The White House Administration and Budget Office has proposed significant cuts to the State Department Budget, with the aim of reducing it by almost 50 percent. | Photo credit: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
The White House Management and Budget Office has proposed to gut the state department budget by almost 50 percent, closing a series of diplomatic missions abroad, reducing the amount of diplomatic personnel and eliminating financing the national organization, the amggesations, the headquarters, the officials, officials said.
It is not expected that the proposal, which was presented to the State Department and is still in a highly preliminary phase, pass the meeting with the leadership or the Congress of the Department, which will finally be asked for the entire federal budget at the next coming.
The officials familiar with the proposal say that it must go through several revision rounds before the legislators have even reached, who in the past have modified and simply rejected the white house requests. He thought that the proposal is preliminary, gives an indication of the priorities of the Trump administration and coincides with mass work and financing cuts between the federal government, from health and human services and the Department of Education to the United States Agency for International Development.
The notes of an internal meeting on the proposal have been circulated in online chat groups among foreign service officers since the weekend, but exploited on Monday when the State Department had to present a scattered reorganization plan to the OMB.
A senior American official familiar with OMB’s proposal called him “aggressive” in terms of cost reduction, but also emphasized that it was an early contour that reflected what OMB chief Russell Vaught looked for the administration when he served in the same Trump. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to the discussion of internal administration deliberations.
So did two family people with the matter that confirmed the proposal, one of which also said it originated in OMB.
OMB spokeswoman Alexandra McCandless said “no final financing decisions have been made.” OMB’s efforts to severely reduce the duration of the state department budget that Trump was with the fierce resistance in Capitol Hill and greatly failed.
However, Trump’s second administration has moved quickly to climb the federal government, reducing jobs and financing between agencies. He has already dismantled the USAID and has moved the so -called other institutions of “soft power” of importance of foreign policy such as La Voz de América, Radio Free Europe, Middle East’s transmission networks, Radio Free Asia and Radio Marti.
Therefore, the officials of the State Department and others have expressed a growing concern about the possibility that drastic cuts really propose.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen or New Hampshire, the main Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said she was “deeply concerned” about the cuts of proposed reported.
“When the United States becomes the United States for the first time, our economy, security and prosperity will suffer as adversaries fill the emptiness that the Trump administration leaves Beind,” Shahen said in a statement. “Investments in diplomatic programs that promote peace and stability, and the US national security interests are common for common sense priorities that must be reflected in the request for a state department budget.”
Posted on April 15, 2025