America Great Again budget, military spending is meant to rise by $54bn.
Senior Republicans in Congress have said they would oppose such deep cuts, but Tillerson himself has been criticised by former state department officials and supporters of US diplomacy for failing to stand up to Trump on the issue.
In the interview published by IJR on Tuesday night, Tillerson said state department spending was unsustainable. He claimed he talked to the president on a daily basis but conceded he had not discussed with him what such a sharp decrease in funding would mean. We havent gotten that far yet, he said.
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Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/22/us-diplomacy-in-crisis-amid-cuts-and-confusion-at-state-department