[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 37 (Thursday, March 1, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1307-S1309]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ECONOMIC GROWTH, REGULATORY RELIEF, AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT--MOTION
TO PROCEED
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 287,
S. 2155.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 287, S. 2155, a bill to
promote economic growth, provide tailored regulatory relief,
and enhance consumer protections, and for other purposes.
Cloture Motion
Mr. McCONNELL. I send a cloture motion to the desk on the motion.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
proceed to Calendar No. 287, S. 2155, a bill to promote
economic growth, provide tailored regulatory relief, and
enhance consumer protections, and for other purposes.
Mitch McConnell, Ben Sasse, John Cornyn, Pat Roberts,
Jerry Moran, John Kennedy, David Perdue, Tim Scott,
Thom Tillis, Dean Heller, Mike Crapo, James E. Risch,
Roger F. Wicker, James M. Inhofe, Tom Cotton, Richard
Burr, Lindsey Graham.
Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum call
be waived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). The Senator from Massachusetts.
No Unconstitutional Strike Against North Korea Act
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to share my deep
concern over what appears to be the Trump administration's intention to
go to war with North Korea.
North Korea may have bent over backward to appear conciliatory during
the recently concluded Winter Olympics in South Korea, but the Kim Jong
Un regime has not stopped its dangerous activities--far from it. North
Korea is a serious and ever-worsening threat to its people, to our
allies and partners in the region, and to the United States, but the
responsible course of action is to use all tools of American statecraft
to reduce those threats.
We have an obligation to American families, servicemembers, and our
allies to say, unequivocally, that we did everything in our power to
curb North Korea's dangerous behavior without resorting to armed
conflict. Instead, I fear that the Trump administration is beating the
drums of war.
While the North Korean regime was all smiles during the Olympics, its
malign behavior continued. Engineers race to perfect a nuclear-tipped
intercontinental ballistic missile. North Korean laborers around the
world--modern-day indentured servants--sent paychecks home to the
regime, helping fund its illicit military programs. Illegal ship-to-
ship transfers of refined petroleum products continued. North Korea's
army of cyber warriors grew ever more capable. North Korean military
officers reportedly continued to assist and empower Bashar al-Assad's
chemical weapons program in Syria, and the Kim regime's thugs made no
efforts to scale back rampant human rights abuses.
Many smiled as the North Korean regime won a gold medal in propaganda
at the Olympics. All the while, it got ever closer to its ultimate goal
of perfecting a nuclear weapon that could reach the United States of
America. We missed an opportunity to engage in talks with North Korea,
and we did that at our own peril.
While we must continue to ratchet up pressure on North Korea, other
elements of President Trump's approach threaten to make an already bad
situation even worse.
First, we are all too familiar with the President's reckless
rhetoric. Promising ``fire and fury'' does not minimize tensions.
Threatening to ``totally destroy'' North Korea only increases the
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chance of deadly miscalculation. Boasting about the size of a nuclear
button only makes the United States less safe. How does Donald Trump
think Kim Jong Un would react if he believed his rule were under
immediate threat? Would Kim restrain himself?
Second, contradictory statements from the Trump administration cause
confusion that dampens the prospect of a peaceful solution. Is the
Trump administration open to talks with North Korea? We certainly
should be. If we are, what are the preconditions, and should we even
have any? We hear different thoughts on different days. President Trump
routinely undercuts his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, and with it,
our diplomatic high ground. Confusing our allies in South Korea and
Japan, whose assistance in helping resolve the North Korean crisis is
indispensable, only serves to embolden Kim Jong Un, who seeks to drive
a wedge between the United States and our allies. We saw this during
the Olympics, and we cannot allow that effort to ever take hold.
Third, the Trump administration's recently released budget request
for fiscal year 2019 would drastically cut State Department funding.
Yet there is no explanation as to why the President believes that it is
prudent to cut diplomatic resources, especially in the middle of a
crisis. The State Department is already alarmingly understaffed to
handle the significant and increasingly more potent threats from North
Korea.
Just this week, we found out that the Special Representative for
North Korea Policy, Ambassador Joseph Yun--the lead American negotiator
with North Korea--is stepping down tomorrow. He is one of the key
players in any strategy with Pyongyang. But wait--there is more. We
still don't have a U.S. Ambassador to South Korea more than a year into
the Trump administration. We still don't have a confirmed Assistant
Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. We still don't have a
special envoy for North Korean human rights issues. We still don't have
a sanctions coordinator. It seems the only thing this administration
has to show for its concern about North Korea is Donald Trump's Twitter
account.
I sent a letter to Secretary Tillerson asking him to explain how the
State Department is sufficiently staffed to execute a wide-ranging
strategy of diplomatic engagement and pressure, but as I wait for his
response, the talk of conflict persists and the drum beat of war grows
louder.
Sadly, we have heard this before. In less than 3 weeks, we will mark
the 15th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. To be clear, the
current situation we face with North Korea is not the same as the one
we faced in the runup to the Iraq war in 2003, but, as Mark Twain once
said, while history does not repeat itself, it does tend to rhyme. We
should recognize the similarities and learn the appropriate lessons
regarding the use of military force.
Unlike Iraq, North Korea has nearly completed development of long-
range missiles, which will be capable of creating nuclear mushroom
clouds in our cities. We all agree that we need to act to ensure that
this never happens, but nowhere is there a convincing argument for
military strikes. There might be a military option for the North Korean
nuclear threat, but there is no military solution.
According to July 2017 polls, 76 percent of Americans are worried
that the United States will become engaged in a major war in the next 4
years, and 86 percent of Americans believe the military should only be
used as a last resort. We should listen to the American people.
Congress must demand that the Trump administration exhaust all
diplomatic and economic options in North Korea short of war. I am not
the only one who thinks another Korean war would be horrific. Warnings
about the consequences of conflict are coming from all corners,
including from the senior-most national security and defense officials.
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said that conflict on the North
Korean Peninsula would be ``catastrophic.''
Former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry said that a U.S. strike
``could turn into a disastrous military operation'' and that ``a war in
the Korean Peninsula that extends to Japan and that goes nuclear would
be 10 times worse than the first Korean War.''
Victor Cha, who was to be nominated as U.S. Ambassador to South Korea
before being removed from contention, stated that ``the answer is not,
as some Trump administration officials have suggested, a preventive
military strike.''
Reports suggest that John Bolton, whom President Trump may be
considering to replace H.R. McMaster as National Security Advisor,
apparently ``supports preventive war through a massive strike, if
sanctions fail.'' He said that the United States would have to
``simultaneously destroy all known North Korean ballistic missile
sites, submarine bases, and artillery, mortar, and missile installments
along the North's border with South Korea.''
That doesn't include the sites we don't know about. In October, the
Department of Defense stated that the ``only way to locate and destroy
with complete certainty all components of North Korea's nuclear weapons
program is through a ground invasion.''
Reports from a war game last week indicated that approximately 10,000
Americans could be wounded in combat in just the first few days of a
new Korean war. Apparently GEN Mark Milley, the Chief of Staff of the
U.S. Army, stated that the ``brutality'' of conflict on the Korean
Peninsula would ``be beyond the experience of any living soldier.''
Even before these comments, 74 percent of Americans were concerned
about a ``full-scale war with North Korea.''
So we must ask some fundamental questions. On what criteria will the
administration judge that all nonmilitary options have been exhausted?
Who will be the arbiter of that decision? Will the administration
fulfill its constitutional obligation and come to Congress to ask for
support? How will the Members of Congress respond to such a request?
It is because of these questions that I am here today. It is why I
introduced the No Unconstitutional Strike Against North Korea Act. This
bill would prevent the Department of Defense and other Federal agencies
from spending any money to carry out an attack, conventional or
nuclear, on North Korea without congressional approval, because we must
only use the U.S. military--the most powerful fighting force in the
world--if it is absolutely necessary.
At the same time, I recognize that we must do more to stem the North
Korea threat. That includes addressing actions by China, the primary
enabler of three successful generations of North Korean dictators. We
should seek China's partnership in this process, but we must not fear
offending the Chinese Communist Party, nor fear China's reaction.
In the interest of our security and the interests of a peaceful
resolution, we must, No. 1, cut off the flow of crude oil from China to
North Korea--if we do not do this, then we are not going as far as we
need to on a package of sanctions; No. 2, give the Kim regime a warning
that we expect them to stop selling the slave labor of its people and,
in fact, receiving the revenues from that slave labor in order to prop
up their regime and to fund a ballistic missile and nuclear program;
No. 3, eliminate North Korea's illicit drug trade; No. 4, halt the
procurement of key rocket fuel chemicals; and No. 5, restrict its use
of the internet to evade sanctions through theft of cryptocurrencies
and the committing of other cyber crimes.
We must continue the pressure on North Korea, but it must be combined
with simultaneous and direct engagement with North Korea. We have yet
to use all of the sanctions that should be imposed upon the North
Korean regime. We have a responsibility to ensure that we exhaust all
sanctions, and that includes doing everything we can to shut down the
flow of crude oil into North Korea, which props up the regime, props up
the ballistic missile program, and props up their nuclear weapons
program.
Talks with North Korea about these issues are not synonymous with
concessions. Talks backed by targeted pressure and stronger alliances
are the path pursued by countries that are strong, confident, and wise,
while the drumbeat of war, on the other hand, is the sound of fear and
insecurity.
We are talking today about sanctions on imported steel and aluminum
that come into the United States of America, but we are looking at that
as a
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trade issue. If we want to do something about trade that truly
endangers our country, we should be looking at the trade between North
Korea and China. We should be looking at the crude oil that continues
to flow into North Korea. We should not be talking about a military
option until we have exhausted our diplomatic and our economic
opportunities to bring North Korea to the table.
Without China's agreement on this, we will reach a debate on this
floor talking about war with North Korea, but it will not be a debate
that took place with the United States--the Trump administration--
having exhausted all of the opportunities that a cutoff of crude oil
would have and could have presented to bring North Korea to the table.
It worked in 2006, it worked in 1994, and I expect, for the sake of the
American people, that the President will try to make that work right
now. He has not done that yet. This administration has not done that
yet.
It is wrong to be hearing this talk about military possibilities and
military options before we have exhausted the cutoff of oil, of slave
labor, of drugs, of cryptocurrency. We have to do that first. We owe
that to history so we are not judged to have rushed irrationally into a
war with North Korea that could quickly spiral out of control.
Let's return to a United States of statecraft, allowing our diplomats
to advance our interests using our economic tools, our economic
strength, as a way of ensuring that we avoid a frivolous loss of life
in our country and other countries because we did not pursue a course
that would work.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
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