Ocasio-Cortez: Recognizing the true scale of poverty in America would be a 'national scandal'
Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez addresses the House Oversight subcommittee hearing on 'A Threat to America's Children? The Trump Admin's Proposed Changes to the Poverty Line Calculation.'
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., offered a look on Friday at how she would align U.S. foreign policy with her democratic socialist vision -- urging the U.S. to engage in less "imperialism" and ramp up its climate efforts.
"Less policy informed by frameworks of imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, & 'security state,'" she said in an Instagram post. She was responding to the question: "What does a democratic socialist foreign policy look like to you?"
She also said the U.S. should direct its efforts toward "policy informed by decolonization, international labor rights, increased focus on economic opportunity for the poor, expanded indigenous rights and protections, and VERY importantly strong international agreements on climate action."
The freshman congresswoman also clarified that "TRADE POLICY IS CLIMATE POLICY" and knocked President Trump's United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
"If there are not climate benchmarks in your trade policy, then your trade policy is climate denial. That's why I voted against the USMCA, aka NAFTA 2.0," she said, according to the Washington Examiner.
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During an event on Friday, she also criticized "hyper-capitalism." She warned that bipartisanship and consensus often created solutions that were grounded in the expansion of war and colonialism.
Ocasio-Cortez has frequently denounced what she sees as colonization or exploitative relationships between nations. While speaking about Hurricane Maria, she suggested that Puerto Ricans died as a result of "colonial rule."
"The climate change-powered storm killed over 3,000 Puerto Ricans, American citizens -- my own grandfather died in the aftermath -- all because they were living under colonial rule, which contributed to the dire conditions and lack of recovery," she had said.
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She also accused a journalist of perpetuating the "legacy of colonization" by favoring statehood for Puerto Rico.
"PR was colonized by the US, & deserves a BINDING process of self-determination. Imposing one’s status opinion on PR, instead of committing to uphold the results of a plebiscite, perpetuates the legacy of colonization," she tweeted to FiveThirtyEight editor Nate Silver.
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