Aftandilian Publishes OpEd on Trump’s Middle East Priorities
Gregory Aftandilian, Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an Op-Ed on United States President Donald Trump’s budget priorities for the Middle East for the upcoming fiscal year.
Aftandilian’s Op-Ed, entitled “Trump’s Budget Priorities for the Middle East Belie its Claims,” was published in The Arab Weekly on March 17, 2019.
From the text of the article:
Much of the attention on the Trump administration’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 budget proposal has focused on significant increases in defence spending accompanied by substantial reductions in some domestic programmes, including those for the Environmental Protection Agency.
What received much less attention is the sizeable — 23% — reduction in the International Affairs Budget, which deals with US State Department funding and US foreign aid.
Under the US Constitution, the US Congress has the “power of the purse,” meaning it has the prerogative to alter — up or down — any administration budget figures through the appropriations process. Nonetheless, the budget proposal can be read as reflecting an administration’s priorities.
The cuts to the International Affairs Budget are most severe in reducing funding for UN activities by $1 billion and humanitarian assistance by more than 30%. Cuts to the State Department bureaucracy appear to dismantle the refugee assistance bureau.
Aftandilian spent over 21 years in government service, most recently on Capitol Hill where he was foreign policy adviser to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (2007-2008), professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy adviser to Senator Paul Sarbanes (2000-2004), and foreign policy fellow to the late Senator Edward Kennedy (1999).