[myth_drannon]

From https://www.opensecrets.org/

Totals since 2016 Country Total Spending China $562,676,323 Japan $504,111,211 Liberia $432,968,270 Saudi Arabia $421,890,448 Marshall Islands $382,012,024 South Korea $363,237,700 Bahamas $293,205,139 United Arab Emirates $269,529,107 Qatar $269,260,794 Israel $215,168,616

So for small countries UAE and Qatar(no surprise here, they just gifted 1 billion airplane to Trump)

[Matl]

This excludes US based groups lobbying for Israeli interests, which does not count under official spending by Israel, so it is not an accurate representation of the lobbying effort in the interests of Israel.

[woodruffw]

That seems like the categorically correct thing to do, for the same reason that (for example) a domestic Korean-American nonprofit that lobbies for Korean interests doesn’t get counted as foreign money or influence.

(Perhaps it should be! But it should be consistent, whatever it is.)

[Matl]

> Perhaps it should be! But it should be consistent, whatever it is.

Agreed. Any lobbying that centers on the interests of a foreign country should IMO count as foreign lobbying, I have no problem in including Korean-Americans, Kenyan-Americans etc. in that too.

[woodruffw]

Well, so here's the question: what counts as the interests of a foreign country? AIPAC's entire lobbying stance is that its positions are mutually beneficial to both the US and Israel, and this is the stance that every other national/ethnic affinity group in the US uses as well.

Put another way: it seems very risky to allow the federal government to determine the propriety of political speech just because it happens to concern two (or more countries) at once.

[Spooky23]

The difference is the nature of the lobbying and the volume. Follow the rules.

An egregious, non-controversial example of things going poorly is NYC Mayor Adams and Turkey. He basically accepted bribes and favors from the Turkish government and their proxies for specific actions.

A “doing it right” example that wouldn’t have been controversial until recently is Denmark. They mostly focus on direct diplomatic policy lobbying, and leverage consultants to promote mostly tourism. Their affiliations are known and registered. Now they hire K-Street lobbyists to influence policy objectives re: Greenland, etc.

The difference is that when the papers found out about Adams being a crook… that didn’t turn into accusations of racism and fomenting sectarian hatred. In the AIPAC example, there will be a both a legitimate visceral response from Americans and astroturf from lots of prominent people.

[woodruffw]

> The difference is that when the papers found out about Adams being a crook… that didn’t turn into accusations of racism and fomenting sectarian hatred. In the AIPAC example, there will be a both a legitimate visceral response from Americans and astroturf from lots of prominent people.

I think there's a much more parsimonious explanation for this: the average American doesn't know that much about Turkey, know very many Turkish people, etc.

In contrast, the average American has been steeped in I/P and related proxy conflict news for their entire adult life. That, combined with the fact that the US has a large Jewish population means that there's a degree of salience to accusations around AIPAC that wouldn't exist if the equivalent Turkish-American political lobby entity[1] was caught bribing politicians.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Coalition_of_America

[EtienneDeLyon]

>AIPAC's entire lobbying stance is that its positions are mutually beneficial to both the US and Israel

I don't think AIPAC is making that ridiculous claim!

The point of the lobbying is make the people American serve the interests of Israel.

There is a book written about this:

https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/03...

[trimethylpurine]

Are you mad that they are lobbying? What would they do instead?

Should they just die already? Are legal pathways for survival just too good for those pesky Jews?

Meanwhile OPEC will buy American presidents outright and you'll welcome their culture of imprisoning rape victims, hanging homosexuals, and torturing journalists? That lobbying doesn't count? We only count Jewish money?

Is it better that we fund the Palestinians to overthrow the powers that be like we did all over the world for the last 100 years? Will you count the 10 million deaths that creates as just another American mistake? Sweep them under the rug because it was "not my president?" America doesn't need to be held responsible for those things?

Personally I'm very thankful that people with an agreeable moral compass are lobbying to correct the problems in American politics.

I'd sure like to see America finally step in to fix the problems that Jimmy Carter created in the Middle East, rather than blaming everyone else for them.

WE made the IRGC. WE made Israel. WE made Gaza and the West Bank.

We should take some accountability and let the people living in the hell we created tell us how to fix it. We shouldn't be surprised that they are using legal pathways like lobbying to encourage what should be common human decency.

[woodruffw]

It is explicitly their claim, whether you (or I) find it ridiculous or not. Here’s the copy directly from their homepage[1]:

> America is safer, stronger and more prosperous when its relationship with Israel is ironclad. AIPAC works with Democrats and Republicans in Washington to advance that partnership. AIPAC lobbies Congress to pass annual U.S. security assistance to Israel, support lifesaving missile defense cooperation, and fund joint programs that help protect our troops and our homeland

(Note that “homeland” here refers to the US, not Israel.)

[1]: https://www.aipac.org/

[Spooky23]

It’s very different.

I was adjacent to state level politics for a long time. The German, Korean and French economic development organizations would come around every now and again with promotional events coordinated with their embassy to promote partnerships and business opportunities. Sometimes they had lobbyists focused on general relationship building, more often for specific issues.

The Israeli ground game is different. American PACs affiliated with or specifically “not affiliated with, but always talking about” Israeli interests show up at every level of government - a good friend is a town board member of a big suburban town and they call on him, and he refuses the contributions so will likely get primaried.

The real difference is information awareness. There is a CRM somewhere the ground guys have access to, and relationships are cultivated and used. My buddy is being targeted becuase there’s a good chance he’ll be in the state legislature someday. There’s a pipeline to get targeted American politicians to tour Israel for whatever reason. When critical attention is focused on this stuff, the reaction is fast and painful for the media outlet or political actor.

The only thing close to this is China, who does similar stuff with a different playbook. They’ve been caught embedding agents of one sort or another in California and New York governments at a high level, as well as places like Florida or within government contractors with lower level people.

Note that we’ve purged the FBI counterintelligence division, so the brazenness of the “bad” stuff will get worse - nobody is watching.

[_DeadFred_]

This is a reference to Americans. Americans choosing to freely donate to groups/causes they support and Americans being involved in American politics.

[frm88]

These numbers are wrong. There is no possible way Liberia has spent 10% of its GDP on lobbying the US for the past 10 years. They just signed (May 2026) a lobbying contract for $1.2 million with a lobbying company in the US, which seems vastly more in proportion https://liberianinvestigator.com/liberia-ballard-partners-lo...

OpenSecrets laid off 30% of its staff due to financial problems [0] and I'm absolutely sure that site is AI generated. No idea what numbers are displayed there but no country can afford 10% of GDP for 10 years for influence in Washington.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSecrets

[HWR_14]

Those numbers in no way indicate that Liberia spent 10% of its gdp lobbying the US. It looks like approximately 0.8%, which is still fantastically high

[frm88]

You are right, of course. Thanks for the correction. I will try to switch on my brain before posting next time.

[HWR_14]

It's an easy, and common, mistake to make. Sorry for the tone.

[narrator]

Liberia does not have that much money. Same goes for Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands has a GDP of $342 million. What the heck is going on here?

[HWR_14]

It works out to about 0.8% of Liberia's GDP. The Marshall Islands number works out to about 15% of the estimated value of the amount of financial assistance the US gives them.