In a speech at the University of Virginia on Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry warned the looming sequester could threaten U.S. diplomacy overseas.

Secretary of State John Kerry: “I’m particularly aware that in many ways the greatest challenge to America’s foreign policy today is in the hands not of diplomats, but of policymakers in Congress. It is often said that we cannot be strong at home if we’re not strong in the world. But in these days of a looming budget sequester, that everyone actually wants to avoid, or most, we can’t be strong in the world unless we are strong at home. My credibility as a diplomat working to help other countries create order is strongest when America at last puts its own fiscal house in order, and that has to be now.”