Washington, DC: US President Donald Trump plans deep cuts for the State Department and Environmental Protection Agency as his administration seeks to raise military spending, the New York Times reports.

The budget plan for fiscal 2018, to be released on Thursday, will call for cuts of 28 per cent for the State Department and 31 per cent for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Times reports, citing congressional staff members familiar with the plan.

It will also propose a big reduction in the State Department's Food for Peace program and the elimination of a Transportation Department program that subsidises flights to rural US airports.

Trump's budget proposals include cuts in federal government agencies that have been targeted by Republican Party politicians for decades but historically protected by Congress, which under law holds the federal purse strings.

His administration is seeking to boost military spending by $US54 billion ($A70 billion) and seek cuts of the same size in non-defence programs.

"They're really going to be cutting into bone," said Kenneth Baer, a former associate director at the Office of Management and Budget who helped draft President Barack Obama's first four budgets.

The document is expected to look only at one narrow piece of the budget: "discretionary" programs that are subject to renewal every year and not the massive "entitlement" programs such as the Social Security retirement program and the Medicare and Medicaid health programs.

Reuters