A group of 43 senators, including six Republicans, is saying President Trump’s plan to boost defense spending in the next fiscal year by slashing the State Department and foreign aid would undermine U.S. national security and economic interests.
The group, led by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and freshman Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., include members of the foreign relations and armed dervices committees and are the latest evidence of widespread opposition in the chamber to Trump’s budget plans. Their letter was signed Thursday and sent to Senate budget officials and appropriators.
“We should be strengthening America’s international affairs budget — slashing it is counterproductive and makes the world more dangerous,” Durbin said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
The president released his 2018 budget blueprint in March and it included a 28 percent reduction in the State Department budget as part of the administration’s plan to reduce spending on diplomacy and foreign aid in order to add $54 billion into defense.
The White House has called it an “America First” budget built on Trump’s campaign promises.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner’s Sarah Westwood on Wednesday, Trump again indicated he believes the State Department bureaucracy has become bloated and that he may choose not to fill many of the job vacancies there.
“Even me, I look at staffing, and I look at the numbers of people, and many of the people that they complain don’t have, you know, where certain positions aren’t filled, in many cases you don’t need those positions to be filled,” Trump said. “You know, a good example is Rex [Tillerson] over at State, got so many people, and he likes to do things himself, and he likes to take meetings himself, he doesn’t necessarily need the kind of numbers that you’re talking about.”
Democrats have decried the moves to cut the international affairs budget, but Republicans have also spoken out, meaning the Thursday letter probably underrepresents GOP opposition.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the president’s State Department budget “goes in the waste basket as soon as it gets here” to Capitol Hill.
Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., have also publicly opposed cuts to the U.S. international affairs budget, which includes diplomacy, security assistance to other countries and humanitarian efforts.
In their letter, the group of senators said “robust” funding for those programs is necessary.
“Deep cuts to the International Affairs Budget would undermine our country’s economic and national security interests, as well as the humanitarian and democratic principles we support,” they wrote.
