Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, Rep. French Hill (AR-02) joined Alex Christoforous and Kristin Myers of Yahoo Finance to discuss the Biden Administration’s plans to support an International Monetary Fund (IMF) Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocation of $650 billion.
The IMF plans to allocate $650 billion through a general SDR allocation. Congressman Hill has expressed his opposition to this general allocation without guidelines because countries with strong economic standing as well as rogue regimes including Syria, Russia, Iran, and even China, will get billions of dollars while the low-income countries that most need it will get less than 10% of the $650 billion allocation.
Key quotes included below:
Rep. Hill: “Instead they [the IMF] are doing this general allocation which means most of the money goes to rich countries that don’t need additional reserves or potentially to rogue regimes that we have trouble with in the United States. Such as Syria, Russia, Iran, even China would get $40 billion.”
Rep. Hill: “We all support helping the hardest hit, poorest countries through the pandemic. We just simply argue that a $650 billion general allocation of SDRs isn’t the most targeted way to do that.”
Rep. Hill: “That’s why we’re consulting with the administration to try to make sure that this money is targeted as best that it can, that it can’t be used by rogue regimes, terrorist supporters, or by China to prey on poor countries and get their debt trap financings repaid through the use of these SDRs.”
Click HERE or on the image below to watch the full interview with Rep. Hill on Yahoo Finance.
Further Background:
In September 2020, Rep. Hill initially outlined his concerns with SDRs in an op-ed in The Hill.
In February 2021, Rep. Hill reiterated his views an in op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
On March 4, 2021, Rep. Hill introduced H.R. 1568, the Special Drawing Rights Oversight Act to limit the executive branch’s ability to bypass Congress to authorize SDRs.
