Trump Ending United Nations Funding

Today, the U.S. State Department said it was ending U.S. funding for the United Nations. Well it was ending funding for at least one program under the United Nations banner. The international body’s agency focused on family planning as well as maternal and child health in more than 150 countries will no longer receive any funds from the United States.

The move is seen by millions of U.S. citizens as a hopeful first step to a total stop of all monies being paid to the well known world government organization. In a letter to U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, the State Department said it was dropping the funding because the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) “supports, or participates in the management of, a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”

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The stopage marks U.S. President Donald Trump’s first move to curtail funding for the United Nations and is likely to raise further questions as to just how deep those cuts will eventually go throughout the organization. Such cuts could spell the impending doom of the international body, where the United States is the top donor.

The move comes just 3 months after President Trump reinstated the so-called Mexico City Policy that withholds U.S. funding for international organizations that perform abortions or provide information about abortion. The policy known by critics as the “global gag” rule, had its scope broadened by the new president to include all global health assistance in a Jan. 23rd executive order that withholds at least half a billion dollars in U.S. funds. But a so-called lack of clarity around the rule, has left aid groups scrambling and both Republican and Democratic U.S. lawmakers seeking clarity. Perhaps this action will help clarify things for them.

UNFPA has posted a statement to its website filled with the appropriate Liberal dribble, saying it regrets the U.S. decision to end funding, and believes that decision is based on an “erroneous claim” that the agency supports coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in China.

UNFPA said its mission is “to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.”

The statement then when on say that: “The support we received over the years from the government and people of the United States has saved tens of thousands of mothers from preventable deaths and disabilities, and especially now in the rapidly developing global humanitarian crises.” The cut follows Trump’s proposed 28 percent budget reduction for diplomacy and foreign aid, including an unspecified reduction in financial support for the United Nations and its agencies, announced last month.

U.N. agencies such as the UNFPA are funded by governments voluntarily. The United States was the fourth-largest voluntary donor to UNFPA in 2015, giving $75 million in core budget and earmarked contributions. U.N. officials have warned that abrupt funding cuts could trigger more global instability and argued that dollars for diplomacy are more effective than military spending in combating terrorism.

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