To require a strategy to oppose financial or material support by foreign countries to the Taliban, and for other purposes.
What changed between versions
Every reference to opposing foreign support for the Taliban now includes the qualifier 'that is inconsistent with United States law or policy,' narrowing the bill from targeting all foreign support to only support that violates US law or policy.
The direct cash assistance report in Section 2 now leads with USAID (in consultation with State) rather than State (in consultation with USAID), and the deadline was removed in favor of submission alongside USAID's FY2023 Annual Financial Report.
Multiple 90-day deadlines were extended to 180 days, including the initial report on foreign countries supporting the Taliban and the development of the strategy to discourage such support.
Subsequent strategy implementation reports changed from every 180 days to annually for 5 years, with a new requirement that they be submitted in unclassified form (with optional classified annex).
A sunset provision was added to the Afghan Fund reporting section: it terminates on the date all disbursements from the Afghan Fund have been made.
The requirement to identify implementing partners and recipients of direct cash assistance programs was removed from Section 2.
The Afghan Fund report no longer requires consultation with USAID or Treasury, and several detailed sub-requirements were simplified or consolidated (e.g., Taliban member list folded into the influence description, trustee vetting details reduced).
The definition of 'hawala' was removed from the bill entirely.
Each section now contains its own definition of 'appropriate congressional committees' rather than relying on a single act-wide definition, which was removed as a standalone section.
The Afghan Fund reporting section (Section 3) is now directed to the House Committee on Financial Services and Senate Banking Committee instead of the Appropriations committees, shifting oversight to financial regulatory bodies.
