Exclusive – Rep. Matt Rosendale: Biden Vowing to Protect Other Nations While Ignoring ‘Invasion’ at Southern Border

Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) told Breitbart News in an exclusive statement that President Joe Biden and many in Congress continue to provide aid to other countries and obligate the United States to protect other nations while ignoring the “invasion” at the southern border and the fentanyl crisis.

The House held a vote Monday night to express support for Finland and Sweden joining NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The measure overwhelmingly passed in the chamber, although 18 House conservatives voted against it.

The 18 House conservatives include Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Dan Bishop (R-NC), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), Ben Cline (R-VA), Michael Cloud (R-TX), Warren Davidson (R-OH), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Bob Good (R-VA), Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA), Morgan Griffith (R-VA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Tom McClintock (R-CA), Mary Miller (R-IL), Ralph Norman (R-SC), Rosendale, Chip Roy (R-TX), and Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ).

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO in May.

Rosendale said that the resolution would further entrench the United States into foreign conflicts while Americans continue to face domestic crises such as the fentanyl crisis and the country’s porous border.

“The United States always goes above and beyond to help protect and defend our NATO allies. However, our allies rarely fulfill their commitments to the alliance. The resolution does not have the ability to assure the other members will fulfill their obligations to NATO, it only serves as a document to further obligate the United States in foreign conflicts,” Rosendale explained. “We continue to obligate ourselves to protect other countries, sending them aid and inserting ourselves into their conflicts, while continuing to ignore the invasion that is taking place on our southern border and the fentanyl chemical attack and associated loss of life it has caused.”

Other Republicans mirrored Rosendale’s message that America’s NATO allies do not come close to matching the United States’s NATO spending.

“America can’t afford to subsidize socialist Europe’s defense, nor should we. Tonight, I voted against the House Resolution urging NATO’s expansion into Sweden and Finland,” Massie wrote. He linked to a Newsweek article that reported that only eight of the 30 NATO countries met the organization’s two percent of their GDP spending threshold on defense in 2021.

“We cannot add Finland and Sweden to NATO. The United States should not expand alliances that will further require us to serve as the military for the world. Virtually all NATO members routinely ignore the required military spending guidelines,” Biggs said in a statement.

“NATO is an important military alliance, and it served as a critical bulwark against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. However, our country is $30 trillion in debt, and Congress should not sign off on expanding NATO when more than half its current members aren’t even meeting their defense spending obligations. Further, we have had no briefing on how this would impact US security responsibilities,” Roy said in a statement on Tuesday. “We simply cannot afford to continue to subsidize other countries’ failures to adequately provide for their own defense. Our decisions about military alliances should serve our interests first, and the American people deserve better.”

Rosendale, Massie, and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) voted against a resolution in early March that, according to Massie, was so broad that it could commit American troops to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine “forever.”

Massie also said the resolution’s call to “fully isolate” the “Putin regime” would hurt low-income Americans hurting from inflation and Russians who may not agree with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.