House spending bill repudiates Morocco on Western Sahara
The political wrangling over President Donald Trump’s border wall has dealt Morocco an unwelcome setback.
The US House of Representatives just passed a bill repudiating Morocco’s occupation of the Western Sahara, long the subject of a tug of war between the House and the Senate. The new language is an important — but largely symbolic — win for the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, which advocates for independence.
As a result of the ongoing government shutdown, House Democrats used their new majority to pass a spending bill last week in a mostly party-line vote with language that originated in the Republican-held Senate last year. That language treats the disputed Western Sahara as a sovereign entity, dealing a blow to Morocco.
Even though the language originated in the upper chamber, Senate Republicans refuse to pass their spending bill without funding for President Donald Trump’s proposed wall on the US-Mexico border.
The Senate foreign aid panel under Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and top Democrat Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has steered clear from recognizing Moroccan control over the Western Sahara. House appropriators by contrast have sided with Rabat in the dispute in recent years.
