link : Top US diplomat says 25-percent budget cuts won’t change effectiveness
Top US diplomat says 25-percent budget cuts won’t change effectiveness
In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations and Appropriation on Foreign Operation Committees on Tuesday, Secretary Rex Tillerson defended President Donald Trump’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget request of $37.6 billion, arguing it “aligns with the administration’s objective of making America’s security our top priority.”
USAID’s budget peaked during former President Barack Obama’s last year in office at $50.3 billion. Obama’s first budget proposal for 2009 was a mere $11.5 billion.
The proposed 25 percent decrease from 2017 comes at a time when the US-led international coalition is on the cusp of a military defeat of ISIS in its two largest urban areas of Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria.
The Associated Press reported in March that Tillerson has the goal of reducing diplomatic spending by 37 percent over the next three years, while encouraging the United Nations to be more efficient with its programs.
“The first responsibility of government is the security of its own citizens, and we will orient our diplomatic efforts toward fulfilling that commitment” said Tillerson, iterating Trump’s ‘America First’ policy.
Kurdish officials have warned that the ideology and conditions that led the ISIS must be defeated; otherwise the region could face the group in its next form.
Diplomatic missions in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq support humanitarian, education, capacity building, among other programs.
“As Ambassador [Douglas] Silliman has said, the key to unlocking the return of internally displaced Iraqis is, first of all, de-mining. And our programs, in conjunction with the other countries’, and in conjunction with other UN programs, have been very important,” a spokesperson for the US consulate general in Erbil told Rudaw English
The spokesperson said
“Most of the program employees are Iraqis hired from the communities they work in. This has been very important, because after a city is liberated from ISIS, it's very important to remove the dangers to civilians returning, the dangers to the return of government employees, including people like the police, the electricity ministry, the water ministry, who have to help repair the services for the city,” the spokesperson explained.
The US Department of Defense has requested $1.269 for its Fiscal Year 2018 Iraq Train and Equip program — an increase of $92.6 million, which “excludes $289.5 million requested in the FY 2017/2018 Iraq Train and Equip Fund (ITEF) for support to the Kurdish Peshmerga.”
US officials have proposed a three-year plan to “support will be a continued partnership with the Iraqi Counterterrorism Service (CTS) as it transitions from its current role as an elite conventional force to a more traditional special operations role.”
“Our budget will never be determined — will never determine our ability to be effective; our people will,” Tillerson said speaking to the resolve of his State Department employees, whose roles often cross paths with their Defense Department counterparts.
In January, the United States announced the construction of a new US consulate complex in the Kurdistan Region to cost $600 million, and will be built on 200,000 square meters on Erbil-Shaqlawa Road. The Erbil complex will be constructed by four American and some local companies and will finish in four years.
The US initially opened a diplomatic office in Erbil in February 2007, which it later upgraded to a consulate general in 2011.
from Rudaw http://ift.tt/2sr0mGJ
via Defense News
thus Article Top US diplomat says 25-percent budget cuts won’t change effectiveness
You now read the article Top US diplomat says 25-percent budget cuts won’t change effectivenesswith the link address https://uswordarmy.blogspot.com/2017/06/top-us-diplomat-says-25-percent-budget.html
Related Posts :
Why China won’t ever say no to Pakistan- With China’s fiscal, monetary, currency and credit policies all taking a pro-growth turn, President Xi Jinping’s deleveraging campaign is clearly over. Or, at the very least, it’s going into the freezer for as long as there’s no letup in trade tensions with the US. But what about Xi’s other pet idea? In Southeast Asia, the ambitious belt-and-road project witnessed a 36 percent year-on-year decline in investment commitments and construction contracts in the first half. The setback is temporary, according to Citigroup, which expects Beijing will yield to its partners’ concerns for the sake of its “overarching geostrategic imperatives.” Maintaining the region’s confidence in belt-and-road may be a crucial defense against domestic fragility. The yuan is at its weakest in more than a year; banks’ reserve ratio has been cut three times; and now, following a meeting of the State Council, authorities are vowing a “more proactive” fiscal policy. The People’s Bank of China will extend credit via a medium-term lending facility for lenders to buy corporate bonds — the funding could be twice the size of purchases if the securities are rated AA or below. All this is clearly aimed at reining in rising distress. Including the recent cross-defaults on 13 of coal miner Wintime Energy Co.’s bonds — totaling about 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) — the default rate in China may now be running at 0.52 percent, higher than the 2016 peak of 0.45 percent, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s calculations. Southeast Asia and Pakistan may use the opportunity to shave a few billion dollars off interest costs. To the extent Beijing’s attention is diverted to fighting fires in the domestic economy, overseas recipients of Beijing’s infrastructure financing are bound to demand — and get — sweeter terms. Malaysia’s new Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has sent an emissary to China to renegotiate loans and contracts. In Thailand, there’s nervousness about a five-year plan to redevelop the country’s eastern seaboard as a trade and transport hub — and link it with belt-and-road. There’s no guarantee the next civilian government will continue to back the $51 billion makeover, or that it won’t spend the money instead on farmers in the landlocked northeast. A bigger and more immediate test for China, however, may arrive after Wednesday’s elections in Pakistan. Opposition leader Imran Khan, while not repudiating his country’s growing dependence on Beijing, hasn’t ruled out re-examining the loans for a $62 billion China-backed trade corridor if his party forms a government. Imports of machinery and transport equipment to set up the corridor have sunk the Pakistani rupee by 18 percent over the past year, leaving Islamabad in the unenviable position of managing its hard-currency shortfall by taking yet more loans from its regional neighbor. With its own competitiveness under threat from U.S. President Donald Trump’s hawkish policies and posturing, China has an increasing need of its Asian allies — for everything from relocating low-cost manufacturing to sourcing chemicals, clothing and soybeans. Deleveraging at home can be allowed to be a casualty of a global trade war. But leaving marquee Chinese projects stranded overseas, with partners complaining about high debt and low returns? That simply won’t do. Pakistan’s next prime minister should aim to show up in Beijing with a list of demands. Odds are, he won’t return empty-handed.
President Trump Delays Proposed Summit With Russian President Putin Until 2019- Why China won’t ever say no to Pakistan
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Is Grilled By The U.S. Senate On U.S. Foreign Policy And President Trump's Private Meeting With Russian President Putin
0 Response to "Top US diplomat says 25-percent budget cuts won’t change effectiveness"
Post a Comment