Eight Republican senators penned a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden slamming the administration for “misuse of authorities provided by Congress to combat corruption in Latin America and the Caribbean at the expense of strategic U.S. national security interests.”
Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the other signatories cited, in part, Latin American support for Israel in their criticism of the sanctions.
The senators cited one example of what they called a “concerning pattern.”
The Biden administration designated former Guatemala president Alejandro Giammattei on Jan. 17 for “acts of significant corruption,” the senators wrote.
“During President Giammattei’s tenure, Guatemala was a strong U.S. security partner committed to the extradition of several human smugglers and the destruction of illicit synthetic opioids,” they wrote.
“Guatemala strengthened relations with Taiwan, rejected ties with Beijing, designated Hezbollah a foreign terrorist organization and supported Israel’s right of self-defense against the horrific attacks by Iran-backed Hamas terrorists in October,” the senators added.
Since January 2021, the “overwhelming majority” of designations for “significant corruption” under Section 7031(c) have been officials in Latin American and Caribbean governments “that have cooperated with the United States on strategic diplomatic and national security interests,” the senators wrote.
“In contrast, your administration has ignored well-documented cases of significant corruption by foreign government officials actively undermining U.S. national security interests and supporting U.S. adversaries in Latin America and the Caribbean,” they added.
The other Republican senators who signed the letter are: Marco Rubio (Fla.), Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), James Lankford (Okla.), Mike Lee (Utah), Tim Scott (S.C.), John Cornyn (Texas) and Rick Scott (Fla.).