WASHINGTON – The U.S. Global Leadership President and CEO, Liz Schrayer, released the following statement on the Administration’s emergency supplemental request for global needs with $34.5 billion allocated for the U.S. International Affairs Budget:

Let’s be honest about what’s at stake for America on the world stage: global stability directly impacts American security. It’s at moments like this that our nation needs to get it right – or these spiraling global crises will land on our doorstep once again, which is why we urge Congress to support this new national security emergency package providing essential resources for civilian tools to counter authoritarian threats from Russia, China, and Iran, along with critical humanitarian aid.

Hamas and Putin may represent different threats of terror and tyranny, as President Biden said in his nationwide address last night, but both want to destroy neighboring democracies. Iran is boosting their support to our adversaries, and the implications for our security and economic interests couldn’t be clearer. Ensuring resources for State Department, USAID, and other civilian agencies to support Israel and Ukraine, provide humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians, compete with China, especially in the Indo-Pacific, and respond to the needs in our own hemisphere, is simply in our own national interests. We pay now or pay far more later.

This is a moment that requires a comprehensive national security approach – not fractured debates – to address growing threats to our national security, prosperity, and democratic values. Frankly, we are racing against time.

We look forward to working with Congress and the Administration to pass a national security emergency package with no less than $34.5 billion in civilian and humanitarian resources as quickly as possible. Doing so is of the utmost urgency, not only to demonstrate our resolve with our allies and partners, but to protect the security and economic interests of American families in an increasingly dangerous world.