This should be a campaign promise: Next president must make food security a part of national security

The presidential candidates should remember that fighting hunger is vital to our domestic and foreign policy.

A good president has to make food security a part of national security.

President John F. Kennedy’s very first actions after taking office fed the hungry. President Dwight Eisenhower made Food for Peace a major component of our foreign policy.

President Harry Truman supported food aid that saved Europe after World War II from famine.

Sadly, President Trump has a poor record feeding the hungry. The presidential candidates need to contrast their humanitarianism when compared with President Trump.

In his latest budget proposal Trump calls for cuts in food aid at home and abroad.

The charity Save the Children says it “condemns the president’s third consecutive budget request seeking to make deep cuts to international development, diplomatic, and humanitarian assistance.”

Trump has also prolonged the devastating conflict in Yemen by supporting the Saudi coalition.

This has placed millions of Yemenis at risk of famine. Trump’s plan to cut food aid harms the relief effort in Yemen and other nations in chaos.

The Democratic candidates, many of whom are in the Congress, can take action to feed the hungry.

They can start by rejecting Trump’s budget cuts to food aid. The Congress should instead increase funding for the Food for Peace program which is needed to feed the massive number of hungry war victims abroad.

Peace in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, the Sahel, Central African Republic, and South Sudan cannot be found on empty stomachs.

Yemen needs both a stepped up diplomatic effort with humanitarian aid.

After the Senate passed a resolution to end U.S. involvement in Yemen’s war, Senator Bernie Sanders said “We have to help the people of Yemen with food and with humanitarian supplies, not with more bombs.”

Trump has also threatened to eliminate the McGovern-Dole overseas school lunch program. This initiative was started by former senators George McGovern and Bob Dole. It was part of their bipartisan approach to feeding hungry children.

They proved Democrats and Republicans can work together on issues.

Charities like Catholic Relief Services, the World Food Program, Mercy Corps, World Vision and others use McGovern-Dole funds to feed hungry children in needy countries. Catholic Relief Services is running a program now to feed children in war-torn Mali.

We should expand school lunches abroad much like we did after World War II to help win the peace.

At home there is much we can do to fight hunger. We need a national summer feeding program to match the free school year lunches for needy kids.

As the Food Research and Action Center states, “Children need healthy meals throughout the long summer break, the time when childhood hunger increases.

But the Summer Nutrition Programs are not meeting enough of the need, serving only one child for every seven low-income children who participated in school lunch during the regular school year.”

Senator and presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand has advocated for increasing summer feeding. Gillibrand and other members of Congress need to get a legislation passed to stop the summer hunger crisis.

We need leadership especially since we are not seeing any coming from Trump, as his budget made clear he does not think fighting hunger is very important.

As David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, explains “a budget is more than a financial statement — it is a statement of our nation’s priorities and values. It should be measured on how it treats the most vulnerable people among us.”

As this presidential campaign kicks off, let’s keep everyone focused on the critical issues like ending hunger. Food and nutrition is vital for stability at home and overseas.

William Lambers partnered with the UN World Food Program and Catholic Relief Services on the book Ending World Hunger.