Four Democratic members of the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committees have proposed a $12 billion increase in the foreign affairs budget for the new fiscal year to fund the Biden administration’s planned diplomatic blueprint to return to the international stage while countering China’s global influence.
Democratic U.S. Senators Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and fellow Representatives David Cicilline (D-RI) and Ami Bera (D-CA) on Tuesday (March 16) jointly sponsored a proposal to significantly increase the fiscal year 2022 international affairs budget by 20 percent to better address the national security challenges currently facing the United States, including competing with China, avoiding the recurrence of global pandemics, and combating climate change.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)
“China is going to get stronger and more influential, but right now the United States doesn’t have the tools to counter the influence of the Chinese government around the world that conflicts with U.S. interests,” Sen. Murphy told reporters on a conference call Tuesday.
Senator Murphy went on to say that the large sums of money Beijing has invested in international economic development programs over a long period of Time are now paying off, and that in 2020 the Communist Party’s foreign ministry will have more foreign personnel in various countries than the United States for the first time.
“If you really want to have a comprehensive strategy to compete with China, you have to look at significantly expanding our diplomatic and economic development toolbox around the world,” Murphy said.
The lawmakers proposed $68.7 billion for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the new year, an increase of about $12 billion over the current $56.6 billion budget.
Democratic U.S. Sen. In a conference call, Sen. Hollen noted that the U.S. government’s annual defense and foreign affairs spending programs are seriously out of balance, with the Pentagon’s budget 13 times larger than the combined State Department and NIDA budgets.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said
“The reality is that we have a solid defense budget, but a completely inadequate budget for foreign affairs and international development,” said Sen. Hollen said, “There is a dangerous dissonance between the nature of the foreign policy challenges we face and the strategic resources we currently have to address them. We have the most powerful military in the world, but China is gaining the upper hand in many parts of the world with its economic power and growing technological prowess.”
The U.S. defense budget for 2021 is $740 billion. The Biden Administration has yet to present a budget plan to Congress for government spending in the new fiscal year.
Van. Holen mentioned that Congress has rallied unanimous bipartisan support for increasing resources for the U.S. State Department. He further said they have spoken with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan about plans to increase the U.S. diplomatic budget, and Blinken agreed that the United States needs to increase diplomatic spending.
“Secretary Blinken believes that if we’re going to start competing with China in places like Africa, as well as counteracting their ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative, then we have to significantly increase funding for the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (US International Development Finance Corporation,” Van Hollen said. Hollen said.
Rep. Berra, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Asia-Pacific panel, said the purpose of strengthening U.S. foreign policy against China is to avoid conflict.
“When we look at the imminent threat that China poses, with Taiwan and some of the other maritime challenges and so forth, the goal is not to get into a dynamic conflict and war, the goal here is to avoid war and to send a message to China that the direction they’re going is bad for their own self-interest and also bad for the world, “These are diplomatic tools,” Berra told reporters on a conference call, “and we have to counter Chinese influence by using our development tools, and right now we don’t have those tools or they’re not strong enough.”
Senator Murphy from Connecticut had proposed a plan in 2017 to double the State Department budget over five years to inject more resources into U.S. foreign relations efforts. He also wrote an article in 2019 calling for a new U.S. foreign policy and adequate diplomatic tools to advance U.S. national interests and values in the international community.
Murphy also said Tuesday that in addition to actively communicating with the administration, he has been in discussions with Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), the Democrat who heads the State Department budget on the Senate Appropriations Committee, about raising funding for diplomacy.
“There is broad agreement in the executive branch that if the State Department, the Agency for International Development, doesn’t have these new tools (resources), it will be very difficult for them to win battles abroad,” Sen. Murphy said.
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