San Antonio U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro is vying to become chair of one of the most powerful committees in Washington: the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But to do so, he’ll have to overcome the centrist and pro-military forces in the Democratic Party that currently rule the committee and stand to stymie progressives’ foreign policy plans.
The current chair of the committee is New York Congressman Eliot Engel, a centrist hawk, who was ousted by Jamaal Bowman, an insurgent challenger, in June’s Democratic primary election. The upset quickly prompted a behind-the-scenes power struggle over who would succeed him, and thus hold immense sway over the Democrats’ foreign policy agenda, in 2021—assuming the party maintains its House majority.
Castro announced his campaign for the chairmanship in July. He says that if elected, he will champion a progressive foreign policy vision that has been stifled by party leaders who seek to escalate conflict with other countries instead of squashing it. As he told the Washington Post, “Our foreign affairs committee needs to catch up with where Democrats are in terms of foreign policy.” That, he says, includes putting diplomacy above the prevailing foreign policy tactics of military intervention and economic sanctions, along with elevating other issues, such as Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, a problem that has found little traction in the past.
