[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 3 (Tuesday, January 7, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S43-S46]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Foreign Policy

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, for over 3 years now, everyday 
Americans, Members of this body, our diplomatic corps, and our allies 
and adversaries alike have wondered whether there is any sort of 
coherent strategy guiding the national security and foreign policy of 
President Donald Trump. If the events of recent days are any 
indication, the answer is a resounding no.
  The Trump administration has no vision for how we might build a world 
that is more stable, peaceful, and prosperous for future generations. 
To be sure, the administration has some serious reports outlining 
global challenges and nicely drafted statements proclaiming their 
``America First'' strategy. In practice, the President's erratic 
leadership and failure to invest in the very institutions we need to 
promote American national security have sowed chaos and increasingly 
left America alone. Our Nation has faced great challenges before. Yet, 
having served nearly three decades in Congress, I cannot recall a time 
when so many of them were of our own making and as predictable as they 
were avoidable.
  Simply put, President Trump's foreign policy, like President Trump 
himself, is completely shortsighted, self-interested, and 
transactional.
  The President's abandonment of our core values has already eroded 
America's standing abroad. Near the end of the last administration, the 
Gallup organization found that 48 percent of respondents in more than 
100 countries worldwide had confidence in the United States. Today, it 
has gone from 48 percent to--it hovers around 31 percent. Furthermore, 
more people around the world likely trust--according to the poll--China 
or Russia rather than the United States.
  I know that national security is not a popularity contest, but the 
erosion of America's standing in the world matters because it makes it 
less safe for Americans. It undermines our diplomacy. It hinders 
economic opportunity. It undercuts our ability to promote our values, 
betraying our centuries-long vision of our Nation as a city on a hill.
  Our Nation was founded on noble ideals. It is those ideals more than 
our unrivaled economic strength and more than our unparalleled military 
might that have rallied the world to our side--from the defeat of 
fascism in Europe, to the rise of international institutions and 
security partnerships, and to the fall of the Berlin Wall and beyond.
  President Trump has squandered this precious resource of our values--
our ``soft power''--through actions that betray our ideals, abandon our 
allies, and appease our enemies. Far from America First, this 
administration is leaving America isolated, corrupted, and behind. We 
see it again and again--from Ukraine, to Syria, to Iran and beyond.

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  Consider Russia. Even as our intelligence community and bipartisan 
congressional reports point to ``incontrovertible'' proof of Russia's 
interference in our 2016 elections and plans to do so this year in 
2020, to this day, the President's own fragile ego still prevents him 
from even acknowledging the threat, let alone standing up to continued 
Russian aggression.
  Turn to North Korea. Two years ago, the President said that he had 
achieved a breakthrough and that we didn't have to worry about North 
Korea anymore and we could sleep well at home. Yet, despite all the 
made-for-TV moments, his poorly conceived and poorly executed effort 
has left North Korea a greater threat in 2020. Under President Trump's 
watch, North Korea has expanded its nuclear arsenal, successfully 
tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile, and conducted its 
most powerful nuclear testing. His administration has undercut our 
critical defensive alliance with South Korea and Japan and walked away 
from serious sanctions enforcement.
  Nearby in China, the administration's efforts have failed to change 
China's actions in the South China Sea, resolve the structural issues 
at play in our trade relationship, or address its worsening human 
rights and governance behavior--from the crackdown in Hong Kong, to the 
oppression of the Uighurs, to China's growing economic and 
technological influence, used to spy and oppress.
  Turning to the Western Hemisphere, a year ago, the President rightly 
denounced Maduro but misleadingly declared the success of his Venezuela 
policy. Today, the President sits silently as millions of Venezuelans 
fleeing a massive humanitarian crisis and the hundreds of thousands of 
Venezuelans already in the United States remain in desperate need of 
temporary protected status.
  President Trump says he wants to confront the root causes of 
migration. He says he wants to combat drug trafficking and the opioid 
epidemic. Yet he has repeatedly weakened our counternarcotics, law 
enforcement, and development operations in the Northern Triangle and 
Mexico, while continuing to push for a border wall he promised the 
American people Mexico would pay for.
  The administration's abhorrent treatment of asylum seekers--from 
separating children from their parents to placing people in cruel and 
inhuman conditions--has only further weakened America's moral standard. 
Likewise, President Trump's functional destruction of our Refugee 
Resettlement Program and the slashing of refugee admissions to the 
United States not only damage America's reputation as a beacon of hope 
for vulnerable people around the world but deprive us of the 
contributions refugees have always brought to our economy and our 
communities.
  We also face immense challenges like climate change. Yet, even as our 
close ally Australia faces the most deadly conflagration, this 
administration continues to deny a threat that is already costing 
American taxpayers billions of dollars in the wake of increasingly 
severe storms, fires, and floods.
  Withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement was a gross abdication 
of American leadership, one that has allowed China--yes, China--to 
position itself as the world leader on clean energy.
  The Trump administration has also ceded ground at the United Nations 
to China and Russia. Recently, China beat us out for a leadership seat 
at the Food and Agriculture Organization, while Russia won out support 
for its cyber crime treaty.
  While the administration may seek to explain away these losses on an 
individual basis, this is, in fact, the steady drip, drip, drip of the 
loss of American power and influence due to President Trump's abject 
mismanagement.
  Turn now to Africa. At a time when our allies, as well as adversaries 
like Russia and China, are ramping up their engagement, the United 
States is pulling back. Indeed, Secretary Pompeo has visited Kansas on 
multiple occasions during his tenure, but he has yet to visit a single 
sub-Saharan country.
  Likewise, we see a complete absence of diplomatic strategies for 
challenges across Africa, from preventing a return to conflict in South 
Sudan, to supporting the democratic transition in Ethiopia, to curbing 
terrorism in the Sahel. The recent tragic deaths of Americans in Kenya 
demonstrate a lack of progress in weakening terrorist organizations 
like al-Shabaab and Boko Haram.
  Likewise, for a year, the administration failed to waive human 
trafficking sanctions so that USAID could adequately respond to the 
deadly Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
  On human rights, the Trump administration's approach is, in one word, 
abysmal. The administration supported the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen 
amid credible reports of despicable war crimes. It stood silent on the 
killing of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi at MBS's direction. 
It has downplayed human rights and democratic backsliding in Honduras, 
Guatemala, the Philippines, Burma, Turkey, and beyond.
  Likewise, the Trump administration has rolled back the rights of 
women and girls worldwide, from cutting off funding for lifesaving 
maternal care they falsely claim promotes abortions to reinstating the 
global gag rule. It has also set back the clock on equality and 
protection for LGBTQ citizens in international instruments at the U.N. 
and elsewhere.
  I want to remind my colleagues why America must champion human 
rights--not just because it is right, although it certainly is right, 
but because democracy and respect for human freedom are the foundation 
of a safer, better world for the American people to thrive in.
  As the President abdicates our leadership and undermines the 
institutions we worked decades to help build, we have witnessed attacks 
on some of America's closest friends. President Trump's verbal 
broadside against the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and South 
Korea, just to mention a few--the latter during the ongoing nuclear 
standoff with North Korea--are deeply regrettable and completely 
counterproductive. This is not how America leads the world; this is how 
America finds itself alone, isolated, and more vulnerable.
  This administration has attacked the very idea of diplomacy. They 
proposed enormous cuts to the State Department's budget, removed senior 
diplomatic leaders with no replacements, and marginalized the State 
Department's input on key decisions.
  Finally, nowhere in the world is President Trump's reckless foreign 
policy and total lack of strategy more painfully obvious than the 
Middle East.
  Let me be clear: I do not shed a tear for Qasem Soleimani. As a 
commander of the IRGC Quds Force, he was responsible for the deaths of 
hundreds of Americans and supporting terrorism throughout the Middle 
East. Previous administrations kept tabs on Soleimani's whereabouts, 
both Republican and Democratic alike, but they always chose not to act 
against him because the decision was that the action against him--the 
value of that was of less value than the consequences of retaliation 
and long-term military action.
  The President must come to Congress and present clear and compelling 
intelligence as to why this strike against Soleimani was absolutely 
necessary. What was the imminent threat Soleimani uniquely possessed? 
We need to know if the threats we face have materially changed.
  In the wake of all of its misleading statements, we must make clear 
to the administration that the President by himself does not--does 
not--have the authority to launch a war against Iran.
  Let me send the President a message. Attack on cultural sites are war 
crimes. They are war crimes. We observe international law not only 
because it is right but because then we can demand other countries to 
observe international law as well.
  The consequences of President Trump's strike on Iranian Commander 
Qasem Soleimani are unfolding as we speak. Already, the Iraqi 
Parliament has called for an expulsion of American forces. Now there is 
confusion about what U.S. policy is. Are we keeping troops to fight 
ISIS? Are we going to start sanctions on Iraq? Confusion. 
Contradiction. Chaos. Amid such confusion, the one thing that has taken 
place for sure is that instead of our mission there to fight ISIS, we 
are now having to recalibrate to use that mission to protect our own 
forces there. What a reprieve ISIS gets.

[[Page S45]]

  Despite what the President may say, Iran is not a different country 
than it was 2 years ago. Iranian-backed protesters just stormed our 
Embassy. Previously, they were storming Iranian Embassies. The Iraqi 
people were storming Iranian Embassies because of Iran's influence in 
Iraq. Now they are out massively protesting against us.

  A regime that continues to oppress its own people and its proxies now 
has a solidified populous behind it. Soleimani's legacy, ultimately, is 
that what he could not achieve in life, he may very well have achieved 
in death--pushing the United States out of Iraq.
  It is no secret that I did not support the Joint Comprehensive Plan 
of Action, but let's be clear: Today, Iran is closer to a nuclear 
breakout than when President Trump took office, and we have isolated 
ourselves from the international alliance that we have built to 
constrain Iran's ambitions.
  Meanwhile, in Syria, the President's greenlight for Turkey's 
incursion has weakened American interest in the region, allowed Russia 
to grow its influence, and opened the door for ISIS to reconstitute.
  By turning our backs on the Kurds, we signaled to the world that we 
will abandon our allies on the battlefield. And while the President 
promised to stop endless wars in the Middle East, over the weekend, 
thousands of military family members are unexpectedly saying goodbye as 
their loved ones receive orders to do just the opposite.
  President Trump has not brought the American people a more peaceful, 
a more stable, and a more prosperous world. On the contrary, the 
President has brought us closer to war, closer to facing a nuclear-
armed Iran, closer to facing an existential threat to Israel, and 
closer to witnessing a destabilizing arms race and greater conflict in 
the entire Middle East region, fueled by emboldened Iranian proxy 
forces.
  A show of strength with no strategy in place is no show of strength 
at all.
  President Trump spent the better part of 3 years on the golf course, 
eviscerating the clear lines between a President's responsibilities to 
the American people and his devotion to his own wallet. The President 
and his family continue to put their business interests over America's 
interests.
  The President has flouted the Constitution's emoluments clause and 
shredded decades of ethical norms by refusing to divest himself from 
the Trump Organization. He and his family maintain unprecedented 
business interests in real estate projects in about 20 foreign 
countries that undoubtedly entangle him with foreign governments 
whenever local cooperation or financing is needed. It is clear that 
that creates a conflict that does not put the Nation's interests first.
  He operates with no moral compass. Indeed, the President's pursuit of 
his own personal profit at the expense of America's national security 
interests in Ukraine led to his impeachment by the House of 
Representatives.
  I urge my colleagues to remember why America's conduct on the world 
stage matters, why our values matter, and why our leadership matters.
  We strive to create a more peaceful and a more stable world so that 
we can protect the security of Americans at home, so that we can create 
greater prosperity and economic opportunity for our people, and, at the 
end of the day, avoid at all costs a need to send our sons and 
daughters to war.
  Every President faces new threats that challenge our quest for this 
brighter future. We have worked hard to create institutions and provide 
resources to help every administration navigate this increasingly 
complex world. We pray that the moral character of every President 
provides them with the foresight and judgment necessary to protect 
American security and our strategic interests when it matters the most. 
Instead, President Trump has taken difficult security challenges and 
made them even harder to resolve. That is why Congress's role in 
shaping and advancing U.S. foreign policy has never mattered more. That 
is why I will continue to advance strategic legislation from Turkey to 
climate change, to new Ukraine support to conduct oversight, and to 
speak on behalf of the American people and the values and norms that 
define us and our place in this complicated world.
  Here in the Senate, we have an obligation. We cannot cynically look 
the other way or be silent or enable that which we know to be wrong, 
risky, and morally reprehensible. History will not judge us kindly if 
we do. I, for one, will not stand idly by and be judged that way.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I come to the floor today following 
the U.S. airstrike in Iraq, the airstrike that killed Iranian's 
terrorist mastermind.
  I fully support President Trump's decision. As Commander in Chief, I 
believe he had an obligation to do what he did to act when American 
lives were at stake. With the death of Iran's General Soleimani, the 
American people and people around the world are much safer.
  This general was an emboldened, blood-thirsty terrorist. He was a 
killer. He has the blood of countless people around the world on his 
hands.
  In the last 2 months, we have seen 11 attacks--11 attacks--on U.S. 
forces and bases, including the killing of an American citizen.
  He became bolder and more aggressive in both his actions and his 
ambitions, and he was stepping up his attacks on Americans. In fact, 
General Soleimani was at war with the United States his entire career, 
and it was a military career. He was the commander of Iran's terrorist 
network.
  In recent months, we watched as he personally directed brazen attacks 
on our Embassy and our personnel in Iraq. We knew that more attacks 
were coming, so the United States took action.
  Soleimani's death makes America safer in the long run. Taking out 
this war criminal will help us avoid war in the future.
  Let me be clear: I don't want war with Iran. The United States does 
not want war with Iran, but we know that appeasement does not work. The 
Obama administration's strategy of wishful thinking failed.
  Soleimani's terrorist network was made more powerful by U.S. money. 
The Obama administration gave billions and billions of U.S. dollars as 
part of that Iran nuclear deal. What did they do with the money? They 
used the money to support terrorists around the world. Without a doubt, 
appeasement brought only failure. It made Iran stronger, and it hurt 
the United States and our allies.
  We know that the winning strategy is peace through strength. We knew 
it through Ronald Reagan, and we know it today. Already, U.S. sanctions 
on Iran have been crushing and crippling. We must continue President 
Trump's maximum-pressure campaign. Now Iran knows the United States 
means what it says. We are prepared for retaliations, should they come.
  This past weekend, Joe Biden actually said that Iran is in the 
driver's seat. Iran is not in the driver's seat; Iran is in the center 
of the bull's-eye.
  U.S. forces will respond. We will respond to any future attacks on 
Americans or Americans' safety, and we will do it swiftly and with a 
punishing response.
  It will be a grave mistake for Iran to further escalate tensions. 
Instead, what Iran ought to do is dial down its aggressive nature and 
posture.
  The facts are these: General Soleimani was a blood-thirty terrorist. 
He had the blood of innocent civilians on his hands, and he would have 
killed many more if given the chance.
  This general spent his entire career at war with the United States. 
He was responsible for the deaths of American soldiers--hundreds of 
deaths with IEDs--and for the maiming of American soldiers with 
roadside bombs. Thousands of Americans have been permanently disabled 
because of him.
  Thankfully, the general's 20-year reign of terror has now ended, and 
there is broad condemnation all around the world over the mass 
destruction and the death that he caused. It is now time for Iran to 
take a step back, away from nuclear weapons, away from terrorism, away 
from aggressions, and to come to the table. It is time for them to 
discuss peace.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.

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  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Blackburn). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.