Our stake in funding International Affairs

In recent years, there have been increasing calls from some political leaders to decrease our commitments abroad and to instead worry about our own security and not others’. While that may sound good on the campaign trail, however, in reality, we live in a globalized world where interconnected processes affect us here even if they happen on the other side of the world. That is why the International Affairs Budget is vital for our interests because it supports global health, betters the lives of women and girls around the globe, improves food security for millions, strengthens our own national security and much more.

Prior to digging deeper into each one of these impacts of the International Affairs Budget, a quote that has stayed with me is from former United States Secretary of Defense, James Mattis: “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.”

The International Affairs Budget supports global health by providing resources toorganizations like the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has been responding toglobal health crises for decades; including malaria, HIV/AIDS, Ebola and so on. Funding organizations like this is important to ensure that these outbreaks don’t uncontrollably spread andinevitably impact us here at home.

The International Affairs budget also betters the lives of women and girls around the globe by funding initiatives such as the 2X Women initiative that has worked to stem the rise of various inequalities that women and girls face. There is also an improvement to the food security for millions with the budget providing funding for various initiatives such as McGovern-Dole Food For Education program, that contribute to early childhood education and development in poverty plagued countries such as Madagascar and Angola.

Finally, the budget supports our own national security by using funding and working with numerous programs to address the root cause of inequalities and violence around the globe in order to prevent violence and brutal conflict that may draw our own troops into it. Not to mention that investing to end poverty across the globe improves the conditions of the people living there, in an effort to combat radicalization.

Joshua Beauchamp

Itasca