Enemies Be Warned: A Breakdown of the SFOPS Bill with Diaz-Balart
Interior and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson’s (R-ID) next Appropriations 101 features State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee (SFOPS) Chairman Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL). During their discussion, Chairman Diaz-Balart highlighted the importance of agency accountability and touched on how information uncovered through rigorous oversight influenced the landscape of the Fiscal Year 2025 SFOPS bill.
Watch Subcommittee Chairman Simpson and Subcommittee Chairman Diaz-Balart’s conversation here.
Diaz-Balart: “We need to be able to show the American people that the money that we're spending abroad is to help the national security interests of the United States… The theme, that the Republicans believe in, when it comes to State and Foreign Operations, is if you're an ally of the United States, if you help our interests then we need to express that, we need to show that, and we need to try to be helpful. But if you're an enemy of the United States, an adversary, or you're in cahoots with our adversaries, we should not only not fund you - which, unfortunately, we are funding institutions that I think are hurting our national security interests. We should do everything we can to confront you… That's what I have tried to do, and what we have tried to do through the appropriations process. [This is what] the Republicans have tried to do to change the scope of this bill from spending money because we know we kind of want to, to making sure that that money is for the national security interests of the United States, to help our allies, and to confront the enemies of the United States. Period. End of story.”
Simpson: “It is. Your [allocation] in this bill has been reduced substantially. You've taken some of the biggest cuts in your bill. Yet, you've come out with a good bill that, as you said, helps our allies, which helps the United States. We need to understand that we don't stand alone on a mountain, we have allies, and we need to support those allies because we'll need their support at times.”
Diaz-Balart: “Absolutely, and we do that, again, to help our national security. It's not just because we want to be nice, it's to help our national security interests.”
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Diaz-Balart: “There are some things that you would think are not that complicated, right? When we saw what happened in Israel in October, the Israelis and many of us in Congress complained about a U.N. institution in that part of the world, that, in essence, has become almost like an agency of Hamas – UNWRA, the U.N. Works and Relief Agency. [It] has received U.S. money through the U.N., and it's received money from other countries. And the Israelis have been telling us, ‘Hey, these guys are bad news.’ Employees of this U.N. group actually went into Israel to murder innocent Israelis. And then there was a Hamas tunnel underneath the headquarters of this U.N. institution, with the electricity going from the U.N. building down into the Hamas tunnel… Obviously, [UNWRA] should not be getting funding. They should have never gotten funding... That was one of the biggest battles that we had with the Democrats. The Administration and the Democrats in the Senate wanted to keep funding a group that, I think, has become captured entirely by Hamas. So, my question is, if you don't want to cut funding for that, what does it take? The good news, by the way, is that we did finally get that done.”
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