TUNIS, Tunisia — The Donald Trump administration is set to make major changes regarding aid to nations throughout the world. Released in late May and to be voted on in the fall, the proposed foreign operations budget for the fiscal year 2018 stipulates a massive decrease of the State Department’s budget for Tunisia. It is expected to drop from just over $177 million in fiscal year 2016 to only $54.5 million, approximately 30% of the previous budget.

Tunisia, as the only true, albeit flawed democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, will see its budget plummet, while the budgets for nondemocratic countries like Jordan and Egypt will only slightly decrease, according to the proposed budget plan. Israel’s budget will stay constant at $3.1 billion.

These budget cuts — or lack thereof in the case of countries like Israel — underscore the Trump administration’s obsession with counterterrorism and security, rather than softer forms of diplomacy. But even then it becomes tricky, since, as Sarah Yerkes of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace pointed out in The Hill on June 20, the Trump administration plans to switch Tunisia’s military aid from a grant to a loan, thus complicating the relationship between the two countries.

The proposed budget also calls for a 62% decrease in the US-Middle East Partnership Initiative budget, which would curtail a range of popular exchange programs for youth in Tunisia. These programs specifically aim to train Tunisian students and young adults in leadership skills, anticipating that they will become the future key actors in Tunisia going forward.