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Statement on Signing the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1993

October 06, 1992

I am signing into law H.R. 5368, the "Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1993." The Act provides funding for bilateral and multilateral foreign assistance, international security assistance, and for programs in the Department of State, the Agency for International Development, the Peace Corps, the Export-Import Bank, and several smaller agencies.

I am pleased that the Act provides authority and funding for several high priority programs including: loan guarantees for Israel; an increase in the U.S. quota for the International Monetary Fund; bilateral assistance to the former republics of the Soviet Union; appropriations for the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative; and appropriations for international security programs including Turkey, Greece, and Portugal.

Several provisions of the Act purport to require, or to forbid, certain international negotiations by the United States or the adoption by the United States of certain positions in international institutions or negotiations. Under our constitutional system, however, the President alone is responsible for such negotiations, and the Congress may not decide which negotiations the President will undertake or what position the United States will adopt. Similarly, provisions directing the placement of United States diplomatic personnel abroad intrude upon the President's authority for the conduct of international relations. Nor may the Congress condition the availability of funds on the President's surrendering his discretion in these areas. I will, therefore, treat all such provisions as purely precatory.

I retain the same concerns about section 565, prohibiting certain dealings with foreign governments and other persons, that I have expressed in signing previous appropriations acts.

Finally, I note that the various reporting requirements of this Act would have to be construed in light of the President's authority to protect against the disclosure of state secrets and national security information.

George Bush

The White House,

October 6, 1992.

Note: H.R. 5368, approved October 6, was assigned Public Law No. 102 - 391.

George Bush, Statement on Signing the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1993 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/266843

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