The Guardian: Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s proposal to slash the state department and foreign aid budget is partly based on an expectation it will be able to resolve some of the global conflicts that have been absorbing costly diplomatic and humanitarian support.
But in a vivid display of the most urgent diplomatic challenge facing the US, Tillerson was speaking as North Korea carried out a new ballistic missile test – the first since it fired a missile over Japan in mid-September.
The secretary of state presented this rationale for the budget cut at a time when he is under fire from former US diplomats for gutting his state department at a time of multiple crises around the world – an allegation Tillerson denied.
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