POLITICS: Abortion Politics Derails U.S. Multilateral Agenda

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Apr 26 1998 (IPS) - Three months after President Bill Clinton rated funding for the United Nations and International Monetary Fund (IMF) as his most urgent foreign policy priorities, both initiatives appear to have been derailed in the Republican- led Congress.

The more than one billion dollars that Washington owes the United Nations in back dues has become hostage to anti-abortion forces in the House of Representatives. They have attached an amendment to a bill containing both UN and IMF funding which Clinton has vowed to veto. Republicans stripped nearly 18 billion dollars destined for the IMF – whose bailout of East Asian countries has depleted lending resources – from a supplemental bill that was on a fast track to Congressional approval.

“We are not in good shape on any of this,” conceded one administration official who blamed Republicans in Congress for undermining U.S. credibility and leverage in the two multilateral agencies.

U.S. arrears to the United Nations – calculated at nearly 1.6 billion dollars at the end of 1997 – have been a festering sore ever since Congress began withholding money to the virtually bankrupt world body more than a decade ago. The Clinton administration, which recognises only about one billion dollars of the total debt, has been stymied by Republicans in its efforts to get even that lesser amount approved.

If Washington fails to pay at least 1.02 billion dollars in arrears by next month, U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson warned lawmakers this week, it will lose its opportunity in upcoming UN negotiations to reduce its future share of the UN budget from 25 percent to 22 percent. If the arrears are not paid by the end of the year, Washington could lose its vote in the General Assembly.

The 17.9 billion dollars Washington owes the IMF, which bails out countries with balance-of-payments problems, consists of two parts: a 3.5 billion dollars for a new emergency facility, and 14.4 billion dollars for Washington’s share of a general capital increase. This is designed to expand the IMF’s lending resources in the face of unprecedented demand, especially after the outbreak of last year’s financial crisis in Asia.

“The longer it takes for us to get this money, the more jittery the markets get,” said one Treasury official Friday.

Wall Street heavyweights, such as Boeing, General Electric, IBM, and the powerful farm lobby, lobbied hard for the funds as Asian demand for their exports has plunged sharply in recent months.

The administration originally hoped to attach both the U.N. and IMF requests to a 1998 supplemental appropriations bill to fund disaster relief and unforeseen military operations, popular measures which routinely speed through Congress with bipartisan support. But, blocked by anti-abortion Republicans, the U.N. appropriation never made it into the supplemental bill, even though Republicans in the Senate, under intense business pressure, permitted the IMF appropriation to go forward.

The administration was especially heartened when the upper chamber voted late last month by a 84-16 margin to approve the administration full request. In a rancorous meeting Thursday, however, the combined Republican leadership of both houses dropped the IMF money from the supplemental bill, and a last-minute effort to revive it on the floor of the House of Representatives was defeated, 186-222.

The result, according to the authoritative Congressional Quarterly: “The (IMF) will not be receiving any money from the United States this spring.”

“This is really about anti-abortion politics, too,” said one aide to a key Democratic senator told IPS Friday. “The Republicans wanted to show the administration that there was no way they were going to let the IMF funding go through without Mexico City.”

“Mexico City” refers to the policy which prevailed during the Republican administrations which preceded Clinton’s. That policy, which has been bitterly opposed by most women’s organisations, ban U.S. foreign aid from going to overseas groups which lobby their governments to ease anti-abortion laws.

Since last November, anti-abortion forces, who enjoy a majority in the House of Representatives, have moved to attach “Mexico City” amendment to any IMF or U.N. appropriation which comes before Congress. By stripping the IMF money from the emergency supplemental bill, the Republican Congressional leadership, which has come under increasing fire from the ‘Christian Right’ for not pursuing a “moral” agenda, has effectively endorsed that position.

“This is a game of chicken,” said the Senate aide, who added that a key test will take place Tuesday when the Senate votes on a bill that includes some of the IMF and UN funding, as well as the Mexico City amendment. “If the anti-abortion forces lose on that vote, then they’re going to look pretty naked,” he said.

The outlook is considered more favourable for the IMF, if only because a majority of Democratic and Republican lawmakers are considered susceptible to pressure from business interests. Organised labour and the Democratic leadership in the House, who successfully opposed free-trade legislation last year, support the IMF.

But the Fund appropriation also is opposed by some Democratic lawmakers who charged this week that the IMF lends to governments which commit gross abuses of human rights, undermines trade unions, and imposes policies which tend to deepen the debt burdens of poor countries.