European Diplomats to Congress: For Our Sake, Don’t Cut Foreign Aid Funding

President Donald Trump proposed slashing State Department and foreign aid budgets by nearly 40 percent. Now European diplomats are warning those cuts would be dangerous and expose European allies to further Russian aggression.

Six eastern European envoys, including the Ukrainian foreign minister, testified before the Senate Tuesday to urge stronger U.S. leadership in the region to hedge against Russia. While lauding U.S. military assistance and recent troop deployments to the Baltic region under the NATO flag, they also warned cutting funding to non-military assistance measures could strengthen Russia’s so-called hybrid warfare tactics.

“We will not feel safer when the budget for such projects will be essentially cut,” Polish Ambassador Piotr Wilczek told a panel of Senate Appropriations Committee members.

Read the full article at Foreign Policy.