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28 February 2001
Bush Funding Proposal to Support Non-Proliferation Efforts
by
Warner Rose
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- President Bush's $1,959,000 million proposed budget for
fiscal year 2002 would increase spending on some international affairs
programs and decrease it for others, notably export finance.
The proposed budget would slightly increase overall international
affairs spending by about 5 percent to $23,100 million. This includes
funding for State Department operations, the foreign aid bill and
export and overseas investment financing agencies. Not included in
this category are defense spending and certain other international
programs, such as food aid, that are covered elsewhere in the budget.
The proposed Bush budget, called "A Blueprint for New Beginnings" and
released February 28, omits details on specific programs. The
completed budget will be sent to the Congress in April. Fiscal year
2002 begins October 1.
Nonetheless, the "Blueprint" provides information on priorities.
Without yet providing dollar amounts, the proposed budget anticipates
increased spending for the following categories:
- U.S. Agency for International Development activities that "combat
global HIV/AIDS and improve primary education in Africa and other
parts of the developing world."
- military assistance to Israel "to help meet increases in defense
resources requirements and demonstrate our commitment to Israel's
security."
- international broadcasting.
- debt-for-nature-swaps provided for in the 1998 Tropical Forest
Conservation Act
- State Department modernization in information technology and human
resources.
The Bush budget also "requests funding to maintain and expand
programs" for anti-narcotics initiatives in Colombia and the Andean
region. While the so-called Plan Colombia, which received $1,300
million in funding last year, has been the main focus, the new budget
"also requests funding for Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela, and Panama
under this initiative to strengthen their efforts to control drug
production and the drug trade."
The budget blueprint pledges that the United States would "fully fund"
all scheduled fiscal year 2002 payments to multilateral development
banks and the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries debt relief initiative.
It also pledges support for multilateral peacekeeping initiatives that
"restore and maintain peace" and for continued U.S. efforts to remove
landmines from war-torn countries.
The budget would support efforts to curb the spread of weapons of mass
destruction by helping other countries improve their controls on
exports of potentially dangerous technologies.
It also calls for extending the General System of Preferences trade
preference program for developing countries for one year and the
Andean Trade Preference Act for three years.
The Bush budget proposes to reduce funding for the Export-Import Bank
of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) by about 25 percent. Ex-Im Bank
provides exports credits, in the form of direct loans or guarantees,
to U.S. exporters. The Bush budget would restrict Ex-Im financing to
U.S. companies that "truly cannot access private financing." The
budget would also cut spending by the Overseas Private Investment
Corporation (OPIC), noting that OPIC has not used some of its budget
authority from the last two years. OPIC provides insurance and other
assistance to U.S. companies investing in developing countries.
The changes for Ex-Im Bank and OPIC are taken in anticipation of the
two agencies becoming "more focused on correcting market imperfections
as the private sector's ability to bear emerging market risks becomes
larger, more sophisticated and more efficient."
The proposed budget calls for a review of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's P.L. 480 food aid programs, with special attention on
the surplus commodity donation program known as section 416(b). U.S.
food donations have "increased markedly since 1999, and some claim the
program may be depressing U.S. commercial sales," the budget proposal
said.
The budget would also provide for a $500 million five-year program to
improve systems for processing legal immigrant applications and
petitions and $75 million to fund 570 new Border Patrol agents in 2002
and 2003. With the new agents, the total number of agents on the
northern and southern borders would amount to about 11,000.
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