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. 
 
 Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called it a "grave error" that sent a dangerous message about the administration's policies toward women. He predicted women and girls "will suffer." 
 
 "Donald Trump should put the health and dignity of women ahead of political points and reverse this decision immediately," said Engel, D-N.Y. 
 
 Under a three-decade-old law, the U.S. is barred from funding organizations that aid or participate in forced abortion of involuntary sterilization. It's up to each administration to determine which organizations meet that condition. The U.N. Population Fund has typically been cut off by Republican presidents and restored when Democrats control the White House. 
 
 In a lengthy memorandum obtained by The Associated Press, the State Department said the U.N. fund partners with China's National Health and Family Planning Commission, responsible for overseeing China's "two-child policy." It said the U.N. collaborates with the Chinese agency on family planning. Still, the memo acknowledged there was no evidence of U.N. support for forced abortions or sterilization in China. 
 
 The U.N. Population Fund, known as UNFPA, said it regretted the U.S. move and argued it was "erroneous" to suggest it was complicit in China's policies. 
 
 "UNFPA refutes this claim, as all of its work promotes the human rights of individuals and couples to make their own decisions, free of coercion or discrimination," the agency said in a statement. 
 
 Starting in 1979, China had a "one-child policy" enforced in many cases with state-mandated abortions. But the policy was eased over the years, and now allows married couples to have two children, in a nod to the aging population in the world's most populous country. 
 
 The designation was the latest move by the Trump administration to prioritize traditionally conservative issues in the federal budget. The Trump administration has vowed to cut all dollars for climate change programming, and also restored the so-called global gag rule, which prohibits funding to non-governmental groups that support even voluntary abortions. 
 
 The Trump administration has also signaled that it no longer sees a need for the U.S. to so generously fund U.N. and other international organizations. The White House has proposed cutting roughly one-third from the State Department's budget, with much of it expected to come from foreign aid and global organization dollars, although Congress is expected to restore at least some of that funding 
 
 The U.N. agency's mission involves promoting universal access to family planning and reproductive health, with a goal of reducing maternal deaths and practices like female genital mutilation. The cut-off funds will be "reprogrammed" to USAID's Global Health Programs account to focus on similar issues, said a State Department official, who wasn't authorized to comment by name and requested anonymity. 
 
 The Kemp-Kasten amendment, enacted in 1985, led to some of the U.N. agency's funding being initially cut off, then restored by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1993, USAID said in a report. Republican George W. Bush's administration reversed the decision in 2002, but President Barack Obama — a Democrat — gave the funding back after taking office. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP ||||| UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The State Department said on Monday it was ending U.S. funding for the United Nations Population Fund, the international body’s agency focused on family planning as well as maternal and child health in more than 150 countries. 
 
 In a letter to U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, the State Department said it was dropping the funding because the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) “supports, or participates in the management of, a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” 
 
 The cut marks U.S. President Donald Trump’s first move to curtail funding for the United Nations and is likely to raise further questions about how deep those cuts will eventually go throughout the organization, where the United States is the top donor. 
 
 It comes after Trump in January reinstated the so-called Mexico City Policy that withholds U.S. funding for international organizations that perform abortions or provide information about abortion. 
 
 Known by critics as the “global gag” rule, Trump broadened its scope to include all global health assistance in his Jan. 23 executive order that withholds at least half a billion dollars in U.S. funds. A lack of clarity around the rule, however, has left aid groups scrambling and both Republican and Democratic U.S. lawmakers seeking clarity. 
 
 In a statement on its website, UNFPA said it regrets the U.S. decision to end funding, which it said is based on an “erroneous claim” that the agency supports coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization in China. 
 
 UNFPA said its mission is “to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.” 
 
 “The support we received over the years from the government and people of the United States has saved tens of thousands of mothers from preventable deaths and disabilities, and especially now in the rapidly developing global humanitarian crises,” the statement said. 
 
 The cut follows Trump’s proposed 28 percent budget reduction for diplomacy and foreign aid, including an unspecified reduction in financial support for the United Nations and its agencies, announced last month. 
 
 U.N. agencies such as the UNFPA are funded by governments voluntarily. The United States was the fourth-largest voluntary donor to UNFPA in 2015, giving $75 million in core budget and earmarked contributions. 
 
 U.N. officials have warned that abrupt funding cuts could trigger more global instability and argued that dollars for diplomacy are more effective than military spending in combating terrorism. ||||| The designations employed and the presentation of material on the map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNFPA concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The dotted line represents approximately the Line of Control 
 
 in Jammu and Kashmir agreed upon by India and Pakistan. The final status of Jammu and Kashmir has not yet been agreed upon by the parties.
– Just days after he took office in January, President Trump put back in place the "Mexico City policy" that keeps federal funds from being funneled to international aid organizations that provide abortions, or even info about them. Now the United States has officially yanked US donations from the United Nations Population Fund (aka UNFPA), the arm of the UN that offers family-planning services in more than 150 nations, Reuters reports. The BBC notes that $32.5 million that was set to be allotted for 2017 will be rescinded, with a Monday letter from the State Department saying the withdrawal of the funds is because UNFPA "supports, or participates in the management of, a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization" in China. The US is one of UNFPA's largest benefactors, coming in fourth for 2015 with just over $75,000 in combined core and earmarked contributions. UNFPA—which relies on voluntary donations from global governments to provide its services, which include those for maternal and child health—put out a Tuesday statement noting the US decision was based on an "erroneous claim" about the group's work, which it says lets "individuals and couples ... make their own decisions, free of coercion or discrimination." The State Department letter says the money will be reallocated to the Global Health Programs account, where it will reportedly be put toward family planning, maternal health, and reproductive health in developing countries. The AP notes the UNFPA fund has traditionally seen the ax whenever the GOP is in the White House; Dems reinstate it when they take back control.