Source: United States Senator for Connecticut – Chris Murphy
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs and Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, on Wednesday spoke at a subcommittee hearing on President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
In a question to USAID Administrator Samantha Power, Murphy raised his concerns with cutting economic aid to Tunisia while maintaining FY23 levels of military aid: “The budget suggests preserving military aid for Tunisia, but also a pretty dramatic cut to economic aid and to aid to civil society groups. That’s worrying because as you know, this is a moment of real crisis in Tunisia. President Saied has turned his back on democratic norms, has engaged in a pretty repressive and overwhelming crackdown on dissent. And this seems like a moment where it would be important for us to send a signal to civil society that we are going to increase our support for their work, not decrease it.”
On competition with China in the region, Murphy said: “My sense is that the way that we compete with China successfully is to not be China. It is to bring our values and our standards to these conversations and to have a walkaway moment where the cost is just too high if a government is engaged in massive repression, or their economy is such a mess that it doesn’t make sense for us to be involved in the long run. We haven’t done that much, despite the President talking about putting human rights and democracy first, we still stay engaged with a lot of countries that have been moving the wrong way pretty fast. But not litigating that specific question of policy, what do you think about this idea that there’s a risk of being engaged in a human rights democracy race to the bottom with China? There’s got to be a point at which we walk away.”
Murphy concluded: “That’s why Tunisia for me is an interesting example, a place where we’ve continued the same level of military assistance, despite the fact that the military is engaged in this crackdown, and we’re cutting aid that arguably is channeled through to civil society. My guess is the reason we’ve done that is to try to have some influence with the Tunisian regime because China’s knocking at the door, and the way we get that influence is through economic aid and military aid that the government has a role in.”
Last week, Murphy joined Lise Grande, the President of the U.S. Institute of Peace, to discuss Tunisia’s turn towards authoritarianism and its implications for U.S. foreign policy. Last month, Murphy asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken why the State Department’s FY24 budget request maintains FY23 levels of military aid to Tunisia despite its democratic backsliding.
A full transcript of Murphy’s exchange with Administrator Power:
MURPHY: “Administrator Power, I wanted to turn your attention to Tunisia, a small country in North Africa, but one that has had outsized attention and importance, given the fact that it was one of the few relative democratic success stories coming out of the Arab Spring. I have a specific question and then a more general question. The specific one is this: The budget suggests preserving military aid for Tunisia, but also a pretty dramatic cut to economic aid and to aid to civil society groups.
“That’s worrying because as you know, this is a moment of real crisis in Tunisia. President Saied has turned his back on democratic norms, has engaged in a pretty repressive and overwhelming crackdown on dissent. And this seems like a moment where it would be important for us to send a signal to civil society that we are going to increase our support for their work, not decrease it. So, I wondered just on this specific question of how we look at our aid budget trying to help give some oxygen to those that are trying to fight back against this slide away from democracy in Tunisia, how this budget is going to go to do that and why we envision a cut to civil society money for Tunisia?”
POWER: “Well, I think the 24 request is for $14.5 million, but that is a lower number in part, again, because so many of the avenues in which we were engaging with the government, at least two years ago, have been for foreclosed by the actions by the government. So I’d want to dig into whether or not your premise is right about actual cuts to civil society. I would certainly agree with you that even when governments are backsliding that that can become cause just to shift resources from what you might have wished to do with the judicial body or with the ministry to make sure that accountability doesn’t suffer, as well, or at least doesn’t suffer a shortage of resources, it’s certainly suffering.
“The other thing I would note, Senator is that for the first time this administration is coming forward with a proposal for an opportunity fund for the Middle East and North Africa. I don’t know if that caught your attention. I think it’s a $90 million fund and the idea there is to be more opportunistic. Again, we don’t see right now the likelihood of a democratic opening or reverse of the backsliding in Tunisia, but if that were to happen, to be in a position to draw from that fund, to meet the moment, whether through support for civil society or for the government. Let me get back to on the specifics of what the cut from the $22.5 million FY22 level to a $14.5 million request, sort of what the modalities of that would be. “
MURPHY: “Listen, I worry that I think you’re right, some of it is driven by a lack of avenue. You’ve got a minister of interior who is working hand in hand with Saied’s crackdown, but I worry that this is kind of an excuse to not get thoughtful and creative about how to find avenues to support civil society and look forward to hearing back.
“Here’s my more general question. You know, I have been a critic of continuing the level of aid to Saied’s government and one of the answers I get back is: China. That becomes the excuse as to why we should be heavily invested in repressive regimes all over North Africa and the Middle East, that if we’re not there, China will be. I know you’ve talked a lot about China here today, but on the sort of specific question about what I think many people here are inviting, a human rights and democracy race to the bottom with China, in which just because they are willing to fund repressive regimes and economically backward regimes, we should as well.
“My sense is that the way that we compete with China successfully is to not be China. It is to bring our values and our standards to these conversations and to have a walkaway moment where the cost is just too high if a government is engaged in massive repression, or their economy is such a mess, that it doesn’t make sense for us to be involved in the long run. We haven’t done that much, despite the President talking about putting human rights and democracy first, we still stay engaged with a lot of countries that have been moving the wrong way pretty fast. But not litigating that specific question of policy, what do you think about this idea that there’s a risk of being engaged in a human rights democracy race to the bottom with China? There’s got to be a point at which we walk away.”
POWER: “Well, let me just take that question, if I could, from my vantage point as Administrator of USAID, where we have significantly increased our investments in democracy and human rights where I very much agree with you that those investments that support, including by voice, but also by programming, is a key distinguishing feature. The PRC does government to government, this and that, PRC brings its own workers in to make substantial investments. The debt distress that so many countries are suffering comes about, in part, because they’re so busy servicing debt and don’t have an ability to invest those revenues in the livelihoods of their of their citizens, the lives of their citizens.
“Well, we are under President Biden very significantly expanding those investments in these distinguishing features. Our attention to marginalized people, our attention to indigenous communities, our intention to LGBTQI individuals that are being persecuted across Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and beyond. So I actually think that governments are seeing across the board, much more substantial investments, not only than the previous administration, which may not be unexpected, but even than the Obama administration, and I think the years of underinvestment in those groups that are holding governments accountable, we are trying to make up for lost time. That 17 years of democratic backsliding occurred without an effort to really buck or halt the momentum that the autocrats and others were having.
“You know I will say, putting to one side the walkaway aspect of your question if I may, we’re doing a lot of business with a lot of countries. I mean, there are places where there is democratic backsliding, where we are dramatically expanding our civil society programming resources, but we are also urgently working with them to curb emissions at the same time. And so for USAID, even in a place like Afghanistan where the Taliban is doing one week just something just more monstrous than the thing that was done before and more self-defeating from the standpoint of the economy of the country, even there, we’re not walking away because we want to help citizens meet basic needs. We want to support girls through online learning if we can’t reach them in the classroom like we were able to do a couple of years ago.
“So you know, it is this question of walking away versus engaging, and continuing to be in the scrum, to even in governments that are repressive, to find reformist elements who want to liberalize maybe they want to liberalize aspects of the economy, and not yet liberalize independent press freedom. But sometimes, history shows that you get a foothold in there, you open things up, the private sector comes in, and that can create openings that might not have existed otherwise.”
“So I think on a case-by-case basis, one can discuss again whether taking our marbles and going home is the right strategy, but I find that there’s a real hunger right now for the American alternative and that includes support for civil society, raising our voice for those who are being repressed, raising our voice for marginalized populations, and to lose that aspect of our foreign policy really would be to lose a comparative advantage.”
MURPHY: “I don’t know that I disagree with any of that. I think often the rationale for our continued economic and security assistance, and maybe I’m talking to the wrong person about security assistance, is often connected to our need to have a foothold inside these countries to compete with China. It’s not always connected to our efforts to lift up democracy and human rights.
“That’s why Tunisia for me is an interesting example, a place where we’ve continued the same level of military assistance, despite the fact that the military is engaged in this crackdown, and we’re cutting aid that arguably is channeled through to civil society. My guess is the reason we’ve done that is to try to have some influence with the Tunisian regime because China’s knocking at the door, and the way we get that influence is through economic aid and military aid that the government has a role in. That troubles me side by side with these reductions in support for civil society, but I will look forward to continuing the conversation.”
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