The foreign affairs budget bill unveiled by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Republicans last week includes substantial cuts to aid funding, a focus on countering Chinese influence, and interesting directives tied to culture wars, including a ban on U.S. support for “drag queen workshops” globally.
The top Democrat on the House appropriations state and foreign operations subcommittee, Rep. Barbara Lee, called the bill “extremely disturbing” and “wholly inadequate.” It “fails to meet the challenges of our time,” she said, adding that it will threaten America’s national security.
“The bill invites the culture wars into our foreign policy by making diversity, drag queens and the critical race theory boogeyman and boogeywoman, distracting us from the real life or death challenges this world faces,” she said at a subcommittee meeting on Friday.
About the author
Adva Saldinger@AdvaSal
Adva Saldinger is a Senior Reporter at Devex where she covers development finance, as well as U.S. foreign aid policy. Adva explores the role the private sector and private capital play in development and authors the weekly Devex Invested newsletter bringing the latest news on the role of business and finance in addressing global challenges. A journalist with more than 10 years of experience, she has worked at several newspapers in the U.S. and lived in both Ghana and South Africa.
