Donald Trump has moved to reshape US policy on the Middle East and global trade by ending funding of UN aid programs for Palestinian refugees and threatening to pull out of the World Trade Organisation.
The moves underline the US President’s increasingly assertive “America First” approach to foreign policy as he questions long-held traditions of the post-war international order.
In a move that will be welcomed by Israel, the administration plans to end its funding for Palestinians via the US Relief and Works Agency and will call for a steep drop in the number of Palestinians recognised as refugees.
It follows a decision last week to cut US aid to Palestinians by $US200 million ($275m) as relations between Washington and the Palestinian Authority sink to a new low. The US has said the $US200m that was earmarked for Gaza and the West Bank will now be spent on “high-priority projects elsewhere”.
The US does not agree on how the UNWRA spends its funds, with Mr Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton recently describing the body as a “failed mechanism” for providing aid to Palestinian refugees.
The administration will call for a reduction in the number of recognised Palestinian refugees from five million to a tenth of that number, a move that would eliminate for many their so-called right to return to Israel.
Read the article by Washington correspondent Cameron Stewart in The Australian.