U.S. Capitol This Week April 22-26

U.S. Department of State

USAID published a five-year strategy, the International Basic Education (IBE), to help with education access in developing countries. Equity and inclusion will be a guiding principle for the entire strategy as USAID and its partners fund school food programs, educational material, water and sanitation, and other necessities.

It is important to make sure that the partners who will implement this US-led program in poor countries will not use it to promote progressive, controversial issues, as sometimes is the case with foreign-aid programs. The IBE strategy features several progressive talking points, among which are references to the Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Women which an aggressive pro-abortion strategy released during the Obama administration, the National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality (GEE) which considers abortion access as healthcare and a right, and the U.S. Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence which erroneously considers “Gender-based violence a human rights abuse.”  

U.S. Congress

A group of conservative and republican congressmen held a WHO Pandemic Agreement Press Conference. The critiques raised against the WHO Pandemic Agreement during the press conference primarily focused on:

1. Concerns about China's Influence: Representative Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and others criticized labeling China as a developing nation despite its economic power. They highlighted China's role in promoting censorship and misinformation and called for transparency in treaty agreements, which has not happened since the texts being negotiated have been kept in the dark for the majority of the time of its negotiation.

2. Threats to Sovereignty: Several speakers, including Senator Ron Johnson (R-MI) and Representative Tom Tiffany (R-WI), expressed concerns about the treaty diminishing American sovereignty. They argued that it would mandate resource transfers, and infringe on intellectual property rights for drugs and other technologies.

3. Criticism of WHO's Leadership: Many speakers, such as Representatives Bob Good (R-VA) and Paul Gosar (R-AR), criticized the leadership of the WHO, particularly Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, accusing him of promoting global governance without accountability.

4. Opposition to International Control: Criticism was directed at the idea of international bodies like the WHO dictating American health policies. Representatives Chip Roy (R-TX) and Andy Biggs (R-AR) called on the U.S. to withdraw from or defund the WHO to prevent international interference in matters that should be left for Americans to decide.

5. Censorship and Totalitarianism Concerns: Several speakers from NGOs, including Tony Perkins and Reggie Littlejohn, raised concerns about potential censorship and totalitarian control resulting from the treaty. They warned against giving international organizations power over public health decisions and individual freedoms.

6. Constitutional and Legal Issues: Various speakers, such as Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Kris Ulman, highlighted constitutional and legal concerns regarding the treaty's impact on American rights, including free speech and state sovereignty.

7. Executive Overreach: President Biden was criticized for considering bypassing Senate ratification. All international treaties have to be agreed to also by the U.S. Senate. However, the President can get the U.S. into the WHO Pandemic Treaty by Executive Order as was done with the Paris Agreement on climate in 2015. As was the case with climate, a Pandemic Treaty agreed to by executive order will probably be rescinded by the next conservative administration and reentered with the next progressive one. 

The White House

The White House published a Global Health and Security Strategy this week that focuses on helping fifty low and middle-income nations ramp up their capacity to detect and respond to disease outbreaks before they spread. Stephanie Psaki, who is in charge of the strategy, said five times in an interview that one of the biggest obstacles to pandemic preparedness is “misinformation and disinformation.” This is a term that has been used especially during the COVID pandemic as a reason for silencing conservatives. The whole government would be following directives that are negotiated also by multilateral institutions such as the WHO and various UN bodies which failed in delivering solutions to address the last pandemic.