Trump budget slashes Middle East aid

The Donald Trump administration is seeking deep cuts in US assistance for Arab states as part of its proposed budget for the State Department and foreign aid.

The budget blueprint released May 23 would slash security assistance to vulnerable countries, including Tunisia and Lebanon, by more than 80% compared with fiscal year 2016, according to an Al-Monitor analysis (see chart below). Economic and development aid would also take a beating, dropping by almost half in Egypt, for example.

Overall, bilateral assistance to Middle East and North African countries would be cut by about $850 million, according to the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED). Several countries would lose traditional military aid entirely while retaining some security assistance through anti-terrorism, law enforcement and military training funds.

“The biggest sources of those cuts include zeroing out military aid to US allies on the front lines of fighting [the Islamic State], including $400 million for Iraq, Lebanon, and Tunisia, zeroing out $160 million in emergency food aid to Yemen, slashing nearly $200 million in economic aid to Jordan and Tunisia, and halving $30 million in democracy funding for Iran,” Cole Bockenfeld, the deputy director for policy at POMED, said in an email. “Eliminating funding for these objectives would be dangerously short-sighted and directly undermines the president's stated goal of countering terrorism in the region.”