White House to propose ‘dramatic’ cuts to foreign aid, official says

The White House is planning to propose “fairly dramatic” reductions to U.S. foreign aid by the end of March, a top official confirmed Saturday.

“By the 16th of March, we’ll be able to roll out the full spending budget,” White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Mick Mulvaney said in an interview with Fox News.

“We are going to propose to reduce foreign aid and we are going to propose to spend that money here,” he added, noting that the reductions will be “fairly dramatic.”

{mosads}Mulvaney said the proposed cuts to foreign aid would not specifically target a particular country or region.

“When we talk about changing a particular aid program, it may have impact in various different nations,” he maintained.

“The overriding message is fairly straightforward, which is, less money spent on folks overseas — more money spent on folks back home,” he added.

Earlier this week, multiple publications reported that the Trump administration was proposing a 37 percent cut to the budgets of the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The agencies collectively received roughly $50 billion for the current fiscal year. The proposed cuts are aimed at helping the administration fund a $54 billion increase in U.S. military budget.

Several U.S. officials have suggested that the proposed cuts would result in large-scale layoffs of security contractors at U.S. diplomatic facilities and other State Department employees.