SEATTLE, Washington — On November 3, 2020, Ilhan Omar won her bid for re-election to Minnesota’s fifth congressional district against Republican Lacy Johnson. In 2016, she became one of the first two Muslim American women to be elected to Congress and the first African-born naturalized U.S. citizen to hold a seat in Congress. She is also the first Somali American to serve in Congress. Omar’s foreign policy is a largely progressive stance that includes a history of prioritizing human rights and debt relief for poorer nations.
Ilhan Omar: Committees and Caucuses
Omar currently sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where she is a member of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. She also serves on other subcommittees and is currently a member of several caucuses including the Hunger Caucus and the International Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Caucus.
Foreign Policy Stance
Omar’s foreign policy stance centers around prioritizing human rights, justice and peace. She believes that military action should be a last resort and aims to end the use of sanctions and embargoes, and instead, utilize diplomatic solutions as a primary tool. Another staple of her philosophy on the United States’ foreign policy is that it should reflect our domestic values. For her personally, this means supporting strategies that increase economic opportunity, address the climate crisis, protect vulnerable populations and end mass incarceration.
Human Rights Abuses in Saudi Arabia
Omar has been an outspoken critic of human rights abuses by the Saudia Arabian government. In October 2020, she urged the United States not to participate in the G20 summit in Riyadh unless the Saudi Arabian government agreed to rectify its history of human rights abuses.
Omar and 44 other Democrat members of Congress signed a letter to Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, addressing these concerns and requesting that he consider abstaining from the 2020 G20 summit unless the Saudi Arabian government was prepared to commit to taking the following steps:
- Tell the truth about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi
- Release human rights advocates from prison
- Free women’s rights activists and end the violation of women’s rights
- Allow independent media and journalists to report freely
- Abolish the sponsorship system of modern-day slavery
- Embrace religious freedom
- Stop driving the climate change crisis
- Stop intervening against democracy
- End the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
Global Debt Relief
In May 2020, Omar, along with Bernie Sanders, led a call with more than 300 global lawmakers to protect developing countries from economic ruin as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of the call was to push for the IMF and the World Bank to cancel the debts of more than 70 of the world’s poorest countries. They outlined how the current pandemic has left these countries in disarray and without the tools to cope on their own. These nations, unfortunately, do not have the public health resources and infrastructure to handle the pandemic in the way that developed countries do, which will ultimately destabilize the global economy as a whole.
“This is a global economic and public health crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetimes,” Omar said. “We as a global community must seize this opportunity to get relief to those who are suffering by canceling debt for nations who cannot afford it.” This response is emblematic of Omar’s foreign policy stance that maintains the importance of striving to reflect our domestic values in the international space.
Now more than ever, it is imperative for countries in a position to help others to utilize that power. In the words of Ilhan Omar, “We are all globally connected and must act as a collective to get us out of this crisis.”
– Katherine Musgrave
Photo: Flickr