Matt Gaetz: “This amendment creates a prohibition on the transfer of cluster munitions. I thank my co-lead on this measure…”

“This amendment creates a prohibition on the transfer of cluster munitions. I thank my co-lead on this measure, Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, and many of the Members who have been fighting to get rid of cluster munitions as part of modern warfare, including Representatives Titus, Omar, and McGovern. I would simply observe, if there is an amendment that is supported by Omar to Gaetz with Jacobs and McGovern and Titus in it, it must be a great idea and we ought to probably adopt it. According to The New York Times, since World War II, cluster munitions have killed an estimated 86,500 civilians. Additionally, Human Rights Watch and the U.N. have reported that cluster munitions in Ukraine have killed or wounded 890 people in 2022, 95 percent of whom were civilians. If Congress continues to flood the battlefield in Ukraine with indiscriminate killing instruments like cluster munitions, the blood of everyone impacted, including children harmed, will indeed be on our hands. We should halt the transfer of cluster munitions to any country. We stand rarely isolated in the modern world by still sending these things. I mean, we are still demining cluster munitions in Laos, for goodness sake. I hate the notion that American taxpayers are going to have to pay for cluster munitions, a bunch of civilians are going to die, and then years from now, we will be back here paying to demine the very cluster munitions we sent out. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.”