Rick Scott GOP plan promises to 'only help countries that are willing to defend themselves, like Israel'

• Sen. Rick Scott's 11-point memo includes a section decrying US foreign aid.
• "We will only help countries that are willing to defend themselves, like Israel," the memo states.

In his 11-page memo released on Tuesday, Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida advocates for a shakeup of how the US should distribute foreign aid.

"America will be dependent on NO other country," Scott writes. "We will conduct no trade that takes away jobs or displaces American workers. Countries who oppose us at the UN will get zero financial help from us. We will be energy independent and build supply chains that never rely on our adversaries. We will only help countries that are willing to defend themselves, like Israel."

The policy proposal, while vague, would be a drastic departure for the US on the global stage.

In President Joe Biden's 2022 budget proposal for United States Agency for International Development — or USAID, the government agency accounting for roughly half of all US foreign assistance — a total of $58.5 billion is earmarked for a variety of initiatives, ranging from anti-corruption measures to funds for combatting climate change.

The Scott memo threatens to pull US funding from "any country that habitually opposes us at" the United Nations, and also includes a bullet point on climate change.

"The weather is always changing," Scott writes. "We take climate change seriously, but not hysterically. We will not adopt nutty policies that harm our economy or our jobs."

Israel has traditionally been one of the biggest beneficiaries of US foreign aid, receiving $3.8 billion in 2020.

The top five countries receiving foreign aid that year were Afghanistan, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Ethiopia, all receiving over $1 billion, according to the latest available government data.