US cites abortion provision in cutting off UN agency funding

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is cutting off U.S. funding to the United Nations agency for reproductive health under an abortion-related provision in a law that Democratic and Republican administrations have used as a cudgel in the global culture wars.

The U.N. Population Fund will lose $32.5 million in funding from the 2017 budget, the State Department said, with funds shifted to similar programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development. The administration accused the agency, through its work with China's government, of supporting population-control programs in China that include coercive abortion.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the U.N. fund would also lose out on tens of millions of additional dollars it has typically received from the U.S. in "non-core" funds.

By halting assistance to the U.N. Population Fund, the Trump administration is following through on promises to let socially conservative policies that President Donald Trump embraced in his campaign determine the way the U.S. government operates and conducts itself in the world.

Though focused on forced abortion – a concept opposed by liberals and conservatives alike – the move to invoke the "Kemp-Kasten amendment" was sure to be perceived as a gesture to anti-abortion advocates and other conservative interests.

The policy change comes days before Trump is set to host Chinese President Xi Jinping for a highly anticipated meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. In a shift from President Barack Obama's approach, Trump has avoided elevating human-rights concerns in diplomacy, with White House officials saying those issues are most effectively advanced by raising them with foreign leaders in private.