UN Chief Warns Against Abrupt US Funding Cuts to World Body

UN Chief Warns Against Abrupt US Funding Cuts to World Body
U.N. Secretary general Antonio Guterres addresses a news conference after his meeting with Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed in Somalia's capital Mogadishu on March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Feisal Omar
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UNITED NATIONS—United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Thursday against an abrupt cut to U.S. funding for the world body, and France’s U.N. envoy said a retreat by Washington from global affairs could lead to more instability.

“Abrupt funding cuts can force the adoption of ad hoc measures that will undermine the impact of longer-term reform efforts,” said Guterres spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

“The Secretary-General fully subscribes to the necessity to effectively combat terrorism, but believes that it requires more than military spending,” he said in response to Trump’s proposal for an additional $54 billion in military spending.

French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre said a strong United Nations and a U.S. commitment to world affairs is needed “more than ever”.

“America’s retreat and unilateralism, or even the perception of it by other players, would create the risk of coming back to the old spheres of influence policy, and history teaches us that it has only led to more instability,” Delattre said.

“In foreign policy, as in politics, perception matters,” he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed a 28 percent budget cut for diplomacy and foreign aid, which includes an unspecified reduction in financial support for the United Nations and its agencies, as well as enforcement of a 25 percent cap on U.S. funding for peacekeeping operations.

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting on healthcare in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on March 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting on healthcare in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on March 13, 2017. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais