EMAIL DETAILS

The Weekly GAB Friday, August 3, 2018
U.S. Global Leadership Coalition | www.usglc.org
http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=NmHFUyS7JrQ8tVCkbmAHgQ

USGLC in the News

USA TODAY

We Can't Fight Our Opioid Crisis Alone. We Need Help From Countries
Around the World

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=_Ok7gvmJ6cZJvwwmBlRQ-g

Liz Schrayer, President and CEO, US Global Leadership Coalition

It's sobering to take in the magnitude: Over 63,600 Americans
died from drug overdoses in 2016...And deaths specifically from
opioids trafficked from overseas more than doubled from 2015 to 2016.
Most fentanyl in America comes from China. While domestic response to
the opioid crisis must continue to be our priority, we should also
invest in diplomatic and international programs, so they can do their
part in helping combat the production and trafficking of deadly
synthetic opioids. Fortunately, the State Department is already
responding to this horrific public health emergency with partners in
China, Mexico and around the world. But it's all hands on deck,
and that means it's time to step up our international tool kit.

BROOKINGS
Foreign Assistance in the 'America First' Era

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=ky5zQxyNmazZJeyFnsI4zg

Liz Schrayer, President and CEO, US Global Leadership Coalition

Out of the entire U.S. $4 trillion federal budget, Director Mulvaney
chose to highlight the State Department and foreign
assistance-which make up just 1 percent of all federal
spending-as two of the top three areas proposed for the deepest
cuts...It does not take a mathematician to realize that this decision
wasn't about balancing the budget-it was about politics.
Fast-forward one year to this past March: the final Fiscal Year 2018
spending bill was signed in to law-not with the proposed cut of
one-third for the International Affairs Budget, but instead with a 4
percent increase. This was a powerful and unequivocal bipartisan
rejection by Congress of an America First budget when it came to
slashing our nation's civilian tools.

Who's in the News

CNBC

China Is 'Pouring Money Into Africa.' Here's How the US Can Level the
Playing Field

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=Ntal7Q5-AdXk1o2k4VgYvw

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Senator Chris Coons (D-DE)

The African continent offers real opportunities thanks to some of the
world's fastest growing economies and an expanding labor force. As a
Cabinet Secretary and a Democratic Member of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, respectively, we agree that the United States
must do more to present our African partners with better alternatives
to state-led economic models, promoted by countries like China, so
Africa can assume its rightful place in the global economy. Through
efforts such as its Belt and Road Initiative, China is
using...investment in infrastructure to secure an economic foothold,
from which it is attempting to secure political, diplomatic, and in
some cases military access, with potentially serious consequences for
U.S. interests from Central Asia to Eastern Europe and Africa.

THE HILL

In the Wake of ISIS: Seeking to Restore What Is Right and Good for the
Yazidis

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=JtdWjtGv1sd-AFFNnlClnA

Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), Member of the House
Appropriations Committee

Christians in Iraq used to total 1.5 million. Now, in the wake of
ISIS, only a few hundred thousand remain. Approximately 400,000
Yazidis are now internally displaced persons living in tent
structures. To assess the current situation on the ground and evaluate
our initial aid package, I joined a delegation of administration
officials including Administrator Mark Green of the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) and Ambassador-at-Large
for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback. Our trip included
intense discussions with Iraqi religious leaders, international aid
workers, displaced children, U.N. personnel, and U.S. military
leadership.

Development & Diplomacy

THE WASHINGTON POST

The Trump Administration Offers Asia an Alternative to Chinese
Investment |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=o1IhwAJ-AtewRXpZedfY6g

Josh Rogin

On Monday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo led a team of Cabinet-level officials to unveil the economic
piece of the administration's Indo-Pacific strategy...A suite of
programs by the State Department and U.S. Agency for International
Development meant to encourage public-private partnerships to help
countries develop digital infrastructure, regulatory policies and
cybersecurity. Right now, the administration is dedicating about $115
million to the effort, with an eye toward getting more money in the
next round of budget deliberations. Administration officials also said
they will push Congress to pass the Build Act, which would establish a
new development finance corporation to help private industry fund
infrastructure in developing countries.

NPR
Ebola In a Conflict Zone |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=jX5-oyf6SEREdlcWsiyW-w

Jason Beaubien

The latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
comes just a week after the last outbreak there was declared over.
Making things worse for Congolese health officials, this new cluster
of Ebola cases is in the volatile North Kivu province, where heavily
armed militants have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their
homes. North Kivu is a lawless, mineral-rich area in the northeast of
the country, close to the border with Uganda. "This new cluster is
occurring in an environment which is very different from where we were
operating in the northwest," says Dr. Peter Salama, head of
emergencies for the World Health Organization, in a statement. "This
is an active conflict zone. The major barrier will be safely accessing
the affected population."

BROOKINGS
Development Finance: Filling Today's Funding Gap

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=-qp1yPKsI0jLjsUkJ9szOg

George Ingram, Brookings Institute and Robert Mosbacher, Jr., former
President and CEO of OPIC

The Business and Sustainable Development Commission, Chaired by Lord
Mark Malloch-Brown and comprised of business leaders from around the
world, reports that it will likely require around $2.4 trillion a year
of additional investment to achieve the sustainable development goals
(SDGs) by 2030. It also estimates that achieving those goals could
open up as much as $12 trillion of market investment opportunities in
four categories-food and agriculture, sustainable cities, energy
and materials, and health and well-being.[1] While that represents an
enormous opportunity, it also prompts the question of what options
exist to bridge the current gap in financing.

POLITICO
Why the World Bank Is Investing in Women |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=ighVSKSpvSD5hLP92gyzNg

Reena Flores

The World Bank has put its money where women-led businesses are and a
year into the investment, it says it's seeing promising growth.
According to Priya Basu (head of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance
Initiative) We-Fi has already overshot its lifetime goal, which aimed
to get a billion dollars in to the hands of women-led businesses by
the year 2022. "For the $120 million that we allocated"
this year, she said, "we were able to mobilize an additional
$1.6 billion," with those extra funds coming from the private
sector and other sources. In April, We-Fi announced its first funding
allocations for projects around the world, including initiatives to
improve the business environment for women in some of the poorest
conflict-affected regions in Sri Lanka and to grow already-successful
projects promoting women-led businesses in Yemen, Mali and Nigeria.

DEVEX
AIDS 2018 Told the Story of a Global Health Crisis |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=m6z4v0MLZKUNO2LaeSFRag

Sophie Edwards

The fight to end HIV/AIDS was given a boost by a star-studded week of
presentations, panel sessions and the occasional protest at this
year's International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam. However,
tensions within the community remain, and with few new funding pledges
announced, there are questions about how to translate strong rhetoric
into action. Held under the theme of "Breaking Barriers,
Building Bridges," the real story of this year's
conference was the growing realization that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is
in crisis, with 1.8 million new infections in 2017.

Politics & Foreign Policy

THE WASHINGTON POST

The White House Is Turning a Nonpartisan Agency Into a Playpen for
Trump Loyalists |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=g39F0O_ipxXdu4gR6_LKjQ

The Editorial Board

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a federal aid agency, was
established by Congress more than a decade ago to depoliticize foreign
development assistance. At the time, lawmakers envisioned the MCC as a
technocratic alternative to the inconsistent, wasteful and
uncoordinated aid programs administered by political agencies such as
the State Department. Under both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama
administrations, it was primarily staffed by nonpartisan development
experts - but that ethos could soon change. On Sunday, The
Post's Robert O'Harrow Jr. reported that the White House
has taken control over hiring decisions at the MCC and installed a
number of Trump loyalists in positions previously held by experts.

ASSOCIATED PRESS
White House Mideast Team Staffing Up for Peace Plan Rollout |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=-mk_NGS_ilyuZg6SSZbhbg

Matthew Lee and Zeke Miller

U.S. officials say the Trump administration is staffing up a Middle
East policy team at the White House in anticipation of unveiling its
long awaited but largely mysterious Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.
The National Security Council last week began approaching other
agencies seeking volunteers to join the team, which will work for
President Donald Trump's Mideast peace pointmen Jared Kushner
and Jason Greenblatt, according to the officials. The team, which is
being set up to organize the peace plan's public presentation
and any negotiations that may ensue, will comprise three units: one
concentrating on its political and security details, one on its
significant economic focus and one on strategic communications, the
officials said.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Pompeo Warns Turkey Clock Has Run Out to Release Jailed U.S. Pastor |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=YnD5UA1Uu2rswvWsclubGg

Carol Morello and Shibani Mahtani

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Turkey to release an imprisoned
American pastor whose case has been a sore point between Ankara and
Washington, and acknowledged that it will take a long time to achieve
the denuclearization of North Korea. Speaking to reporters aboard his
plane en route to Singapore from Malaysia, Pompeo said he planned to
raise the detention of the pastor, Andrew Brunson, and others jailed
in Turkey when he met with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on the
sidelines of a conference of 27 Asian nations.

THE NEW YORK TIMES
U.S. Prepares to Reduce Troops and Shed Missions in Africa |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=AeCotMMhWsiSIEq74XgHrg

Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt

Hundreds of American troops in Africa would be reassigned and the
number of Special Operations missions on the continent would be wound
down under plans submitted by a top military commander, a response to
the Trump administration's strategy to increasingly focus on
threats from China and Russia. Defense Department officials said they
expected most of the troop cuts and scaled-back missions to come from
Central and West Africa, where Special Operations missions have
focused on training African militaries to combat the growing threat
from extremist Islamist militant groups.

POLITICO
GOP Leaders Yawn at Trump's Shutdown Threats |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=nViYu7_6dEicFUyLXpFe_A

Burgess Everett

President Donald Trump keeps threatening a government shutdown over
his border wall. And Republican leaders keep ignoring his warnings.
The congressional GOP is intent on sending Trump a series of
government spending bills over the next two months that would fund the
vast majority of the federal government. And despite the
president's statement on Monday that he would have "no
problem doing a shutdown," Republicans seem sure that he's
not talking about a funding lapse right before the midterm elections.
McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) believe that Trump has
bought into their plan to...fund all but a small slice of government
through the regular appropriations process, and leave Homeland
Security funding and the border wall fight until a lame-duck session.

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pompeo: 'Ways to Go' Before NKorea Meets Denuke Vow |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=HqdDYg6gm146HQ2HHbmLaQ

Matthew Lee

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says North Korea is far from
living up to its pledge to denuclearize and remains in violation of
numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions. Speaking Friday before he
attends an Asian security forum with North Korea's foreign
minister, Pompeo told reporters in Singapore there was "still a
ways to go before" achieving the goal of ridding the North of
its nuclear weapons. Pompeo's comments came after the White
House announced Thursday that President Donald Trump received a new
letter from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and responded quickly with
a letter of his own. The correspondence, following up on their
Singapore summit in June, came amid fresh concerns over
Pyongyang's commitment to denuclearization despite a rosy
picture of progress painted by Trump.


The U.S. Global Leadership Coalition
1129 20th Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036

Manage Subscriptions: http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=QoNN0zi1JOnIgI5CzL_cWA

Unsubscribe: http://action.usglc.org/site/CO?i=uyiY0lOKaHAQrN0bXO2HjslW9cwzdNC-&cid=1202&action=FALSE&events=TRUE&news=TRUE&daily=FALSE&weekly=TRUE&email=hbiden@rosemontseneca.com

Not on our list yet? Subscribe Here: http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=e3T2HB7bqUe3tOtyljRM