Trent Lott: “my amendment would say that for those countries which do not support the United States at least 25 percent of the time…”

“my amendment would say that for those countries which do not support the United States at least 25 percent of the time, they would lose their military and security assistance. It is not applicable to humanitarian or developmental aid; it is only applicable to international military, education and training, foreign military financing and economic support fund. I think the American people would be truly outraged if they knew in fact that we were giving military aid--I am not talking about humanitarian aid; I am talking about military aid--to countries that vote against us 80 percent of the time. So that is the amendment that is pending. It has been suggested that this is not really a good way to do it because it might include procedural votes. Well, first of all, as Senators, we all know that sometimes the real vote is the procedural vote. In fact, more often than not the real vote in the Senate is the procedural vote. But this amendment sets the threshold low enough to accommodate votes which have no direct bearing on significant issues where America has taken a specific position.”