Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (25th District of FLORIDA)
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The FY26 National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs appropriations bill – led by NSRP Subcommittee Chairman Mario Díaz-Balart – has been signed into law by President Trump – advancing an America First, peace through strength agenda while eliminating $9.3 billion in wasteful spending. The legislation refocuses U.S. foreign policy resources on core national security priorities, including deterrence, countering narcotics and human trafficking, confronting the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party, and combating terrorism. An outside and international perspective from political commentator and Caribbean-focused analyst Ravi Balgobin Maharaj examines how this approach will reshape U.S. power and leadership in the Western Hemisphere.
With the latest round of FY26 full-year funding enacted – covering defense; transportation and housing; labor, health, and education; financial services; and national security and the Department of State – we are reminded that national strength is built bill-by-bill, choice-by-choice. The full FY26 slate reinforces that clear strategy: restoring deterrence, sharpening U.S. leadership, supporting our communities, and demanding accountability for taxpayer dollars.
Read on for insight into how implementing full-year appropriations turns priorities into durable policy and results.
How a Republican appropriations bill reorients U.S. power in the Western Hemisphere
By Ravi Balgobin Maharaj
“The strangest thing about modern Washington is not how much it spends, but how rarely anyone can explain why. So when the House passed a Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations package that actually cuts spending and tells you what it’s for, it felt less like routine governance and more like a clerical error.
“That is the context for the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs bill shepherded through the House by Representative Mario Díaz-Balart of Florida. Folded into a broader appropriations minibus, the legislation delivers a 16 percent reduction from last year’s spending levels, nearly $9.3 billion trimmed away, the deepest cut of any appropriations bill this cycle. In a Congress addicted to symbolic fights and deficit amnesia, that alone is notable.
“What makes the bill more than an exercise in budgetary self-control is the worldview embedded in those cuts. Díaz-Balart has long argued that American foreign policy should be disciplined, unapologetic, and hemispherically literate. This bill reflects that instinct. It pares back programs that have multiplied without much evidence of success, while protecting funding for allies and strategic priorities that still define American power, including Israel, Taiwan, and the Indo-Pacific.
“For the Caribbean and Latin America, regions often treated by Washington as either sentimental causes or afterthoughts, the legislation lands with particular force. It sharply restricts assistance to authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua while expanding democracy, religious freedom, and broadcasting programs aimed directly at their populations. It also takes direct aim at the trafficking of Cuban medical personnel, a practice that Democratic administrations have been reluctant to confront too directly, preferring the language of engagement over the discomfort of enforcement.
“Here the contrast with recent Democratic foreign policy is hard to miss. Under Democratic leadership, foreign assistance has increasingly doubled as a grab bag of domestic cultural priorities, climate mandates, diversity initiatives, and gender programs layered onto embassies and aid accounts with little regard for local conditions or strategic coherence. The result has been neither moral leadership nor geopolitical leverage, but a swollen bureaucracy that confuses activity with impact.
“Díaz-Balart’s bill strips much of that away. It refocuses the State Department on basic functions like diplomacy, security, and consular services. It creates an America First Opportunity Fund to give the Secretary of State flexibility to act quickly when genuine strategic openings emerge, rather than waiting for the paperwork to clear while rivals move faster. It also insists on oversight, transparency, and measurable outcomes, concepts that have lately fallen out of fashion in foreign aid circles.
“The bill’s posture toward China is likely to resonate across the Caribbean basin, where Beijing has expanded its influence through loans, infrastructure projects, and quiet leverage over small economies. By requiring U.S. opposition to multilateral development bank lending to China and blocking the use of American-backed funds to service Chinese debt, the legislation sends a clearer signal than Democrats have been comfortable sending. For countries weighing Washington’s lectures against Beijing’s checkbook, clarity counts.
“On Israel, the bill is unequivocal, fully funding security assistance, prohibiting support for UNRWA, and reinforcing long-standing restrictions designed to keep U.S. funds out of the hands of terrorist groups. This firmness will irritate progressive Democrats who have grown increasingly uneasy with America’s closest Middle Eastern ally. In much of Latin America and the Caribbean, where security cooperation is not an abstraction, that unease is far less widespread.
“Critics will argue that deep cuts risk diminishing American influence. But influence diluted by incoherence is not influence at all. The past several years of Democratic stewardship produced record spending, softer language toward adversaries, and no visible improvement in regional stability. Haiti remains in crisis. Venezuela remains broken. Cuba remains authoritarian. Spending more did not fix any of it.”
“Díaz-Balart’s bill does not promise miracles. It promises something rarer, like restraint paired with intent. For a hemisphere accustomed to mixed signals from Washington, that may be the most meaningful change of all.”
NSRP Subcommittee Chairman Díaz-Balart has been duly focused on strengthening economic opportunity and accountability and reinforcing America’s security and leadership at home and abroad. Through his leadership, he delivered a bill that replaces the weakness of prior administrations by restoring President Trump’s deterrence and strength posture. To protect the safety, freedom, and prosperity of the American people, the measure shows that focused strategy – not endless spending – is what delivers results.
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