[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 14 (Thursday, January 23, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S323-S324]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Trump Administration

  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, this weekend, I was thinking about all of 
the criticism President Trump is receiving right now from some in the 
liberal media and from some of my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle as they kind of look down their necks with: I am smarter than 
you. You are all wrong. You silly person. These sorts of narratives are 
going on all over the place. As I heard it this weekend, it reminded me 
of a book that I read back in the nineties about President Reagan. It 
was a biography--``Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an 
Extraordinary Leader.''
  If you will remember back then--I was relatively young, but I 
remember people saying that Ronald Reagan has got this idea of Star 
Wars--they called it Star Wars--because he felt he had an obligation to 
protect the American people by having some sort of a shield against 
missiles. Now we call that HIMARS, and Israel calls it the Iron Dome. 
We have technologies deployed in space that are effectively a 
realization of that vision, but he was a silly actor from California 
who didn't know anything. What he did know was vision, what he did know 
were adversaries, and what he did know were other countries that were 
failing to do their part in defending and protecting democracy.
  How does that relate to President Trump? President Trump, over the 
past couple of weeks, has said things--and you have to admit, when the 
President talks, he talks in big, beautiful words. He said something 
about Canada being the 51st State. He said something about Greenland 
maybe being a territory of the United States. He said he wants to 
rename the Gulf of Mexico to the ``Gulf of America,'' which he did 
through an Executive order, because of his frustration with Mexico. He 
also talked about the Panama Canal.
  Now, if you are a member of the liberal press, you are just going to 
look down your nose at him and say he is a silly guy and he is just 
saying dumb things. If you are somebody who lived through those 
criticisms of Ronald Reagan, I have a little bit different take on it.
  Let's start with Canada. Why is President Trump frustrated with 
Canada?
  If you were to total up the shortfall of the Canadian Government's 
contribution to NATO over the last 24 years, they have fallen short by 
a third of a trillion dollars. Almost $300 billion for our mutual 
defense they have decided not to pay into. Because why? Because they 
happen to have the world's strongest, greatest enduring democracy right 
to themselves. They know the United States would prevent anybody from 
invading Canada, and they are taking it for granted.
  President Trump is tired of being taken for granted. I don't care if 
he uses language like ``Trudeau is the next Governor''--whatever gets 
the Canadian people's attention. It is to let them understand that we 
have a serious problem with our mutual defense in North America, and 
Canada needs to pay attention. Canada needs to end their unfair trading 
practices when it comes to beef, when it comes to milk, and when it 
comes to the way they benefit from value-added transfers in the 
automobile industry. All of those are legitimate criticisms by 
President Trump, and I am glad he has had the courage and the insight 
to call them to account.
  Now let's move to Greenland.
  I am going to go back--and by the way, I take this personally because 
I am the Republican leader of the Senate NATO Observer Group and have 
been since 2018. I have spent a lot of time with our allies, and I 
believe that the NATO alliance is the most important treaty that has 
ever existed, and it is why we have free democracies today in the 
Western World.
  When he is talking about Greenland, he is also trying to say: Folks, 
wake up. Russia and China, for the first time in history, had joint 
military exercises in the Arctic. Many people may not know that. We do. 
China is flexing its muscles, and Russia is flexing their muscles. They 
are in our space in the Arctic. We should take that seriously.
  He is sending a message to Europe to say: Take care of our mutual 
defense. Project power in the Arctic. Check up against what we have 
already seen over the last year between China and Russia.
  So, yes, if he wants to use the language that he uses, he is 
communicating a very important point: We need to project power in the 
Arctic in a way that we haven't before.
  So those are the crazy comments about Canada and Greenland. Now let's 
go to Mexico.
  Mexico currently has, right now, an additional coequal branch of 
government. They call them the cartels. If you go to the southern 
border, you will see the cartels in action. They have these things 
called plazas. So the cartels have decided that they are going to break 
up the geography on the southern border. They are going to charge 
people a premium to come across the border illegally--anywhere from 
$5,000 to $50,000. In plain sight, they let China import precursors in 
their ports. They transport them to factories where cartels manufacture 
fentanyl that they carry across the border and kill over 100,000 people 
a year here. The vast majority of that comes from Mexico.
  So of course the President should threaten tariffs, and of course the 
President should say: You should get organized crime out of the 
decision-making process in Mexico. And if it takes the United States 
referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the ``Gulf of America'' to get the 
Mexican Government and the Mexican people's attention, I am fine with 
that.
  They need to work with us on sealing the border. They need to focus 
on the southern border. They need to wake up because we have a new 
administration that is going to treat them like adults and not like 
what arguably sometimes can be petulant children. They have safety and 
security because of where they are on the globe and in their close 
proximity to the United States.
  We expect both Canada and Mexico to be good partners, and I thank 
President Trump for taking them to task.
  Lastly is the Panama Canal.
  When President Carter agreed to transfer ownership of the Panama 
Canal, we made a mistake--and rest President Carter's soul. But the 
mistake we made was in not making sure that the governance and the 
protection of the Panama Canal could never come under the control of a 
communist nation. Now we know that China has actually business 
contracts on either end of the Panama Canal with the ports. They 
basically control the ingress and the egress to the Panama Canal.
  Now, people will say: Oh, he is so silly. He said they control the 
canal. That is just not right. I saw that on CNN.
  Here is what they didn't tell you: They control--they have contracts 
at either end of the Panama Canal, folks. We have to wake up. The 
President gets it. It is the most strategically important waterway in 
the world.
  So I am going to wind up my remarks so that the Senator from Florida 
can

[[Page S324]]

speak, but I believe that President Trump--you can criticize him for 
his rhetoric, but you can't criticize him for the truth when you tease 
through that rhetoric. Canada, Europe, Mexico, and Panama all owe in 
large part their independence and their ability to be democratic 
nations to the United States. I think it is fair to suggest that they 
act like partners and treat the United States with respect.
  I, for one, appreciate--although I wouldn't necessarily always use 
the words that President Trump does, I don't disagree with his 
objective, and I hope he keeps his foot on the accelerator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.