His captors tortured him brutally, but he eventually managed to escape Tunisia on a borrowed passport after his release. He returned home in 2011 after the Arab Spring uprising toppled Tunisia’s long-standing despot — and vowed to help build a democracy that would never torture again. He has since rejected Islamism. He abhors violence and denounces extremism. And, crucially, he works with Tunisia’s government to spread that message — to create a model of an Arab democracy that could act as a bulwark against jihadism.

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I asked Ferjani if he still thinks about what we endured. “In my left leg,” he told me, “I have paralysis still sometimes. When I sleep, if I turn over in the night, I wake up from the excruciating pain.” He recalled how the authorities persecuted his family members and anyone else who was close to him.

His voice cracked, and then went silent. I looked up. His hands were covering his face, as tears streamed down his bearded cheeks. But then his sense of determination returned. “I never let anyone see me do that,” he said, “because I don’t ever want anyone from the old regime or from any authoritarian state around the world thinking that they can break people like me. They can’t.”

Ferjani is less unusual than you might think. In dozens of countries around the world, there is a continuing battle between democratic reformers and the despots who seek to destroy them. In studying that relentless fight, I’ve routinely interviewed politicians and activists who were brutalized by their own government. Yet along the way, I’ve noticed something striking: From Tunisia to Belarus and Thailand to Madagascar, every torture victim I’ve interviewed makes clear that only their bones were broken, but not their will to fight for democracy. They want just one thing: a bit of help from the West.

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President Trump’s proposed budget abandons those people. Even worse, it would cut funding for the cheapest way to promote democracy, protect human rights and defeat terrorism. Under the guise of putting America first, Trump’s rejection of diplomacy and foreign aid in exchange for greater military spending is a false choice that will undermine U.S. strategic interests.

Trump’s proposed budget would slash the State Department budget by 29 percent. In fact, his proposed $54 billion increase to defense spending is more than the entire amount of funding proposed for diplomacy and foreign aid. Enacting this would be an enormous mistake. Small, short-term savings now would create unbearably high costs later.

Smart, muscular diplomacy backed up by targeted foreign aid is the cheapest and most effective way to bolster democracy abroad and defeat terrorism. Research has shown that representative democracies are able to battle terrorism more effectively and that authoritarian states succumb to it more. Terrorism taking root anywhere is a risk to Americans everywhere.

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Trump claims he has a secret plan to defeat the Islamic State. Yet there’s actually nothing mysterious about the best solution to terrorism and extremism. There are no quick fixes, but conflict doesn’t crop up as much in places that are well-governed, where people are happy and healthy, and where poverty’s grip is escapable. Instead, conflict grows like a weed, fertilized by authoritarianism and despair. Extremism and terrorism flourish best in those same conditions.

Conversely, models of democratic progress such as Tunisia provide a blueprint to undercut extremism. If the United States helps support democracy there, it will help counter extremism everywhere. We can’t beat terrorism with drones alone; we have to win with ideas too. To do so, we can’t just throw money at countries that are struggling to make the transition to democracy; we have to coordinate diplomacy with targeted programs across the globe that can actually bolster the efforts of people such as Ferjani.

But it’s not just about counterterrorism. Values and strategic interests are inextricably linked elsewhere. For the cost of Trump’s vacations to Mar-a-Lago thus far, the United States could have expanded key democracy support for Burma’s nascent democratic transition. This effort may be borne out of a value judgment that the Burmese deserve democracy, but it’s also a smart way to limit Chinese influence in Asia.

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Trump’s administration is callously dismissive of such efforts. “This is a hard-power budget, not a soft-power budget,” boasted Mick Mulvaney, director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget. Mulvaney can indulge in all the macho sound bites he wants. But he can’t escape the fact that soft power is cheap and effective; hard power is expensive and risky. If you don’t believe me, look at the total bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or listen to Trump’s own defense secretary, Jim Mattis, who told Congress in 2013: “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.”

Fiscal conservatives used to recognize this fundamental truth about the bargains of a foreign policy that plants the seeds of peace rather than puts up walls to keep weeds from creeping in. That’s why foreign-policy veterans such as Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) are horrified at the shortsightedness of slashing the State Department budget and abandoning those who put their lives at risk for democracy. They know, like I do, that such cuts are morally, strategically and fiscally reckless. They know, like I do, that if they are enacted, America’s soft power will decline and the world will get more dangerous as volatility and authoritarianism rise in tandem. They know, like Trump should, that diplomacy is the cheap way to protect American interests and avoid war.