PNC 08/09/2026

PNC Meeting Minutes: August 2nd, 2026

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Pirate National Committee — All national committees

The August 9th 2026 PNC Meeting was one of the weekly meetings of the Pirate National Committee (PNC).

Agenda

Reminders

• A deadline of August 9th was set for submitting a location for the 2027 conference with a subsequent September 6th deadline for the PNC to decide a location.

Discussion

New Business

Updated Foreign Policy Plank

• Platform has sent the following to the PNC for review and potential approval.

 We advocate for the right to free association and self-determination. People living in a political entity should have the right to maintain, alter or conclude their relationship to larger entities, or join in union, if it is the will of the people. The foreign policy of the United States has not reflected those values.

To hold ourselves accountable to the standards we expect of other countries, we believe the United States should

- Ratify the Rome Statute and repeal the Hague Invasion Act
- Accept compulsory ICJ jurisdiction
- Ratify the Arms Trade Treaty to reduce the proliferation of conventional weapons.
- Pay UN dues in full and on time.
  
The same standard applies to what we fund abroad. We should give no military aid to any undemocratic country including the genocidal apartheid state of Israel.

In our own hemisphere, decades of embargo and sanction have punished populations without changing the governments they were aimed at. The United States has not been a good neighbor.  We believe that through the OAS or other Pan-American organizations we should foster genuine collaboration and friendship. We should end the Cuban embargo, close Guantanamo Bay, lift sanctions on Nicaragua and end the occupation of Venezuela. Legislation should be passed explicitly preventing the US government and intelligence agencies from covertly interfering with elections anywhere. This is only a start to what needs to be done to repair relations in the Americas.

Where sanctions and tariffs remain a tool of policy, they should be bounded in time and should never be aimed at civilians. There should be permanent humanitarian exemptions in sanctions for food, medicine, and civilian fuel. Sunset clauses and mandatory congressional reauthorization should be attached to any sanctions or tariff regime.

Our force structure should be sized to the missions we actually intend to carry out. The US military is by far the most powerful in the world, it is an unjustifiable level of over-preparedness. With the goal of reducing US military spending to 50% of its current level over the next 15 years, we should reevaluate our defense spending priorities and focus on reductions in capacity while maintaining readiness. The Pentagon budget should be cut every year it fails an audit, and redundant overseas bases should be closed.

While nuclear weapons will certainly remain an essential part of US military capability for the foreseeable future, our nuclear strategy should be aimed at the eventual goal of a world without them. To that end:

- We should negotiate an expanded New START successor treaty to govern a mutual drawdown in nuclear weapons, within a framework that can include all nuclear powers.
- We should adopt a legally binding no-first-use policy for nuclear weapons.
- We should ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
    

Congress must also reclaim its constitutional authority over the use of force. The 2001 AUMF should be repealed, and the War Powers Act should be amended to close loopholes and strengthen enforcement.

The War Powers Act should be updated to require congressional authorization before introducing US forces into any hostilities, except to repel an actual armed attack on the United States. Any such emergency use of force should terminate automatically, with appropriations cut off, absent congressional authorization within 30 days.  
  
Hostilities should be explicitly defined to include drone strikes, standoff strikes, special operations raids, offensive cyber operations, direct support to belligerents, and any other comparable use of force that successive presidents have used to avoid congressional oversight and conduct illegal wars. Individual members of Congress should be granted standing to sue for unauthorized uses of force, with expedited review and political-question dismissal barred.