The White House has ordered a freeze on up to $4 billion that Congress approved for global health, United Nations peacekeeping and other foreign aid. Unless lawmakers can overcome a complicated legislative process and force a reversal by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, that money could be denied to programs fighting Ebola, promoting stability in Africa and countering extremism with a youth employment initiative in fragile nations like Jordan.

Once again, the administration is shrinking from peaceful engagement with the world. President Trump has gutted the diplomatic corps, and if Congress hadn’t stopped him, he would have slashed the State Department by as much as 30 percent.

This all worsens a decades-long trend by Democratic and Republican presidents of relying increasingly on military power to advance American interests.

The military accounts for more than half of discretionary federal spending. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, the counterterrorism wars have cost an estimated $5.9 trillion, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University, thus adding to the ballooning national debt with which future generations will have to reckon.