The administration’s proposal, announced Tuesday, to slash approximately 30 percent from the State Department
and foreign assistance budget signals an American retreat, leaving a vacuum that would make us far less safe and prosperous.
While I am all for reviewing, reforming and strengthening the State Department
and the United States Agency for International Development, proposals to zero out economic and development assistance in more than 35 countries would effectively lower our flag at our outposts around the world and make us far less safe.
Many had assumed the Cold War’s end would allow us to retreat from the world, but cuts
that may have looked logical at the time came back to haunt us as tensions rose in the Middle East, Africa, the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere.
A call to all but eliminate two key export-promotion agencies — the Overseas Private Investment Corporation
and the Trade and Development Agency — would harm thousands of American workers and actually add to the deficit.
The president’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, has described these cuts as “not a reflection of the president’s policies regarding an attitude toward State.”
But how is a 32 percent cut to our civilian programs overseas anything but a clear expression of policy?
Colin Powell: American Leadership — We Can’t Do It for Free -
By COLIN POWELLMAY 24, 2017
At our best, being a great nation has always meant a commitment to building a better,
safer world — not just for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren.
