[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 4 (Monday, January 8, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S60-S61]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           National Security

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this last weekend I had the honor of going 
to Camp David with Members of both the House and the Senate to meet 
with the President and Vice President and members of his Cabinet to 
talk about the prospects for 2018. After a very successful 2017, we are 
now looking forward to what sort of legislation we can do on a 
bipartisan basis that will help us build on those successes of 2017. 
Many of these are domestic priorities, but, of course, others are 
national security in nature.
  Our internal strength, of course, affects our diplomacy and military 
effectiveness abroad, and where we were located, at Camp David, 
actually demonstrates that. It was, after all, the site for secret 
talks to negotiate the Camp David Accords, historic peace agreements 
signed by Israel and Egypt in 1978. What happened on American soil 
ultimately changed the global landscape, and it wasn't the only time. 
Over the years, Camp David has come to represent peace. It is a place 
where leaders put aside their differences to look to avoid conflict.
  Nonetheless, today we have to admit, given the global environment, 
that peace is imperiled. We have recently seen that in Iran, where the 
largest wave of protests in more than a decade have revealed widespread 
discontent not only with Iran's economy but also as a result of the 
actions taken by its military, which has supported Hezbollah and other 
terrorist organizations around the world. As a matter of fact, Iran is 
the No. 1 state-sponsor of international terrorism, which is one reason 
why many of us blanched at the idea of releasing money to Iran as part 
of the joint agreement on Iran's nuclear program--money that they could 
then plow back into their support for organizations like Hezbollah and 
their aggressive support for terrorist organizations generally.
  Last week the Trump administration imposed sanctions on five entities 
tied to Iran's ballistic missile program. Apparently, Tehran continues 
to care more about funding its terrorist proxies across the Middle East 
than supporting its own citizens, and frustrated

[[Page S61]]

Iranians rightfully have said: Enough already; we are not going to take 
it anymore.

  As Secretary Mnuchin said last week, here in the United States we 
shouldn't ``hesitate to call out the [Iranian] regime's economic 
mismanagement, and diversion of significant resources to fund 
threatening missile systems at the expense of its citizenry.'' The 
Secretary is exactly right.
  Meanwhile, the situation in North Korea remains precarious. That 
country--and I say this unequivocally--must denuclearize. That is why I 
recently introduced a resolution with many of my colleagues here in the 
Senate.
  The purpose of the resolution is to expressly declare that Congress 
is unified in its condemnation of the increasingly hostile and 
intransigent behavior of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
  Since Kim Jong Un took power 6 years ago, he has ordered at least 
four nuclear tests, including the September detonation of what his 
regime--and outside experts generally agree--said was a hydrogen bomb.
  Despite great efforts made by the United States, including a recent 
Executive order by the President, North Korea's history as a bad-faith 
negotiator continues unabated on the world stage. It obstinately 
violates diplomatic norms and human rights at will and was recently 
redesignated, itself, as a state sponsor of terrorism.
  The resolution I referred to a moment ago asserts that the United 
States, as well as the United Nations Security Council and our regional 
allies, should continue to implement the absolute strictest of sanction 
regimes in an effort to get the regime's attention and hopefully bring 
them to the table as part of this path forward toward denuclearization. 
We must continue to exhaust every reasonable diplomatic option 
necessary to achieve the complete, verifiable, and irreversible 
dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile 
programs.
  Our resolution also recognizes that the President has the 
constitutional responsibility to protect the United States and our 
allies, but it emphasizes that congressional authorization is necessary 
prior to committing U.S. forces to a sustained military operation on 
the Korean Peninsula. In other words, under the Constitution, the 
President has his responsibilities and duties, and Congress has its 
responsibilities and duties, and this resolution recognizes both. We 
look forward to working together closely with the President in a 
unified front this year to confront North Korea, as well as rogue 
actors elsewhere.
  President Trump, we know, does not take our national security threats 
lightly. He has a world-class national security team, with General 
Mattis, Secretary Tillerson, and Director Pompeo, just to name three. 
In an important speech last month, the President outlined the four 
pillars of his administration's national security strategy.
  He said the first pillar is to protect our homeland. We can't secure 
our Nation if we can't secure our own borders, and we can't secure our 
borders unless we confront, both at home and abroad, the threat of 
terrorism and ideologies bent on doing us great harm.
  Second, the President said that we need to promote American 
prosperity because the only way we are going to be strong militarily 
and at the homeland is if we have the resources and economy to pay for 
it. Economic growth at home is critical for our influence around the 
globe as well. We, of course, took a big step in this direction by 
passing tax reform last month, but a lot more needs to be done to 
continue to grow our economy and to return America to its historic 
prosperity--like updating and not scrapping the North American Free 
Trade Agreement and other trade agreements, for example, and rebuilding 
our national infrastructure, which was also on the agenda at Camp David 
this weekend.
  The President's third pillar of the national security strategy is to 
preserve peace through strength. We usually attribute that concept to 
Ronald Reagan, but of course he is not the first or the last to 
recognize the joinder of peace and strength. President Trump said in 
his speech that ``weakness is the surest path to conflict, and 
unrivaled power is the most certain means of defense.''
  I think he is exactly right--which means we have to end the defense 
sequester that started with the Budget Control Act of 2011. I supported 
our efforts to rein in discretionary spending, but the fact is, only 
about 30 percent of the money that the Federal Government spends is 
actually appropriated, and a little more than half of that is defense 
spending. I simply cannot in good conscience agree to continue those 
budget caps for defense spending without considering the increase in 
risks to our men and women in uniform and our country's national 
security generally. We have to continue to modernize our military, 
which we started last year by reauthorizing the Defense Authorization 
Act.
  Fourth, the President's strategy asserts that we have to advance 
American influence in the world through strong alliances and by 
championing our core values without apology. As the President said:

       A nation that does not protect prosperity at home cannot 
     protect its interests abroad. A nation that is not prepared 
     to win a war is a nation not capable of preventing a war. A 
     nation that is not proud of its history cannot be confident 
     in its future. And a nation that is not certain of its values 
     cannot summon the will to defend them.

  I couldn't have said it any better myself.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.