Friend –

Before the Memorial Day holiday, I wanted to share a few quick items – some inspiring, some sobering: 

• We recently commissioned a poll by Morning Consult, and even I was impressed by the overwhelming number of voters who believe America should help other countries fight COVID-19. Details below, but voters clearly get it – as long as the deadly virus is anywhere, Americans are not safe, and 4 out of 5 support international assistance.
  
  
• I’m struck by the growing luminaries calling for an international response to COVID-19 – from celebrities to policymakers at Zoom town halls. Here’s my favorite from the week (hats-off to ONE on their #PassTheMic campaign): Julia Roberts interviewing the legendary Dr. Tony Fauci who said, “If you don’t control an outbreak in the developing world, it’s going to come around and bite you.”

It couldn’t be more timely, as the pandemic’s impacts are rapidly increasing around the world. That’s why our message remains clear: There is nothing foreign about an international response – it’s 100% linked to the safety and economic security of the American people. All the latest down below in this edition of the GLOBAL GAB, including the state of play on the next emergency funding package.

Wishing you a safe and healthy Memorial Day weekend – for me, I’ll be watching our national chairman, General Colin Powell, on PBS for this year’s virtual Memorial Day Concert!

Best,

Liz
Liz Schrayer, USGLC

THE GLOBAL GAB
May 22, 2020

NEW COVID-19 POLL. Morning Consult and the USGLC recently conducted a poll to gauge the viewpoints of registered voters on support for U.S. global assistance to fight COVID-19. Secretary Madeleine Albright, former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle and Bill Frist, and Senator Norm Coleman stated:

“While we are not surprised that Americans understood that stopping this deadly virus in other countries matters to keeping Americans safe at home, we were impressed by the overwhelming support, particularly across the political spectrum. Republican, Democratic, and Independent voters alike are resoundingly supportive of additional investments to help fight COVID-19 around the world.”

The big takeaways:

• 4 in 5 voters believe assistance to other countries with weaker health systems to help them fight diseases are investments that make America safer.
  
  
• 9 in 10 voters believe we need to make changes in the way we fight infectious diseases in the U.S. and around the world.
  
  
• 72% support including $10-$15 billion in the next emergency supplemental package for U.S. international assistance – and this cuts across party lines with 6 in 10 Republicans supporting, 7 in 10 Independents, and 8 in 10 Democrats.
  
  
• See the full poll results here.

BUDGET BATTLES. In what was the opening salvo for a fourth COVID-19 emergency supplemental last week, the House passed a $3 trillion House package – largely along party lines – with no new resources for the international response to the pandemic. Not only was this omission immediately criticized by many across Capitol Hill, including by the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee Mike McCaul (R-TX) – but appeared to be out of step with policymakers on both sides of the aisle who are calling for scaling up the international response.

• USGLC STATEMENT. See our statement: “The absence of any new emergency funding… for the international COVID-19 response is dangerous. As long as COVID-19 is spreading anywhere, Americans are at risk.”
  
  
• WARNING LIGHT. Foreign policy analyst Josh Rogin published a tough piece in the Washington Post calling out all of Washington on the issue, writing that ignoring the international response is a “penny-wise, pound-foolish approach that will ensure the virus does more damage abroad and continues to pose a threat to us at home for years to come.”
  
  
• POLITICO PLAYBOOK. Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman told readers: “REMEMBER: This is a messaging bill for House Democrats… This will not become law.”
  
  
• DATAPOINT. To date, Congress has appropriated just 0.1% of total COVID-19 emergency funding for the international response.

POWER VOICES. From celebrities to experts to luminaries from Capitol Hill, more and more voices are speaking up on why America has to step up the international response to COVID-19.

• #PassTheMic. Handing over their social media platforms to the experts, celebrities are helping explain how the world can beat this global pandemic. In the ONE Campaign’s first #PassTheMic handoff, Julia Roberts turned over her social media to Dr. Tony Fauci where they discussed everything from COVID-19 to PEPFAR to how many hours of sleep that he gets.
  
  
  • Other stars in the line-up: Hugh Jackman, Robin Wright, and Penelope Cruz.
    
    
• BIPARTISAN LUMINARIES. More than two dozen Republican and Democratic former congressional foreign policy leaders from the House and Senate penned a letter pressing their former colleagues to include critical emergency resources for the international response to COVID-19 in upcoming supplemental legislation.
  
  
  • Among those from the USGLC’s National Advisory Council joining the effort: Senators Chris Dodd, Sam Nunn, and Rick Santorum; Governors Tom Ridge, George Allen, and Bill Richardson; and Secretaries Dan Glickman and William Cohen.
    
    
  • Key quote: “As long as COVID-19 continues to spread anywhere, especially in the developing world, Americans will not be safe.”

A CONGRESSIONAL FIRST. Reps. Ted Yoho and Ami Bera recently led 20 Members of Congress in the first ever “Virtual Special Order” of speeches in the House that were compiled in the Congressional Record. This unprecedented bipartisan effort from the Freedom Caucus to the Progressive Caucus focused on the urgency for U.S. leadership in the fight against COVID-19 around the world.

Key quotes from members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee:

• Chairman Eliot Engel (D-NY): “Now is the time for American global leadership. Now is the time to recognize our interconnected world and work with our partners to save lives in countries near and far.”
  
  
• Ranking Member Mike McCaul (R-TX): “This is a global pandemic, and the work that we do overseas makes us safer here at home, too, as this virus continues to spread.”
  
  
• Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL): “The United States and the rest of the world cannot afford to relinquish authority over global health security, or to isolate ourselves from protecting the wellbeing of other nations.”
  
  
• Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA): “Decades of U.S. global leadership in foreign assistance has shown us that smart and strategic investments are critical to protecting the homeland.”

ZOOM NATION. As the USGLC has temporarily transitioned all our operations online, we have hosted more than 30 virtual events, including close to a dozen gatherings and virtual “Town Hall” meetings with Members of Congress and their constituents, including House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) and Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), Chris Stewart (R-UT), and Joe Wilson (R-SC).

GLOBAL DISRUPTION. The latest on the impacts of COVID-19 from around the world:

• TERRORISM SPIKES. A new report from CSIS warns that violent attacks increased by 37% between mid-March and mid-April in sub-Saharan Africa as extremist groups exploit the pandemic.
  
  
• UNICEF WARNING. Executive Director Henrietta Fore says the world is in “a race against time.” Without immediate resources for lifesaving interventions to strengthen health systems and maintain routine services for vulnerable children, an additional 6,000 children under five could die each day – more than four children every minute – all due to the direct impact of COVID-19.
  
  
• DISPLACEMENT DISASTER. An astounding 33.4 million people were newly displaced in 2019 by conflict, violence, and disasters with experts warning that the threat of COVID-19 will make these families even more vulnerable, according to a new report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
  
  
• IMMUNIZATION SETBACKS. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, reports that more than 13 million people in the developing world face delays in routine immunizations for polio, measles, cholera, and other diseases due to supply chain disruptions from COVID-19.
  
  
• MALARIA COMEBACK? The number of deaths caused by malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa could double to 769,000 this year – reaching the highest number of deaths seen in the region in two decades, according to a new warning from the World Health Organization.
  
  
• CYCLONE AMPHAN. The most powerful cyclone to strike India and Bangladesh in over a decade forced the evacuation of some three million people with shelters struggling to maintain social distancing.

“BIBLICAL” FAMINES. Global food insecurity is on the rise:

• STARVATION SURGE? World Food Program chief David Beasley warned that "we could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions” with an additional 130 million people at risk of starvation by the end of 2020. The death toll from starvation could outpace that of the coronavirus: “we literally could see 300,000 people die per day over a 90-day period,” Beasley says. Watch the interview with PBS Newshour.
  
  
• DESERT LOCUSTS. A National Geographic team has been documenting the spread of locust swarms in Kenya and reports that even a “modest” gathering of 40 million desert locusts “can eat as much in a day as 35,000 people” and are able to multiply 20-fold in just three months. See NatGeo’s visual story.

 THE INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE. Here are some new actions and pledges since our last update: 

• THE U.S. COMMITMENT. The State Department announced an additional $162 million in new COVID-19 assistance, bringing the total U.S. commitment to more than $1 billion to date.
  
  
• VACCINE CONFERENCE. The European Union hosted a global fundraising conference for coronavirus vaccine research that raised over $8 billion in pledges from donor countries around the world, including Australia, Canada, Japan, and the UK. In an ABC interview, the Council on Foreign Relation’s Richard Haass said that the U.S. decision to skip the conference “probably reduces the chance that effort will succeed, or succeed quickly.”
  
  
• UN TRIPLES APPEAL. The United Nations issued a new funding appeal for $6.7 billion, up from $2 billion previously. However, UN Humanitarian Affairs chief Mark Lowcock estimated that it will cost $90 billion to protect the world’s most vulnerable 10% of the population.

TOP-EDS. A few smart opinion pieces you might have missed:

• BIPARTISAN DUO. In another action from the two former Senate Majority Leaders, Tom Daschle and Bill Frist write for CNN.com that they didn’t always see eye to eye in Congress, but they agree on at least two things: “America must lead the rest of the world to defeat Covid-19. And if we take our eye off the ball, China will try to exploit this crisis to its own gain.”
  
  
• HEALTH SECURITY = NATIONAL SECURITY. In an opinion piece for FOX News, retired General Richard Y. Newton III argues that we must expand the national security paradigm to include investments in global health to protect our homeland.
  
  
• AUTHORITARIANISM ALARM BELLS. COVID-19 has “exposed the dangers great-power authoritarians pose not only to their citizens but to the rest of the world,” write Daniel Twining and Patrick Quirk of the International Republican Institute.