Lincoln Diaz-Balart: “as chairman of the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Subcommittee, I rise in strong support…”

“as chairman of the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Subcommittee, I rise in strong support for H.R. 7006. This full-year funding bill really carries out our Nation's foreign policy in a historic way in so many different aspects. First and foremost, the bill restores fiscal sanity by reducing spending by 16 percent, which is nearly a $10 billion cut, in recognition of the President's and the Secretary of State's effort to make the Department of State, frankly, more efficient, streamlined, and responsive to the national security priorities. Within these really, I think, dramatic but necessary reductions, the bill will make sure that the Secretary has the resources that he needs to counter our adversaries--adversaries like China, Iran, cartels in our hemisphere, and the regime of Cuba in our hemisphere. This bill takes serious steps toward confronting, for example, the regime in Cuba and includes limitations on funding for countries and organizations that participate in the human trafficking of Cuban medical professionals while directing the Secretary of State to revoke visas for officials of countries involved in this grotesque human trafficking.”