Although the Trump Administration wants to increase spending for some parts of the military, the President’s new budget cuts $1.3 billion from the Coast Guard, which has already been suffering from previous cuts. The new cuts would particularly affect the Coast Guard’s efforts at drug interdiction and its presence in the Arctic.
Admiral Paul Zukunft, the Coast Guard Commandant, said that last year the service had been very successful in drug interdiction, seizing more than 200 metric tons of cocaine, the most ever. But it also had to ignore 500 other “events” – signs of possible drug smuggling – because it did not have enough planes or ships, particularly off the coast of Colombia. “We are really besieged won there,” he said.
The proposed cuts also would hurt the Coast Guard’s presence in the Arctic, where Russia has already stationed 40 icebreakers in an effort to become the dominant force there. In addition to becoming a possible new trade route, the Arctic has 13 percent of the world’s untapped oil reserves, and 33 percent of the world’s natural gas. Read more here: http://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-budget-slash-coast-guard-2017-3
