Key Senate Democrats vowed Wednesday not to use the administration`s new $620 million aid request for the former Soviet Union to fuel criticism of President Bush for spending too much time on foreign policy at the expense of domestic needs.
While suggesting a degree of bipartisan backing for the humanitarian and technical assistance to the former Soviet republics, the lawmakers warned Secretary of State James A. Baker III the voters` domestic worries
nevertheless will make it difficult for Congress to vote for foreign aid this year.
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), while offering support, said there is a lot of opposition ”on the streets” to foreign aid. The administration would be making a ”dreadful mistake . . . (to assume) the American public will be behind this particular effort,” he said.
Baker said that spending ”a few billion” dollars now to help the former Soviet republics could prevent having to spend trillions of dollars meeting a renewed threat in the future.
In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Baker said the collapse of the USSR had given the U.S. a ”once-in-a-century
opportunity” to advance its interests and values throughout the world.
Alluding to the ”America First” rhetoric of Republican presidential challenger Patrick Buchanan and the softer variations expressed by some of the Democratic candidates, Baker said, ”The belief that the world is safe enough to suffer a little American neglect is just plain wrong.”
The White House is acutely sensitive to criticism of Bush for his attention to foreign affairs, and has hesitated in coming up with an aid plan for the newly independent states, in part because of concern about the political fallout.
The president stayed on the sidelines late last year while Congress debated and approved taking $500 million from the defense budget to be used to transport emergency humanitarian aid and to help destroy Soviet nuclear weapons.
The administration now is tapping the $100 million transportation fund to pay for a emergency airlift of food and medicine starting next week, and the $400 million nuclear fund is a centerpiece of U.S. efforts to reach a quick deal with Russia to eliminate thousands of tactical and long-range nuclear weapons.
Bush`s new budget seeks $150 million in additional aid in the current fiscal year and $470 million in fiscal 1993, which begins Oct. 1. The funding would pay for direct economic support, humanitarian aid and technical assistance for the states of the former superpower.
Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), the Foreign Relations Committeee chairman, compared the president`s request to the $500 million a year that the Reagan administration spent in the mid-1980s to fight communism in El Salvador.
”More is at stake for us today in the former Soviet Union than was ever the case in El Salvador,” he said.
But committee Democrats are favorably inclined toward foreign aid, putting them somewhat out of step this year with other members of their party. ”I am one Democrat who will stand with you and will argue against other Democrats, if necessary,” Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) told Baker.
Other Democrats on the committee alluded to the fact that Democrats have led the criticism of the administration for its emphasis on foreign policy, but they sought to draw a distinction on this issue of aid to Russia.
On other issues, Baker urged Senate ratification of the strategic arms treaty (START) negotiated with the former Soviet Union, saying it provides a basis for the additional nuclear reductions now being negotiated with Russia. Baker also said that the U.S. will not grant Israel $10 billion in loan guarantees unless it is sure that none of the money will be used to support policies that the U.S. opposes, a reference to the Israeli practice of settling Jews in the occupied territories.
Baker said China has sent the U.S. a letter indicating it will abide by a pact, the Missile Technology Control Regime, restricting missile exports to the Mideast and the Indian subcontinent.
Baker said the U.S. is prepared to establish diplomatic ties with the nations of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan if he gets assurances on their commitment to democracy and human rights.
