The administration of President Donald Trump has announced a plan to cut nearly $20 billion from the $50 billion budget of the State Department and the US Agency for International Development. Reducing the budget for diplomacy by 37 percent does not seem to reflect Trump’s stated intention to increase America’s stature in the world.
If carried out, the reduction in State and USAID wherewithal would cripple those two agencies in carrying out their activities on behalf of America abroad. Their budgets are, in any case, a fraction of the overall US government budget of around $3 trillion.
There is the current relative silence in expressions of policy from new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Part of that phenomenon is due to the fact that he has not yet been able to put in place his own team at State. Trump nixed a choice for deputy secretary of state, Elliott Abrams, on the grounds of Abrams’ expressed opposition to him as a candidate during the campaign. That is fair enough, but the deputy slot is not one Tillerson can comfortably leave vacant.
The world, for America, is out there and full of dangerous, simmering issues. North Korea’s weapons mischief is one. European uncertainties about American defense and policy intentions are another. The Middle East and South Asia contain live wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, all involving US forces. It is likely that none of them can be brought to an end useful to the United States except through negotiations. And, for that, the country needs its Department of State.
Unless Tillerson wants to try to carry out his job with no money, he needs to get very busy quickly building support within the administration and in Congress for a healthy operating budget.
