Trump signs order allocating $50M for international religious freedom programmes
American President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday instructing the U.S. State Department to prioritise international religious freedom in its implementation of foreign policy and budget $50 million per year toward the advancement of religious freedom. The new order contains a number of instructions for the State Department and federal agency heads when it comes to promoting religious freedom abroad.
“Religious freedom, America’s first freedom, is a moral and national security imperative,” the executive order reads. “It is a foreign policy priority of the United States, and the United States will respect and vigorously promote this freedom.”
Among other things, the order gives Secretary of State Mike Pompeo 180 days to consult with the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development to “develop a plan to prioritise international religious freedom in the planning and implementation of U.S. foreign policy and in the foreign assistance programs of the Department of State and USAID.”
The order also states that Pompeo will direct chiefs of missions in countries that are included on the State Department’s list of “countries of particular concern” for international religious freedom violations and the religious freedom “special watch list,” to develop “comprehensive action plans to inform and support the efforts” of the U.S. government “to encourage the host governments to make progress in eliminating violations of religious freedom.”
Such economic tools can include “increasing religious freedom programming, realigning foreign assistance to better reflect country circumstances, or restricting the issuance of visas.”
The tools can also include sanctions under the Global Magnitzky Act, which allows the U.S. to target perpetrators of human rights abuses through the seizure of U.S. assets or travel bans.
Source and image: christianpost.com
