WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers are working in an unusually bipartisan manner to boost federal funding across the government’s spate of defense, technology and international development programs — all in the name of pushing back against long-term strategic security threats emanating from China.
But there is one notable exception: increasing financial support to the United Nations.
“Right now, at the U.N., to paraphrase President Biden, we’re in a fight for the soul of the world. It would be a grave mistake to cede the U.N. and other multilateral fora to China, which is why the president’s budgets ask for the resources and authorities needed to assert U.S. leadership,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in June at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the administration’s fiscal 2023 spending request for the U.N.
