Rep. Ilhan Omar introduced a new proposal that seeks to change how the United States conducts its foreign policy.
The proposal, dubbed the Pathway to PEACE, is a conglomeration of seven bills and resolutions that aim for a more humanitarian-based foreign policy focused on human rights and global migration.
“The plan takes into account the experiences of people directly affected by conflict and the long-term consequences of U.S. militarism, acknowledges the damage done when we fail to live up to international human rights standards and is sincere about our values regardless of short-term political convenience,” the Minnesota Democrat said in a statement Wednesday.
The initiatives include building a $5 billion wartime fund called the Global Peacebuilding Fund, giving Congress more oversight over sanctions, distancing the U.S. from allies that commit human rights abuses, forcing the U.S. to participate in the International Criminal Court, ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, and creating a global agreement on migration.
“I know that it is deeply rooted in justice, in wanting to advance peace and in fighting for a more democratic and open society, but I also uniquely know and see and hear and have experienced how the outside world reacts to our foreign policy,” the freshman congresswoman said about her proposal, adding that the U.S. is seen by the rest of the world as having a foreign policy “deprived of our values and of our principles.”
If passed, the new foreign policy plan would become “a new progressive baseline,” according to former President Barack Obama’s foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes.
