The Trump administration has proposed cuts in FY18 of 28 percent to the State Department, with much deeper cuts likely to the Bureau for Educational and Cultural Affairs, and a significant narrowing of the types of exchange programs our country supports. If enacted into law, these combined changes would greatly harm our nation’s public diplomacy efforts and, ultimately, our national security and economy. 

Up until the news dropped in February that the Trump administration plans to boost military spending by $54 billion and make cuts of up to 40 percent to foreign aid, the international development community was in overdrive to put its work in the best light. Development experts had been making the case for foreign assistance in terms that they hoped would resonate with the Trump administration—which on the diplomatic and development side consists of only one appointee, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

If America can be said to have a public diplomacy — that is, government-directed outreach to international publics — then someone needs to throw it a lifeline. In only the last few weeks, we have seen evidence of a coming crisis for defenders of America’s international image: The State Department budget, as previewed by the President in his speech to Congress this week, is set to take a serious hit. 

A threatened gap in global health funding because of a new ban on some U.S. aid prompted a hastily called international meeting of about 50 governments in Brussels Thursday. The major concern is continuing to support family planning services for poor countries. At an estimated $10 billion a year, the U.S. provides the lion’s share of funding for global health services.

Even as the Narendra Modi government talks big about projecting India’s soft power, India’s main instrument for cultural diplomacy continues to wallow in severe fund crunch, forcing it to now open new cultural centres abroad only in collaboration with private organisations.

Even as the Narendra Modi government talks big about projecting India’s soft power, India’s main instrument for cultural diplomacy continues to wallow in severe fund crunch, forcing it to now open new cultural centres abroad only in collaboration with private organisations.

The UK Independence Party (Ukip) has pledged to slash Britain’s overseas aid spending by more than two-thirds and abolish the “wasteful” Department for International Development (DfID) if it wins next month’s general election.

The rise in multilateral funding, the IDC noted, had been accompanied by a relative decline in spending on programmes in sub-Saharan Africa and on some key millennium development goal targets. It urged DfID to spend more on bilateral programmes, on sub-Saharan Africa, and to “significantly increase spending on reproductive health”.