Foreign Aid Priorities

Floor Speech

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Mr. BURCHETT. Mr. Speaker, the United States provides a lot of foreign aid to a lot of countries. It is important that we make sure that money is being spent wisely.

The Biden administration has not taken this responsibility seriously at all, Mr. Speaker. The White House is currently pushing to send billions of dollars to Ukraine, even though we have already allocated over $110 billion to Ukraine and have no way of knowing where that money really ends up.

We also have sent nearly $2 billion to Afghanistan since our botched withdrawal in 2021, even though we know a lot of that money ends up in the hands of the Taliban.

I asked an expert witness in a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing if there is any way the United States can provide aid to Afghanistan without any of it falling in the hands of the Taliban, and he said no.

Yet, when the president of Guatemala specifically requested aid to help block off one of the most popular travel routes for illegal immigrants coming to the United States, the Biden administration refused to help.

It is pretty apparent to me, Mr. Speaker, that this administration has its foreign aid priorities all out of order.

It needs to get serious about addressing issues that affect the American people, like our illegal immigration crisis, instead of trying to send billions of unchecked dollars to Ukraine and the Taliban.

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