Watch Kennedy’s comments here.

WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats today voted down Sen. John Kennedy’s (R-La.) amendment to the Endless Frontier Act. The amendment, S.Amdt. 1710, would prohibit allocations of special drawing rights at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from going to state sponsors of terrorism and those guilty of genocide without congressional approval.

“Stopping taxpayer money from flowing to dictators and genocidal leaders like Xi Jinping is a no-brainer. This is one of the simplest, most honorable votes we’ll take this year. I can’t see any reason that anyone with America’s best interests at heart would have a problem voting to require Congress to sign off before the Treasury sends U.S. dollars to dictators,” said Kennedy ahead of the vote.

“The International Monetary Fund issues special drawing rights, and a special drawing right is like a crypto coin: It’s not worth anything. It’s only worth something if you exchange it for real money. And the Biden administration decided to encourage the IMF to issue all these crypto coins, and guess what they’re all doing? They’re bringing the crypto coins to the United States of America and saying, ‘We want dollars! Give me dollars for the crypto coin!’” Kennedy explained on the floor.

“But we don’t have any dollars in our checking account, so we have to go borrow the money. There’s no free lunch, and you don’t get one now. All my bill would do [is] say we’re not going to issue special drawing rights to perpetrators of genocide or state sponsors of terrorism. In other words, no China, no free money to China, no free money to Syria and no free money to Iran. It is ludicrous for us to be borrowing money to give dollars to exchange for crypto coins to China or Syria or Iran,” concluded Kennedy.

Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), James Risch (R-Idaho), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) co-sponsored this amendment.

Kennedy’s amendment is available here.