It was alarming last May when the White House proposed slashing budgets for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development by nearly 30 percent in the 2018 fiscal year starting October 1.

Those draconian cuts aren’t likely to happen, but we won’t know the outcome for at least another three months. In a surprise, President Trump and Congressional leaders agreed September 6 to fund the government at current levels through mid-December, setting up a new round of high-stakes, year-end budget talks.

A solid majority of Americans support foreign aid, especially humanitarian aid. Within Congress bilateral support has ups and downs, but appears to be more steady than twenty years ago when Senator Jesse Helms led a Republican faction pressing the Clinton administration to pare aid budgets after the Soviet Union collapsed.

“I don’t think there is a strong enough constituency in Congress to make deep cuts in foreign aid,” says Steven Kull, an expert on surveying public opinion about public policy.

One reason, he notes, is that Republican lawmakers are split into three camps about foreign aid. Two essentially support spending at current levels: “internationalists” and “evangelical humanitarians”; and one doesn’t, “isolationist-populists.” Democratic lawmakers by and large favor foreign aid at current or higher levels.

In one litmus test this month, Congress overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to eliminate all funding for the nonpartisan United States Institute of Peace, a federal government agency created by President Reagan in 1984. The agency trains U.S. diplomats and members of the armed forces to help reduce tensions in unstable regions before those regions erupt into hot-zone conflicts. Eliminating USIP was part of the Trump administration’s May budget proposal.

In another early test this month, the Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved a bill authorizing $51 billion for diplomatic and humanitarian programs. Funding for State Department and USAID staffing and operations would continue “at prior levels,” with State and USAID organizations remaining separate.

In the above USAID photo made last April, Kassa Mulualem spreads seeds on her father’s farmland in Ethiopia’s highlands. She was one of the first women in her area to take up plowing in a project supported by USAID.

Steven Kull has headed the University of Maryland Program for Public Consultation (PPC) for 25 years. The organization conducts in-depth polling and analysis of Americans’ views on a wide range of public policy issues and advises Congress.

Surveys consistently show Americans believe mistakenly that foreign-aid spending is about 20 percent of the federal budget; sometimes even as high as 25 percent, which today would be $1 trillion annually. “When asked what it should be,” Kull explained in an interview last week, “most say 10 percent, or at least 5 percent.”

When focus group participants are told spending on foreign aid is just 1 percent of the $4 trillion budget, comparatively few say it should be reduced further.

Surveys Kull has directed show that more than three-quarters of Americans agree U.S. foreign policy “that pursues global values also serves American interests.” Eight in ten agree that such efforts “serve U.S. interests because they help to create a more stable world that is less apt to have wars and is better for the growth of trade and other U.S. goals.”

We’ll look more closely next week at the nuanced, illuminating data and analysis in his recent paper commissioned for the Brookings Blum Roundtable.

Kull expects more calls on the Hill for foreign-aid cuts before the next federal budget is agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they did something, some small gesture. But even a 5 percent cut would be a big deal in the foreign-aid arena.” With year-end budget talks now likely, foreign-aid professionals and advocates know they have more work to do.

In this photo made in Vietnam last year, a disabled man and friend pose with a tricycle wheelchair that gives him vastly improved mobility and a more independent life in Quang Nam provice, part of a program funded through USAID.

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Poverty problems are complex. They have to be addressed on multiple fronts to make lasting progress. The skills to find talented leaders and coach them to successful outcomes are essential in any organization – including government, nonprofits, and higher education as well as business. So is designing roles and processes to support and execute strategies.

The ExxonMobil CEO resume of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is testament to his expertise in leading efficient, global organizations. It also shows steady ExxonMobil humanitarian commitments. As CEO from 2006 through last year, Tillerson signed off on hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to combat malaria and help women take a broader role in the economies of poor countries.

At his Senate confirmation hearing last January, he said that “a great deal of progress has been made” in recent years in delivering U.S. humanitarian aid. Secretary Tillerson cited the global campaign to combat AIDS, known as PEPFAR and authorized by President George W. Bush and Congress in 2004; the Millennium Challenge Corporation, favoring grants for countries with market economies, civil liberties, and low corruption, also established in 2004; and the Power Africa mission, organized under President Obama to bring electric power to sixty million homes and businesses in sub-Saharan Africa.

Better management of humanitarian aid strengthens our capacity as a nation to build trust and hope in these emerging markets. Secretary Tillerson is right in principle to seek a State Department that is more efficient and better managed.

He certainly knows the biggest challenges and opportunities we face as a country are tied to the developing world, with its large, young, growing populations. The pace of economic growth in emerging markets – in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America especially – is faster now than in the developed world. This is happening for the first time since the dawn of the industrial revolution two centuries ago, and very likely to remain so.

In confirming former Wisconsin Congressman Mark Green in August as new USAID administrator, the Senate signaled it also believes experience in U.S. humanitarian aid and management skills are essential. Green, former ambassador to Tanzania, was a prime mover in creating the Millennium Challenge Corporation. His appointment was greeted warmly by foreign-aid professionals in both political parties.

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Photo credits: Kelley Lynch (top) and U.S. Agency for International Development