Politico: Trump May Slash State Department Budget in Half

A memo drafted by the administration of US President Donald Trump and obtained by news site POLITICO, lays out its objectives to slash funding for the State Department by about half.

Trump’s plan would gut programs that promote peace, democracy, and health globally. The White House memo even outlines plans to close as many as three dozen embassies and consulates worldwide.

In the memo, the administration proposes a 2026 budget of $28.4 billion to the State Department, down almost half from its 2025 allocation of $54.4 billion. It also accounts for the already-enacted process of dismantling USAID, whose remaining programs will now be under the State Department.

Congress would have to vote on these measures, per the US Constitution, if the Trump team even decides to carry through on many of the line items, which remains unclear according to sources interviewed by POLITICO.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio may differ with such plans.

Some programs would go from billions of dollars annually to zero. Among the targets for elimination:

• The National Endowment for Democracy, described as a “nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world.” It has launched projects in Iran, China, Bosnia, and to assist defectors from North Korea, etc.

“Today, autocrats in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran are aggressively expanding their influence to strengthen authoritarian rule worldwide,” the organization writes on its website.

Moreover, they are increasingly working together to advance their interests, which they believe are threatened by the universal appeal of freedom to individuals... Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, for example, have characterized the friendship between their countries as one with “no limits.”

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In Moscow in March 2023, during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, at a meeting between the leaders, Xi and Putin pledged to drive changes in the world that have “not been seen in 100 years.” 

Working together, autocrats seek to make the world safe for autocracy and to undermine democracy and the rule of law. 

Other targets for elimination are:

• The East-West Center, which “promotes better relations and understanding among the people and nations of the United States, Asia, and the Pacific through cooperative study, research, and dialogue.”

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• The Asia Foundation, “an international nonprofit organization working to solve the toughest social and economic challenges in Asia and the Pacific.”

• The Bureau of International Narcotics Control & Law Enforcement, an agency within the State Department, with the general mission to develop policies and programs to combat international narcotics and crime and to train partner nations’ security forces. It would also see its $1 billion budget go to zero.

The document also calls for the existing funding for migration and refugees to be cut in half, to $1.5 billion a year, and only used for emergency purposes.

“A category labeled ‘contributions to international organizations,’ which presumably includes UN institutions, would be slashed from $1.5 billion to $169 million. Contributions for international peacekeeping activities — a category that apparently includes UN peacekeeping — would be cut from $1.2 billion to zero,” POLITICO noted.

“Even if the cuts all make it into President Donald Trump’s formal budget proposal for fiscal 2026, Congress has a history of ignoring such offerings from the White House and coming up with its own plan.”

The memo foresees the Trump administration asking Congress to accept around $20 billion in rescissions, or unspent allocations, dollars that would return to the US Treasury.

As for the embassy and consulate closures, sources interviewed by the news outlet said the measures were focused on embassies throughout Africa and Oceania, and consulates in Europe.