WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has pushed time and again to slash U.S. spending on foreign assistance – calling for deep cuts to nutrition programs, education initiatives and HIV/AIDS prevention in developing countries across the world.

His wife, first lady Melania Trump, is now touting some of those very programs as she travels to four countries in Africa, a week-long trip that began Tuesday when she landed in Ghana and continued Thursday with a stop in Malawi.

She also travels to Kenya and Egypt before returning to Washington, where the president has been consumed by a political storm over his Supreme Court nominee, among other domestic challenges.

Melania Trump’s solo trip to Africa has captivated international aid and global health advocates, who have otherwise watched in frustration as the Trump administration moved to defund and deprioritize longstanding American programs aimed at strengthening Africa and solidifying U.S. interests across the developing world.

The first lady’s trip is “fantastic and really encouraging,” said Tom Hart, executive director for North America at the ONE Campaign, an advocacy group dedicated to combating global poverty and disease in Africa and elsewhere. But it's “jarring” when viewed in the context of President Trump’s policies toward Africa, he added.

“The president’s budget for the last two years running has proposed 30, 40 even 50 percent cuts in the kind of programs that she is going to be seeing,” Hart said. “Rarely have I seen such a gap between the interests of the East Wing and the policies of the West Wing,” he added, referring to the first lady’s offices in the White House and the president’s suite at the opposite end.

One of Melania Trump’s first stops in Ghana was a baby weighing program at a hospital, where she saw firsthand U.S.-supported efforts to bolster newborn health. She passed out “Be Best-themed” items, including blankets and teddy bears to some of the new mothers at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital.

The overarching focus of her trip, according to the first lady’s office, is health care for mothers and babies, children's education and U.S. efforts to support African countries attain "self-reliance.” It's an extension of her "Be Best" campaign promoting children's social and emotional well-being.

Trump has watched his wife's travels from afar and offered his encouragement via Twitter.

In Trump’s budget proposals, he has called for slashing foreign assistance and development programs by about 30 percent. His most recent budget blueprint would have cut the Africa Development Fund by nearly 20 percent.

He also called for the elimination of basic education funding for Malawi, proposed a $170 million cut to the State Department’s international maternal and child health programs and tried to nix $425 million in U.S. assistance to the Global Fund, which helps combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

During her stop in Malawi on Thursday, Melania Trump visited a primary school where children in royal blue and orange school uniforms scampered toward her motorcade and then sang songs for her in English, according to the White House pool report.

She later called the school visit “an amazing experience.”

“Meeting those children and understanding their different way of life is why I wanted to travel here,” the first lady said.

Malawi was selected as a destination for the first lady in part because of the country's high poverty rate and the difficulties children have in accessing education, according to the pool report. The school she visited has an average class size of 110 students.

The first lady donated more “Be Best”-themed items there, including chalk for teachers and soccer balls with the White House logo.

Melania Trump’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, did not respond to emails seeking comment on the clash between the focus of the first lady’s trip and her husband’s policies. But the State Department’s spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, dismissed questions about the mixed messages.

“We’ve been watching from afar as we see the pictures of her with children and our colleagues on the ground who are doing such good work,” Nauert told reporters at a briefing Tuesday.

She justified the White House’s proposed budget cuts – most of which have been reversed by Congress – as an effort to make “the best use of taxpayer dollars.”

“The continent of Africa is one that’s extremely important to this administration, to the U.S. government, and I think that is evident in the fact that the first lady is making her first solo foreign trip to the African continent,” Nauert said.

Others are not convinced the White House sees Africa as "extremely important," the first lady's trip notwithstanding.

“I don’t think it squares at all,” said Reuben E. Brigety, a former U.S. ambassador to the African Union and now dean of George Washington University’s school of international affairs.

He said the Trump administration has an incoherent policy toward Africa, and the U.S. has been “asleep at the switch” as China has stepped in to fill the foreign development vacuum.

“The first lady is going to spend time in schools and hospitals, and that’s wonderful,” Brigety said. “But at the same time, the Trump administration is not a serious partner for Africa’s future.”

He said Trump has alienated many Africans with his “God-awful remarks insulting the entirety of Africa in the most vile terms,” reference to the president’s crude referral to Haiti and some African nations as “shithole countries” that send too many immigrants to the U.S. And, Brigety noted, Trump created a political furor when he inaccurately asserted that white farmers in South Africa were subject to “large-scale killing.”

He said Melania Trump’s trip will only make a real difference if she is able to persuade President Trump, upon her return, of the value of U.S. investments in Africa.

Otherwise, he said, “She’ll get some nice photos and it won’t do anything to move the needle on U.S. interests on the continent.”

Observers in Africa said Melania Trump could use her glamour to greater effect – more so than any visits she might make to hospitals and babies in need.

“I wish someone would take her to the fashion shop,” Ghanaian Elizabeth Ohene told BBC World News this week. “If we could get her to wear some of our clothes … that might be much, much better for us than anything she can do for us holding up a crying baby.”

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