Washington, DC – Representatives Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY) and Michael McCaul (R-TX), Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Jim Risch (R-ID), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, are calling on Senate and House Leadership to meet the challenges presented in the era of strategic competition by securing robust levels of foreign military financing (FMF) security assistance to Taiwan, Ukraine, and U.S. partners supporting Ukraine in the next supplemental funding package.
In a new letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), in addition House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the lawmakers urged Leadership to prioritize funding for the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act (TERA) included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by appropriating at least $500 million in FMF emergency funds to Taiwan. The letter also urges the provision of $500 million in FMF for Ukraine, and $250 million to U.S. partners supporting Ukraine’s ongoing resistance to Vladimir Putin’s ongoing and unjust war.
“The State Department’s FMF program is a central part of our security toolkit because it places collaboration and long-term planning within the U.S. interagency and with our partners at the center of our security assistance. Unfortunately, FMF has also been chronically underfunded, with less than 5 percent of FMF supporting foreign policy concerns in the Indo-Pacific and Eastern Europe,” the lawmakers wrote. “In both theaters, FMF can contribute to re-energizing the U.S. defense industrial base …. FMF allocations… can contribute to needed demand signals for U.S. defense industry to invest in and expand production that meets key U.S. and allies’ military needs. For Taiwan, FMF can help restart and expand important production lines for capabilities that are no longer used by the U.S. military but are essential for our partners to advance an asymmetric strategy against the People’s Republic of China.”
The lawmakers also emphasized that appropriations would demonstrate the depth of the United States’ commitment and assist in securing durable support to counter future conflicts.
“As the war in Ukraine has demonstrated, it is imperative that the United States provide partners with strategic, long-term security assistance well in advance of conflict in order to effectively deter, and, when necessary, to respond to, acts of aggression. Such long-term planning is also necessary in terms of providing support in times of crisis without undue strain on U.S. defense stocks,” the lawmakers added. “Alternative proposals, such as those predicated on short-term security assistance authorities carried out by the Department of Defense, should not be our only option.”
Read a copy of the letter here.
###