ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — President Donald Trump’s proposed deep cuts to humanitarian aid go against the global development goals the United States committed to in 2015, the European Union’s international development chief warned Friday.
“Any withdrawal or cut in the development assistance would actually go contrary to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals agenda,” the EU commissioner for international cooperation and development, Neven Mimica, told The Associated Press.
The ambitious set of global goals take aim at eradicating poverty, reducing disease burden and ensuring clean water around the world, among other issues, by 2030. They were adopted by the international community at a United Nations summit.
The EU official was responding to a question about Trump’s budget proposal, which would carve $17 billion from funding for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development. That’s a drop of 31 percent, a dramatic shift for the world’s top humanitarian donor.
The budget proposal still requires Congress’ approval.
Mimica added that “the EU, however, shall do its best to be the best donor in the world.”
He was in Ethiopia’s capital to announce 165 million euros ($177 million) of support for Somalia and South Sudan, which are suffering from drought and famine.
Both countries are part of what the United Nations has called the largest humanitarian crisis since the world body was founded in 1945, with more than 20 million people in four countries — including Nigeria and Yemen — facing starvation and famine.
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