Sec. 2. Findings

257 words·~1 min read·/bill/114/hr/907/ih/section-2

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Congress makes the following findings: As of January 22, 2015, the United States Government has provided $3,046,343,000 in assistance to the Syria humanitarian response, of which nearly $467,000,000 has been to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. As of January 2015, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are 621,937 registered Syrian refugees in Jordan and 83.8 percent of those refugees live outside refugee camps. In 2000, the United States and Jordan signed a free-trade agreement that went into force in 2001.

In 1996, the United States granted Jordan major non-NATO ally status. Jordan is suffering from the Syrian refugee crisis and the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The Government of Jordan was elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council beginning in January 2014 and terminating in December 2015. Enhanced support for defense cooperation with Jordan is important to the national security of the United States, including through creation of a status in law for Jordan similar to the countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Japan, Australia, the Republic of Korea, Israel, and New Zealand, with respect to consideration by Congress of foreign military sales to Jordan.

Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh was brutally murdered by ISIL. On February 3, 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh signed a new Memorandum of Understanding that reflects the intention to increase United States assistance to the Government of Jordan from $660,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 per year for the years 2015 through 2017.