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Add to Preferred SourcesA bipartisan task force of U.S. senators and former diplomats is pushing back against the Trump administration’s effort to cut funding for foreign aid and development, urging instead that the strategy for overseas assistance should be revamped.
Far from reducing the role of such “soft power” diplomacy, the task force headed by Republican Senator Todd Young of Indiana and Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire proposed giving the U.S. Agency for International Development a seat on the White House’s National Security Council. In a report to be released on Monday, the group also calls for a national diplomacy and development strategy to set priorities for spending.
“It is not in the national interest to remove the development leg from the U.S. national security stool. Our friends seek our continued leadership, our adversaries fear it, and Americans should demand it,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Task Force on Reforming and Reorganizing U.S. Foreign Assistance.
The report reflects the strong push-back from Congress that President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have faced over their proposal to slash the budget of the State Department and USAID by about 30 percent, even as the military’s budget is increased. Tillerson has said Trump’s “America First” foreign policy vision will focus on keeping Americans safe and fighting terrorism, and he would orient diplomacy “toward fulfilling that commitment.”
Merger Weighed
One proposal under consideration is merging USAID, an independent agency chiefly responsible for foreign aid donations, into the State Department. Under the budget plan for fiscal 2018, Tillerson also would defund what’s known as the Development Assistance account, whose focus is investing in longer-term projects such as clean water, economic development and good governance.
The task force calls both ideas mistakes. On the contrary, it calls for merging some State Department functions, such as the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources, into USAID.
In an interview, Young said the report was part of a push to make sure the administration includes development aid, along with military power and diplomatic power, in its “America First” approach.
“They understand that there are three instruments of national power that need to be brought to bear if the United States is going to be safe and secure and facilitate development,” Young said. “‘We want to make sure we maintain USAID as an independent agency, recognizing that development assistance is an entirely distinct discipline.”
Original source: Bloomberg.
Posted on 24 July 2017.