UN: Trump budget would make key work ‘impossible’

The United Nations says that President Trump’s proposed budget cuts would make continuing its essential work “impossible.”

“The figures presented would simply make it impossible for the U.N. to continue all of its essential work advancing peace, development, human rights and humanitarian assistance,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said in a statement Wednesday, according to Reuters.

Reuters reported that Trump’s budget proposal cuts nearly a third from U.S. aid and diplomacy budgets, or about $19 billion.

{mosads}The total reportedly includes some $1 billion scrapped for U.N. peacekeeping funds and a steep cut to funding for international organizations.

The U.S. is the U.N.’s biggest contributor, paying 22 percent of its $5.4 billion core budget and 28.5 percent of its $7.9 billion peacekeeping budget.

The U.N.’s 193-nations General Assembly agrees upon such contributions from its members.

The General Assembly is reportedly negotiating the U.N. regular budget for 2018 and 2019 and its peacekeeping budget from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018.

Trump wants to cap America’s peacekeeping contribution at 25 percent, and the U.S. is reviewing all 16 U.N. peacekeeping missions in a bid to cut costs.

The budget proposal also includes a 44 percent cut to funding for international organizations, but does not specify the cuts.

The Trump administration on Tuesday unveiled a budget seeking $1.5 trillion in nondefense discretionary cuts and $1.4 trillion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade.

The plan, titled “A New Foundation for American Greatness,” would also add nearly half a trillion dollars to defense spending.

Congress is expected to reject many of the proposals as it takes up the budget in the coming weeks and months.