TRUMP PROPOSES DEEP CUTS TO UN FUNDING

    The Trump Administration's upcoming 2018 Budget proposal is predicted to contain an over 50% reduction in taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations. Under the proposal, Secretary of State Tillerson will have discretionary powers over how the cuts will be implemented; whether immediately or gradually phased-out. However, at a March 9th UN Assembly Meeting, members were told by US representatives to "expect a major US financial constraint" in the near future.

     US taxpayers fork over about $10 billion annually to UN general funding alone. Some UN programs like the World Food Program are funded separately through the US Department of Agriculture; and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which is funded through the US State Department. Trump's Budget though calls for 37% cuts to the State Department---and that agency already spends $1.5 billion on UNHCR.

     The Corporate Media outlet Foreign Policy Magazine---a subsidiary of Wall Street Media conglomerate Graham Holdings---lashed out at the Trump Administration proposals. With the characteristic objectivity of the MSM, writer Colum Lynch howled:

      "State Department staffers have been instructed to seek cuts in excess of 50% in US funding for UN programs, signaling an unprecedented retreat from international operations that keep the peace, provide vaccines for children, monitor rogue nuclear weapons programs, and promote peace talks!"

      Well, not exactly. What Trump is doing is reversing a three-decade long policy of using the UN as a vehicle to export American Cultural Marxist. Conventional wisdom among many Conservatives is that the UN is an organization of cultural elites seeking to impose a globalist agenda on the US. In reality, it's been the other way around: American Liberals and Neocons have been using the UN to promote their own agendas both here and abroad. Trump's proposed cuts are really not so much a retreat as they are a reset. Reduced American spending will actually---in the long run---give the UN leadership more independence and latitude in its operations.

      Why would that be so? Simply because disproportionate US funding of UN programs often come with social-engineering strings attached. This was particularly bad during the Obama Administration when countries on the brink of famine were basically being extorted by the US to change their policies on things like legalizing abortion and homosexual marriage---often over the objections of those countries' leaders and populations. Then their ambassadors had the added humiliation of being obliged to bow and scrape in front of people like Hilary Clinton and John Kerry at the UN. And we wonder why all these countries which we aid end up hating America? They don't like American Liberal arrogance any more than we do.

     Thus we hear from Richard Gowan of the Council on Foreign Relations---a group responsible for creating many 'swamps' in need of draining worldwide---lamenting that "we are basically talking about a breakdown of the international humanitarian system as we know it." And thank God---it needs to break down. Russia has proven in Syria, Donbas, and elsewhere that humanitarian aid can be more effectively run with or without the UN. Getting American Cultural Marxist bureaucrats out of the way can only improve the UN's efficiency in administering international humanitarian aid.

     But we in the US can expect instead a sudden interest from the Corporate Media in ongoing humanitarian disasters---disasters which they dutifully ignored for the last eight years---which will all naturally be blamed on Trump. A word to the wise: beware of this kind of propaganda because it's bound to happen.

     Yes, there is a need for the United Nations and for US participation in that group. But there is no need for it to be an extension of the US State Department, the CIA, and other international troublemakers. Trump's new approach to the UN will likely eventually bring the UN back to the global respect it hasn't had since the 1950s.