National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2027

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman from Florida for his strong work on making reforms to this appropriations package. He did it in the previous Congress last year. He is doing it again this year. There have been a number of significant reforms that he deserves credit for, and I wanted that to be clear when I am offering amendments to change the text.

I would note there are still things in the appropriations process that I am not fond of using taxpayer money for, and the United Nations is one of those things.

The amendment that I am offering here would prohibit any funds in the bill from being made available to the United Nations at all.

The bill continues to fund millions of dollars for the United Nations, despite longstanding concerns over anti-Israel bias, corruption, peacekeeper misconduct, institutional failure, and ways in which the United Nations operates on a regular basis in direct contradiction to the interests of the United States. That is undeniably true for observers of the United Nations, particularly over the last couple of decades and in recent years.

When you are a nation that is $40 trillion in debt, when you are a nation that is trying to figure out how to fund the basics of government and find the dollars that we need to secure the Nation with a strong defense, to modernize our military, to ensure border security, all the things that we need to do while we are still racking up debt to the tune of--by the way, paying for interest on the debt to the tune of over a trillion dollars a year, spending more on interest than we are on our own national defense, it strikes me as an inappropriate use of taxpayer money to continue to send that money to an entity that has been working in such negative ways with respect to our interests as a nation.

Again, I applaud the chairman for all of his great work on things like UNRWA, working in collaboration with me and others on trying to remove that funding--it was very important--the United Nations Human Rights Council abomination, the United Nations Population Fund, other things that I know that the gentleman has been working on.

To be very clear, I am not trying to impugn the bill in any way from that perspective. I just wish to go further.

I think it is important that we pull the funds from an entity operating against our interests. It has repeatedly failed to earn the confidence of the American people. It has stood up in solidarity with the worst and most evil countries in the world against our interests and dared to wag their finger at the United States, built on the back of our funding and generosity and, by the way, real estate, to give them a platform to target us and to target our interests, in addition to constantly and consistently going after our friends in Israel.

Ms. LOIS FRANKEL of Florida. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, I note that it is just not enough for us to say that they can do better. This is an organization that has too often allowed terrorist infiltration within its own entities and sided with terrorist organizations directly against us and our allies. I have seen repeated reports of misconduct involving United Nations peacekeeping operations and too little accountability for those failures.

We act as if the United States is not capable of working on unilateral, bilateral, and other bases to be able to do all the great things we want to do around the world.

My dad is a polio survivor. There are a lot of things that we can do to try to make sure we are eradicating these things around the world. We don't necessarily need a bureaucratic organization that its entire organizational structure and bias is structured against us, despite the fact that we fund the overwhelming majority of its operations.

The United Nations has been operating against our interests. We are asking American taxpayers to continue to take those dollars and give them to an entity that has, in its open statements to the world, been against our interests so many times, time and time again, including siding with some of the worst countries on the Human Rights Council and the biggest abusers of human rights. The United Nations is put and exalted as somehow being those that we should listen to rather than the United States.

Ms. LOIS FRANKEL of Florida. Madam Chair, I have heard folks cite what we call the good, the bad, and the ugly with the U.N.

Let me just say again, at a time when conflict, hunger, disease, and displacement are affecting millions around the world, we need a place where all nations can get together.

What would it mean if the United States walks away? If we walk away, who fills the void? Fill in the blank: China, Russia, maybe even Iran.

As I have said before, penny-wise, pound-foolish.

Madam Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

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Mr. ROY. Madam Chair, I urge adoption of the amendment to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent on advancing American interests, not funding institutions that too often work against them. We are wholly prepared as a nation to be able to address these issues and concerns. You say, what will happen? China, Russia, and the rest of the world fear the United States. They do not fear the United Nations.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. LOIS FRANKEL of Florida. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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