Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that she thinks President Trump is making a “grave mistake” on foreign aid.
In a speech on women’s rights at Georgetown University Friday, Clinton said Trump’s proposed cuts to international aid in his budget would undermine American diplomacy.
“We are seeing signals of a shift that should alarm us all,” Clinton said. “This Administration’s proposed cuts to international health, development and diplomacy would be a blow to women and children and a grave mistake for our country.”
“Turning our back on diplomacy won’t make our country safer,” she continued. “It will undermine our security and our standing in our world.”
Trump proposed a 28 percent cut for U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid next year, including reducing funding for the United Nations, climate change and cultural exchange programs, Reuters reports.
Later in her talk, Clinton took another, more lighthearted swipe at the Trump Administration.
“Women are not inherently more peaceful than men. That is a stereotype. That belongs in the alternative reality,” she said, emphasizing “alternative” and seeming to reference Trump aide Kellyanne Conway’s now-famous “alternative facts” defense.
Clinton’s comments about Trump came in a talk that was largely an impassioned call for advancing women’s rights around the world.
“Advancing the rights and full participation of women and girls is the great unfinished business of the 21st century, she said. “It is not a partisan issue, it is a human issue. A rising tide of women’s rights lifts entire nations.”
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