Secretary Rubio Testifies at 2027 Senate State Department Hearing (Transcript)

Force posture in Europe, and after 33 days we still have no response. We’ve requested a briefing from the Iran War on displacement. After 90 days, we still have no response. We’ve asked for a briefing on Ukraine on a number of issues. After 180 days, we still have no response. We’ve asked for a briefing on lifting Milorad Dodik sanctions. And after 225 days, we still have no response. We’ve asked for a briefing for the U.S. Agency for Global Media. No response after 344 days. The Romanian visa program termination. We’ve followed up five times over 435 days and we’ve still gotten no response.

In January, when you were before this committee, I asked if you would report to this committee once an audit system was in place to track Venezuelan oil revenues. You said, and I quote, “Oh, absolutely, yeah.” We are still waiting. And when you do notify Congress, it’s to inform us of decisions you have already made. That is not consultation, as you well know. That is not advice and consent.

Concerns Over China, Global Health, and Foreign Aid

SENATOR SHAHEEN: Congress has been clear on a bipartisan basis. We do not want to cede ground to China. Yet this administration is closing consulates and cutting funding in the Indo-Pacific.

The same pattern extends to global health. USAID supported Ebola detection and prevention activities in DRC and Uganda for years. And we can see in this poster, even Elon Musk admitted that one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention. Well, those programs were dismantled. And today we have to screen for Ebola at Dulles Airport rather than in the DRC and Uganda, more than 7,000 miles away.

You’re asking for a 44% reduction in the State Department budget. That includes eliminating funding to the World Health Organization. It includes eliminating all disease-specific funds in the middle of an Ebola crisis that’s affecting Americans. Yet no one from your department can explain to us why this is a good idea.

You sent a notification saying you needed $10 billion to close out USAID. Then you sent another saying you needed some of that money to respond to disease outbreaks. Congress has asked for an explanation and we still have not received one.

Concerns Over Russia, Ukraine, and Iran

SENATOR SHAHEEN: The same pattern extends to our alliances. I just returned from a bipartisan delegation to the Arctic. We are on the verge of losing the very alliances we have built for decades because the president manufactured a crisis over Greenland. And nowhere is that clearer than with the U.S.

In 2017, you wrote as a senator that Vladimir Putin will never be a trusted ally or a reliable constructive partner. But since taking office, you, the President, the Vice President, Steve Witkoff, not one of you has been to Ukraine. And yet, your envoys talk to Putin on a regular basis. The President has invited him, given him the red carpet treatment on American soil. But yet, you won’t come up here and brief Congress on any of it. And decisions Congress has made on Russia have been systematically undermined.

Congress passed support for Ukraine. The administration has slow-walked it. And instead of sanctioning Russia, the administration issued oil licenses that have sent billions to Moscow. Congress has asked what this approach has produced. Russia has conducted five times more drone strikes on Ukraine since 2024. More U.S. businesses are being directly targeted than at any point in this conflict. And Russia is providing targeting intelligence to help Iran hit our facilities and personnel in the Middle East while we’re helping them fund this war.

When I talked to my constituents, they asked for economic relief at home, not regime change in Havana or Caracas or Tehran. Instead, you sent Congress a War Powers notification saying we are not in active hostilities with Iran, while the U.S. was conducting strikes against Iran, and Iran was bombing U.S. embassies and bases throughout the Middle East. That was not consultation. It was an attempt to avoid answering to this committee and this Congress about this war.

Congress has asked basic questions about the war. Why are roughly half of our Patriot interceptor stockpiles gone? Why does the Strait of Hormuz remain closed? Why is gas up $1.50? Why did 13 American service members lose their lives in this war? Congress deserves to know why, and Americans deserve to know why.

Mr. Secretary, you would not have stood for this kind of stonewalling by the administration when you were a senator, and you certainly shouldn’t stand for it as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Transition to Questions

SENATOR RISCH: We’ll now proceed to a round of five-minute questions. I’m sorry. We’ll try. Did you want to do… We talked about that. Do you want one? We actually talked about that, but he thought the question might be easier. Why don’t you go ahead? I have it in writing. You want me to read it? Give us your mission.

Secretary Rubio’s Opening Statement

SECRETARY RUBIO: Okay. Well, thank you for having me here. There’ll be a lot to talk about today. And I just want to remind everybody, our foreign policy is one that’s solely focused on the national interest of the United States of America, on the defense of our country, both its military defense and our security, but also our economic security and the vibrancy of our economy, our sovereignty, and our future. We believe that America should lead the world, and I believe that we are, and we’ll have a very good story to tell about that.

American leadership, however, should always be on behalf of the American interests. I say this because I think over a period of time in our foreign policy, we lost focus on that. The reality of it is that our foreign policy first and foremost must always be what is in the national interest of the United States of America. And determining the national interest often times requires us to make pragmatic decisions.

Sometimes in foreign policy the choices are not between a good choice and a bad choice. It’s between two less than ideal choices and you’re trying to figure out which one of these two choices is the one that is best for the United States and least harmful to our interests. And that plays out every single day.

America’s Global Standing

SECRETARY RUBIO: That said, we remain the world’s sole global superpower. The most powerful country on earth, we have the largest economy. We have the most formidable and powerful military, ever known to man, by the way. Our dollar remains the reserve currency of the world. Our language is used extensively throughout the world to transact all sorts of business and many of our engagements.

But all of this means very little if that power is not used to protect the people who built it, the people who it is meant to protect. I also remind everybody the United States government is not a charity. We are not here to play social worker. We are here to win. We are here to win on behalf of the American people and on behalf of the national interest. To win for our country, to win for the people of America, to win for the things that are important for our future. And that’s what we exist to do.

The State Department exists to carry out the foreign policy of the United States, both in diplomacy and in aid, in a way that furthers the national interest and helps the American people. And it’s guided every decision that’s been made since January of 2025.

Progress in the Western Hemisphere

SECRETARY RUBIO: I’ll give you a perfect example in our own Western Hemisphere. An area that this committee and many of its members long argued, as I did, has long been neglected and not been paid attention to. We now have in this hemisphere a coalition of friendly countries, over a dozen, who have aligned to work on not just the issues of security that we all have in common, but also economic prosperity that go hand in hand.

It’s an amazing story that basically, other than Nicaragua, other than Cuba, obviously, other than Venezuela, remains with some challenges. And of course, Brazil, although they’re in the midst of an election cycle, and to some extent the current government in Colombia as well, at least the president’s been problematic. But generally speaking, it is now a region filled with American allies, American-friendly leaders, and an America-friendly direction.

Now obviously we have to operationalize that into action after 20 years of neglect in which China and other global powers have intruded in our Western Hemisphere to the detriment not just of American national interest, but to the detriment in our view of the people of those countries as well. So these are important achievements and one that I’m very happy about.

Transformation of Foreign Aid

SECRETARY RUBIO: I’m also happy about the way we’ve transformed foreign aid. In any transition, there will be bumps in the road. But largely speaking, if you think about how those programs that existed in the past were failing us, the old model had to be replaced.

Foreign Assistance and Strategic Direction

SECRETARY RUBIO: And the foreign assistance that remains is being brought under the strategic direction of the State Department. So we’re not just providing money, we are also seeking outcomes. It’s not just how much money you spend on a program, it’s whether you’re getting outcomes from it. But it’s also being guided with our strategic view in mind. And that means that we are able to provide aid, not just all over the world, but specifically targeted at those most in need and those places around the world most important to the national interest of the United States.

That will remain our guiding principle. That’s been our guiding principle in our reforms. The bottom line is that all this and more is a reflection of this belief that I outlined at the outset, and that is that foreign policy cannot be separated from economic policy, from border policy, from energy policy, from any of these other spheres that are critical to our national interests. A country that cannot build ships or produce medicine or control immigration or access vital resources cannot defend its people, cannot defend its interests, and cannot defend its way of life.

So our foreign policy continues to be reoriented around the real foundations of national strength. This budget is yet another step, I believe, in that direction. Obviously, the appropriators here will have a huge say on the outcome of what that budget ultimately looks like, as we don’t anticipate that for the first time in modern history, Congress will just take up our budget and pass it. We think it’ll go through some substantial reforms along the way, and we look forward to engaging you like we did last year to produce what we think is a very good spending bill at that time. So anyways, I look forward to your questions.

At least that’s what it says here. I’m not sure if I really look forward to your questions. I look forward to probably half your questions. Thank you.

Opening Remarks and Round of Questions

SENATOR RISCH: Thank you, Secretary Rubio. We will now do a round of questions, five minute questions based on order of attendance. And I’m going to start and I’m going to say thank you for the work you’ve done with respect to Iran. We, all of us that have worked on this for years know how frustrating that is, how difficult it is to work with this regime who’ve sponsored terrorism, kidnapping, and killed thousands of Americans for the last 47 years. Thank you for doing something about it. I know you and the President are doing all you can to ensure this comes to a close sooner rather than later.

I wonder if you can give us at least a brief update on where we are.

Iran: Nuclear Program and Operation Epic Fury

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, first let me remind everybody that while I’ve not been before this committee since I believe February when we briefed on the Venezuela operation, I have appeared on multiple occasions here, both in my role as national security advisor and secretary of state, in both all-Senate briefings multiple times, Gang of Eight briefings, Gang of 16 briefings. So we’ve talked about this topic with some of you in those settings in the past and you’ve heard from us.

Let me just lay the predicate here. Iran’s desire to build a nuclear weapon was going to be built, was going to be effectuated behind a conventional shield. They were going to build for themselves so many missiles, so many drones, so many conventional weapons, including a Navy, that at that point there’s nothing you could do about it. What they tried to do is they were going to try to build a conventional shield and hide behind that conventional shield and basically say to the world, “If you come and do anything about our nuclear program, we will overwhelm you with missiles, we will overwhelm you with drones, and you will not win. You will not be able to do anything about it.”

They were seeking that point of immunity, which is why the president chose to act, to deny them that point of immunity. Operation Epic Fury, some of you didn’t like it, some of you did, was highly successful in achieving its military objectives, which is dramatically reducing the defense industrial base of Iran, the ability to build these missiles and to build these drones, especially the missiles program, substantially degraded.

A substantial percentage — and I’ll leave the exact numbers to the Department of War, because I’m not a general and I’m not here to speak as a military planner — but a substantial degradation in the number of launchers that they have as well. They still have a lot of drones because these are easy to make. We all know it’s not an Iran challenge. This is a global challenge. And it’s playing out every single day around the world.

Mexican cartels are using UAVs against each other, and we should imagine at some point may even use it against our interest. So this is a pervasive problem around the world. The economics of it is something we have to solve for. But nonetheless, even their drone building capability has been eroded.

Today there is no Iranian Navy. There is no such thing. There’s a bunch of Boston Whalers with machine guns on them, but there is no Navy. There is no Iranian Navy. It lies at the bottom of the ocean and will soon, within a number of years, be prime fishing spots because they’ll turn into reefs.

So my whole point is that the Iranian conventional shield has been substantially eroded. Now in the aftermath of that, two things have happened. The first is they entered into a ceasefire. They agreed. We agreed to stop.

But part of that agreement is that they would reopen the straits. They did not. At which point the president decided, and I think appropriately, we can’t have a world in which only Iranian ships get through the straits. And so if they’re going to shut down the straits for everybody, we’re going to shut down the straits for them. And we have done that through a very effective blockade, and by the way, through the seizure of sanctioned ships in the Indo-Pacific as well.

The cost to Iran every single day in lost revenue is in the hundreds of millions of dollars that they are losing and lost revenue that they’re not generating as a result of that.

Now, we are in talks, and I say talks because talks with Iran are not like talks with Switzerland. They’re very different. They require the use of intermediaries, unfortunately. But there is the prospect before us — which could happen today, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen next week — that for the first time, certainly in my memory, they have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program that just a month ago or just a year ago they were refusing to even mention, much less enter into discussions about.

That is not a guarantee that ultimately it will lead to a deal that’s acceptable to the Senate or acceptable to the American people. But we’ll be able to engage them in a process to truly test the proposition of how far they’re willing to go. Complicating that process, unfortunately, is their internal regime is somewhat fractured in the sense that it takes days to get responses from their system. We can go into more depth in your follow-up questions.

But we’re hopeful that something like that could happen in which the straits would reopen, we would enter into a period of negotiations on very specific topics, delineated negotiations, in the hope of reaching an outcome that’s acceptable to us and something they would be able to do as well. If it doesn’t work out, then obviously we still have a problem with respect to their nuclear ambitions, but what they won’t have is the conventional shield to hide behind any longer.

U.S.-China Relations

SENATOR RISCH: Thank you, Secretary. I’m going to ask one more question. Hopefully this will shorten as we go around. There will be more questions, obviously, on that topic. But I know you just got back from China not long ago. Could you give us a quick update on the state of U.S.-China relations?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, look, China and the United States are the two largest economies in the world, the two most powerful militaries in the world. The Chinese government and the U.S. government have to speak. There’s really not a choice here. We have to have some measure of communication, if for nothing else, in order to de-escalate potential points of conflict that could lead to something broader.

There are obviously very significant irritants in our relationship with China. Some of these are long-term problems that we know we’re going to have to address. And so what we’re trying to do is manage a period of strategic stability while recognizing that there are areas of our relationship in which we are going to have struggles, not just for years, but perhaps for decades.

We recognize this. But I think as much as anything else, we have to recognize that the United States and China have to be able to have points of dialogue and speak to one another, as I said, for no other reason than to be able to have a communication channel.

I think in our meetings it was abundantly clear which are the areas that we do not have strong alignment or agreement on. We understand that there are areas in which long term we’re going to have some real challenges, whether it’s supply chains. Put it to you this way, let’s leave China aside for a moment. The United States, and I would argue the world, cannot depend on one country for 90% of anything, especially 90% of things that are critical to our economies, not just from our weapons systems to our pharmaceuticals. We just can’t live in a world in which we rely on anybody for 90% of what we get from one sole source that could be cut off at any time as leverage against us or punishment or in a time of conflict.

And so we are actively searching and have plans in place and we’re implementing these to diversify where we get critical minerals, where we get our supply chain, and secure that supply chain. And obviously the Chinese would like to retain their monopoly position in some of these. This is going to be a long-term issue that we’re going to have to continue to confront and work on.

Work on that continues even while we are engaged in the ability to dialogue and speak to them, because we have to. It’s responsible and we truly have no choice but to be able to do that. It’s to their benefit and ours, and I would argue to the benefit of the world, that these two countries are able to speak to one another.

SENATOR RISCH: Thank you, Secretary. And I think your comments about the supply chain and the critical minerals and everything else that’s in the bottleneck — these are things that are relatively new to us. They’ve always been there, but COVID underscored that. And then, of course, the Ukraine War brought it out even more. Appreciate your remarks. I think everybody at this task knows we are as a nation looking at that. With that, Senator Shaheen.

Global Health Security and GAVI Funding

SENATOR SHAHEEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, at this budget hearing last year, you testified that no one had died as a result of foreign aid cuts. Sadly, I think we’re seeing in real time that that’s not true today. There are more than 1,000 cases, more than 200 Ebola-related deaths.

As we know, one of the entities that is a critical global health tool is GAVI, particularly during a disease outbreak. It plays a role in distributing Ebola vaccines, and it has committed up to $40 million to develop a vaccine for the current Ebola strain that has no vaccine right now. So how are you making sure that Secretary Kennedy, who has been sitting on those funds for months now, is going to release them so that they can go to help develop a vaccine to address the Ebola outbreak?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, a couple points on GAVI. I would say that the President had asked that we allow Secretary Kennedy to play a leading role on the GAVI decision because of the strongly held views with regards to vaccine safety, and he wanted them to conduct some reforms. I actually talked to Senator Schatz about this last week as well.

The State Department is going to be re-engaging. I’m not here to tell you we’re going to yank this thing and we’re not going to listen to his points of view, but the State Department, a few weeks ago, made the decision that we were going to re-engage on this issue of GAVI, respecting what HHS’s views on it are as well. We want to take their input, but we’d like to get this issue resolved in an outcome that’s acceptable both to Congress and also to our goals on global health. So it is an issue. As I said, I wouldn’t use the word defer, but we have certainly allowed him to play a leading role in determining what we’re going to do next. But right now we’re sort of at a stage where we are going to re-engage and we need to drive this to an outcome.

SENATOR SHAHEEN: I couldn’t agree more. And so do you commit to using the $2 billion that Congress has appropriated for global health to actually help fund global health security?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we do fund global health security beyond GAVI, by the way, and we can talk about that. We can talk about the compacts, I think 32, that we’ve now entered into with countries all over the world. We have a new agreement to the UN as well that they’re very happy with. The global fund — we’ve hit our cap, we are at our 33%. We’ve actually been able to attract additional donors from around the world to contribute to it. On this specific item, I would say we intend to get this resolved. We want to get this resolved.

Russian Oil Sanctions and General Licenses

SENATOR: It’s an important part of our matrix. We will follow up and I hope you will share with this committee as soon as you get it resolved. I want to go to Russian oil sanctions and general licenses because President Trump gave Russia a lifeline, allowing it to sell oil globally through licenses issued by the Treasury Department. While I think the administration should have known that the Iran war would make Russian oil more desirable, they decided to remove the stigma on that oil and give an extra windfall of cash to Putin. So can you let us know whether you believe or whether you will support extending those licenses, that license when it comes back up mid-June?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, a couple points. First of all, those, two things have happened. The one is the, actually the US, US production, and US playing a role in the global energy supply is increased. I think we had our largest amount of exports from the United States we’ve ever seen. So we’ve also benefited from this and our energy dominance has really come into play.

The Russian waivers were a decision. The underlying policy remains on the sanctions. What has changed is these time-limited extensions to sort of try to alleviate the global… The problem we’re facing too is there’s a contagion potential, and that is that at some point we can do strategic reserves, we can do some of the other things that we’ve done to sort of alleviate global supply. But at some point, you have to ensure, and this is not so much for us at the end of the day.

Our economy’s not in need of it, but there are other economies around the world that have benefited from this. So these are time-limited extensions that ultimately at some point will expire. We’ve certainly benefited China and Russia’s economy. Well China doesn’t, I mean China refines oil, they import a lot, but they refine oil and they… But they also benefit from Russian oil.

SENATOR: But my question for you is can you commit not to extend the general license again when it expires on June 17th?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, that ultimately is a decision that’s made by Treasury, but I will tell you, it depends on the circumstances at the time. We would like to end it as soon as we possibly can because the underlying policy of this country has been to sanction their oil. These are time-limited waivers for the purpose of opening up more global supply.

SENATOR: I understand that, but if we continue to extend them they’re not time-limited.

Food for Peace and Humanitarian Aid

SENATOR: I want to get a final question in on food for peace because as you know the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has deepened the humanitarian needs in food insecure countries such as Sudan, South Sudan. And yet in your opening statement you said that RA targets those who are most in need. But I think it’s very concerning that the country selection process for food for peace, which I understand is led by the Department of State, includes only two priority countries from World Food Program hunger hotspots. That’s Haiti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So the question I have is why are we adding countries that aren’t facing acute food insecurity like El Salvador, Guatemala and Rwanda?

Why are we not helping countries who are facing acute, well, famine in some cases, Sudan, Gaza, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria, Somalia, these are all countries that have humanitarian crises and yet we’re helping countries that don’t have acute food insecurity.

SECRETARY RUBIO: So a couple points. First of all, on Gaza we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars, including after the ceasefire and providing through the World Food Program and other entities. And we continue to do so. I think if we’re not the world’s largest donor, I’d be surprised because it’s a massive amount of money that we’ve provided through those mechanisms of various means.

On the point of Sudan in particular, the complication in Sudan, which I wish were different, and we’re very involved in this. I mean, I had a meeting on Sudan yesterday. The problem in Sudan has largely not been our unwillingness to provide funds. We are willing to step forward and we have the flexibility through what we’ve been able to do with foreign aid to surge up that. It’s been distribution.

It’s been the ability to get that. So as an example, in these conversations we’re having between the warring sides, one of the things we’re trying to identify is four safe spots where people can go receive humanitarian assistance, where we can actually have the outside groups, the NGOs, the international organizations that we contract with, have the ability to go in and actually deliver the food without having their trucks hijacked or blown up or their workers killed. That’s been the fundamental challenge in Sudan is distribution. The distribution is being threatened because we don’t have conditions on the ground that allow for it. And so to allocate money towards something that we can’t distribute is unwise until we have that in place.

That’s deeply tied to the ability to have a peace deal, which I can tell you has been very frustrating. On the one hand with Sudan, we had a donor conference in Berlin in April.

SENATOR: I don’t want to interrupt you, Mr. Secretary, but I’m out of time and it doesn’t explain why we are providing food for countries that are not insecure. I appreciate the challenges in Sudan. We have those challenges in many places. But because we have dismantled the distribution network when we eliminated USAID, we’ve exacerbated those challenges in countries around the world, and we are not providing the help based on humanitarian needs, and that’s my concern. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Ricketts Questions on AI and Semiconductor Export Controls

SENATOR RICKETTS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary of State, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Good to see you.

SENATOR RICKETTS: Communist China is trying to win the AI race. And they will use it, for example, to dominate our military if they’re able to do that in so many other ways. A world where Communist China is dominant in AI is very bad for the United States and for the entire world. That’s why it’s critical that us and our allies cannot lose this race.

Semiconductor supply chains, particularly semiconductor manufacturing equipment, SMEs, are critical to winning this competition. It’s one area that Beijing is spending billions and billions of dollars to be able to produce chips in China and still to be able to produce those high-end chips so far. President Trump understands this better than anyone because the Trump administration was the first to utilize export controls on SMEs to slow down communist China’s advanced chip making industry. Since that time, key allies and partners have also imposed controls on SMEs to China. However, their controls have not been as restrictive as US controls, and this has allowed certain foreign countries to backfill the Chinese market with critical dual use tools.

Secretary Rubio, do you agree that export controls on SMEs are critical to maintaining our technological advantage over communist China?

SECRETARY RUBIO: It is. It’s actually, where it’s most critical is in the high end, the areas that are not legacy, that are broader and that allow for that. I think on the broader point of AI, we share your view. One of the initiatives that I think Jacob Halbers has done a great job with at the State Department is PAC-SILICA, in which we signed up all these countries around the world.

I think we’re up to 13 or 14, including ourselves and others who hope to join as well, in which we can create this global consortium for all of the elements of the AI supply needs. It’s not just the innovation, it’s obviously access to the minerals and the critical elements necessary in order to produce these chips and all the things that it will take to lead the world in AI. I think it is safe to say the United States right now is a global leader on AI. I think it is also wise to say that that lead is not irreversible. It has to be sustained and there will be a real challenge in sustaining it.

And we’re going to have to stay focused on it. The good news is I do think we have a system of global alliances that view it the way we do. And we want to lead on it because it’s not just about leading the technology in AI, it’s about also leading in the standards that will govern how AI is used. I don’t want to monopolize this conversation on this point, but it’s one that I think the Senate should think about, because I know we’re starting to think about it. AI will have very positive impacts on our economy and societies.

It will also have some down, some detriments. It will go, there will be white collar jobs in this country that will be impacted. And I think we have to start thinking not simply about the impact that AI will have on those jobs, but the societal pressures that that will create, not just in the United States, but in economies all over the world. Much like industrialization and automation did, it will make the worker more efficient and more valuable, but it will eliminate some jobs, and those jobs will have to be replaced with new jobs or new skills. That’s not just an economic issue, that is a political issue.

That, over time, could destabilize societies all over the world. And we, so we have to start thinking about AI in those terms as well.

SENATOR RICKETTS: You mentioned our allies. Shouldn’t they have to follow the same sort of standards US companies do when we’re limiting the amount of, limiting the semi-manufacturing equipment that’s going to communist China?

SECRETARY RUBIO: And that’s our hope, is that we can create people, that we can create a coalition of nations that understand the danger in this. And they’re running through the same, some are better than others, but they’re running through the same problems that we run into. And that is companies ultimately want to sell to the markets and China is a large market. But I agree and that’s one of the goals behind PAC-SILICA is to create unanimity and our consensus behind that thinking.

SENATOR RICKETTS: Well Secretary, that’s why I recently introduced the MATCH Act with Senators Risch and Schumer to level the playing field. This bill would provide the State Department with the leverage in ongoing negotiations with our allies to align those controls. And if agreement cannot be reached, it would ensure that foreign companies cannot sell the very choke point technologies that we have restricted. So I hope you’ll support that as we move forward on it.

One other thing I just want to hit before my time runs out here is that I was the co-sponsor of a bill to create the U.S. Foundation for National Security and Counterterrorism. This is a foundation that would be a public-private partnership. It would help counter traffickers and insurgents operating in ungoverned spaces around the developing world such as Africa. The State Department, however, has not for over a year and a half now launched this foundation and I’d encourage you to work expeditiously to implement it. I think this is something that as we’re talking about especially the continent of Africa could be very helpful to making sure that we’re not only helping conserve the environment and helping animals, it’s bad for terrorists.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Look at that. I kept it in my time. Good job. Can you do as well, Senator?

Iran Nuclear Negotiations and the Strait of Hormuz

SENATOR: Do my best. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary for being with us today. Despite the differences that existed between Republicans and Democrats prior to this administration on how to approach Iran’s nuclear program, the theory was basically the same, that we were going to impose significant harm on the Iranian economy in order to force them to the table to negotiate.

What is happening now is fundamentally different. This war and the administration’s decision to blockade has now held the entire world economy and the US economy hostage to the ability to negotiate an agreement with Iran. This is why the entire country is seized by the question of when there will be an agreement because apparently until there is an agreement the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. There is a cost to the Iranian economy, but now there is a devastating cost to the U.S. economy.

It has been indecipherable, the information coming from the administration, especially in the past several weeks as we get signals that a deal is imminent. The president said yesterday he’s bored by the negotiations. He doesn’t care whether we get a deal. I think it’s really important for us to understand what your bottom lines are, what you’re asking for in this negotiation, what commitments you need Iran to make in order for you to release the blockade and we hope for them to release the blockade as well.

So give us a little insight into what your bottom lines are. What is going to get the strait reopened? Because this is kind of the only question that matters for American consumers right now, and every day we get wildly different signals from the president as to whether he even is engaged in this question as to whether the strait is going to reopen.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I think your question gets right to the heart of the matter, so I think that’s a good question. Let me first bifurcate two things. The only reason there’s a blockade, the only reason why there’s a US blockade is because Iran has closed the, they’re firing on commercial ships and they’ve mined large segments of Hormuz, international waters. And so the blockade is only against Iranian ships and it’s very simple, the notion is if no one’s ships are going to get out, then Iran’s ships aren’t going to get out either. It’s that we can’t live in a world in which they get to close the straits and tell everybody pay us a toll or we’ll blow you up, but their ships get to go out unfettered. So that’s the reason why there’s a blockade.

There wouldn’t have been a blockade if Iran had agreed to do what they said they would do when the ceasefire kicked in, which is they were going to open the straits. So let me just focus on the straits for a moment. Number one, what they’re doing is unlawful and illegal.

The Strait of Hormuz and Iran Nuclear Negotiations

RUBIO: There isn’t a country on earth other than Iran, and maybe Oman that flirted with it, who’s in favor of what Iran is doing in the Straits. The Chinese are against it, the Russians are against it, everyone is against it, the whole world is against it. So condition number one is they have to reopen the Straits. And reopening the Straits means the following: ships can sail through international waters the way they can do through other choke points around the world without being fired upon, without paying a toll. That’s condition number one.

SENATOR: But the Straits are closed because of our decision to invade Iran. This is a consequence of our military action. So I guess I’m not interested in litigating that question. We all know why the strait is closed because you took military action against Iran and we knew ahead of time that that would be their likely response. The question is how are we going to get it reopened? Are you going to drive a bargain that is so tough and so hard that the strait remains closed?

So how are we going to get it open? The first thing that is a predicate to anything else happening — the Straits have to be reopened. So the way to think about it is this: if Iran wants to be able to move its oil again through the strait, they will have to reopen the straits. If they refuse to do so, then we have other options available to us, but we would prefer to negotiate the opening of this, which means the following. Tell us about the negotiations. What do you need from them in order to get the strait reopened?

RUBIO: We need the strait reopened tomorrow. What needs to happen is very simple. They need to announce that they will no longer fire on commercial ships that are going through, or threaten to fire on ships, because in many cases ships just won’t move. They won’t go not because they got fired on but because of the risk of being fired upon. And so they have to announce very clearly the straits are now open, we’re not charging a toll, we will help remove the mines that they put in there, and they will not fire on ships.

SENATOR: But the president says they also need to make commitments on their nuclear program. That’s what I’m asking. Oh, I see what you’re saying. What commitments do they need to make in order for the strait to be reopened?

RUBIO: Well, the second thing they have to agree to as part of this is, so in addition to the straits, that’s the predicate that opens the door to phase two. Phase two is they have to commit to very specific negotiations on highly enriched — the disposition of the highly enriched uranium that still is buried deep in a mountain somewhere.

They have to agree on negotiating severe and long-term limitations and or cancellation of enrichment activity in their country. In the second phase of negotiations. Well, obviously these are highly technical matters, so I don’t think you could work those out in five days. That would require a team of experts to meet over a 30-, 60-, 90-day period and work out the details, but they have to commit to their willingness to do that. For example, they have to commit to say, we will dispose of the enriched uranium, and the question now is, what are the mechanisms by which we do so? That can be negotiated.

SENATOR: Final question. In order to get to that second phase, are you willing to release sanctions or release frozen money that the United States is withholding from Iran?

RUBIO: Right now, everything that’s been discussed with them is that any sanctions relief — now remember, sanctions come, there’s international sanctions, there’s congressional sanctions, there’s executive sanctions, so some we can release and some we cannot — but any sanctions relief is condition based, which means it has to be in return for the reason why those sanctions were put in place in the first place, which is their nuclear program.

So yeah, look, Iran is being sanctioned because they enrich uranium. Iran is being sanctioned because they’ve highly enriched uranium. Iran is being sanctioned because of their nuclear activities. If they agree to give up those things, there will be sanctions relief associated with their commitment and compliance with those agreements.

SENATOR: But you will not give them sanctions relief just in exchange for reopening the strait?

RUBIO: No, that’s not been discussed, that’s not been offered.

Senator Hagerty on the Philippines Alliance

SENATOR HAGERTY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Secretary Rubio. It’s good to see you here. I want to commend you and the administration for actually implementing a foreign policy that advances America’s interests. Thank you.

If we could, I’d like to start with the Philippines, an area that we know very well. It’s a geographic center of the Indo-Pacific region. It’s an area that is along critical sea lanes where a tremendous amount of world trade and energy commerce actually move. A strong alliance with the Philippines clearly is in U.S. national security interest.

It leads and supports our freedom of navigation. It also helps us deliver regional stability along the South China Sea, a very critical area, particularly in the face of a very aggressive posture that the Chinese have adopted. I want to recognize my colleague, Senator Kaine, who has worked with me to put in place the Philippines Enhanced Resilience Act. That’s $500 million of FMF grants. It’s a billion dollars of loan and loan guarantees per year to strengthen the Philippines and the United States alliance to make us more interoperable and more capable.

Mr. Secretary, I’d just like to get your comments, your vision, on the role of the Philippines in the United States alliance.

RUBIO: It’s actually — I spoke to President Marcos on Sunday, and have had multiple engagements with them at a personal level. We’ve had visits. A couple of good points here.

The first is we’ve actually entered into agreement with them in which there — I believe it’s an old US military facility inside the Philippines that will now serve as sort of a — I think it’s a 4,000-acre — I’m very familiar with the area. Yeah, you know it — and that we’ll be able to do a lot of our activities together with regards to our joint interests in developing on AI and high-tech and diversifying and helping diversify their economy.

The second is to continue with our defense commitments that we’ve made to them and the ability to interoperate joint exercises which we’ve done now multiple times over the last year. Obviously we’re very concerned with Scarborough. We’ve seen in recent days and we’ve demarched and made a very clear note. This issue came up during the first meeting with the Chinese. It’s come up in every engagement I’ve had with the Chinese and it’s come up again now very recently through diplomatic channels.

And that is we’re very concerned about recent activity once again near Scarborough and the buildup of infrastructure that appears to be exerting territorial claims that we have long argued are not valid. This is one of those irritants in the long term that I think we’ll continue to have to manage. But I view the Philippines as a critical partner and I think over the last, I would say, couple of years, our relationship with them, particularly under their new administration, has dramatically improved our ability to work with the Philippines jointly on a number of topics of interest.

SENATOR HAGERTY: Well, I want to commend you. The 4,000-acre Luzon corridor is anchored by the Subic Bay Project, which, when I was ambassador to Japan, worked very hard to get that back for America. And I see that as a tremendous opportunity for us to deepen our economic ties and of course that has, as you mentioned earlier, tremendous national security.

Can I just add one point? There is some desire during their chairmanship this year of ASEAN to reach a sort of code of conduct understanding in the Indo-Pacific. And while I understand that desire, I just want you to know, and perhaps many of you can help us in making this point, a bad code of conduct agreement is worse than no code of conduct agreement at all.

And I think that’s very important because they are under a withering constant pressure in the region to agree to a code of conduct in the region that I think would be detrimental, would set a precedent that I think is very dangerous. So we’d love to see one, but it has to be a good one. We don’t think that’s possible under current conditions, and a bad one is worse than none at all.

RUBIO: Your point is very well taken.

Protecting American Business Investments Abroad

SENATOR HAGERTY: I look forward to working with your team, Mr. Secretary, to advance that. Can I turn to another issue of concern and against joint concern? Senator Kaine and I both worked on this, and that is the actions that have been taken by countries that have been perceived as our allies against U.S. business interests and against U.S. investments in their country.

Particularly, I’d like to point to the example of Vulcan Materials. That’s a situation where a U.S. company put billions of dollars of investment into the Yucatan Peninsula, both in port facilities and in quarrying operations, only to be confiscated by the Mexican government. Then the Mexican government came back — in arrears by the way — retroactively tried to justify this taking as some sort of environmental move. Sadly we had to fight pretty hard the previous administration to not allow this to happen.

And I think it’s going to take more bipartisan effort — certainly you’ll have it from here in Congress — to push on any government’s effort to try to confiscate American corporate property. What that will do is have the effect of minimizing or basically reducing the incentive or de-incentivizing our foreign investment in other countries, which again I think hurts the mission that you are on. I would love to get your perspective on how the State Department will stand up for American investments overseas.

RUBIO: We do every day. And in fact, one of the great benefits of our reorganization is that it has empowered the regional bureaus. You know, you used to have a set-aside economic bureaus that would do these things separately from the missions in the field. And having been a former ambassador, perhaps you experienced that. We’ve now empowered the regional bureaus and through it by extension the embassies to play a leading role in economic diplomacy.

And so I would argue that virtually every engagement I have with a foreign leader involves some economic component to it. And I would say if you talk to our chargés and our ambassadors around the world, I would say more than 50% of their engagements now have to do with economic matters. And they involve one of two things: either A, finding creative opportunities — in essence, the host country will say to them, we have these areas, these industries of investment, and the embassies will take an active role working with the Bureau to identify American companies who could potentially go down there and see if there’s an opportunity for them.

And the second is what you just pointed to, and that is protecting existing American investments. Because the point we make with everyone we interact with is you can’t attract, you can’t ask for American investment into your countries when you have a history of expropriating, of takings. And in some cases it’s a local official that’s trying to extort an American business and say, “Hey, I’m the sheriff or I’m the local police officer. If you don’t pay us, your workers won’t show up to work tomorrow.” We have problems like that as well around the world that involve the local level.

And it’s become a leading part of our diplomacy. And it’s happening at the embassy level, which is where I think it really needs to be led. That’s where your field generals are.

SENATOR HAGERTY: And I applaud the sea change. And you know you’ve got support on a bipartisan basis here in the Congress to move this forward. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

SENATOR CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Senator Hagerty. Senator Kaine.

Senator Kaine on Operation Southern Spear

SENATOR KAINE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thanks to Senator Hagerty for mentioning our work together in the Philippines and Mexico. Mr. Secretary, you won’t be surprised, and I’m going to ask you about the Western Hemisphere. You and I traded the gavel and the ranking on the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee when you were on this committee, and that was good, productive work.

I want to ask you about Operation Southern Spear, the operation to strike boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean that dozens of operations have now killed more than 200 people. Have you been involved as Secretary of State or National Security Advisor in discussion about the targeting criteria that are used to decide which boats to strike?

RUBIO: No, but not because I’ve avoided it, but because those are largely legal decisions.

SENATOR KAINE: If you haven’t been involved in the discussion, as the National Security Advisor, are you aware of what the targeting criteria are?

RUBIO: Yeah, I mean, they go through and so every strike has a legal officer on the deck that has to make a determination about whether the call is legal or not, and this is done by the Department of War, the way it’s been done in other theaters around the world.

SENATOR KAINE: Here’s what I want to ask you about. So you’re generally aware of the targeting criteria.

RUBIO: I am not a la — I know what the targeting criteria are because of briefings I’ve had in this committee and the Armed Services Committee. It’s all been in classified and I’m not allowed to discuss the targeting criteria because they’ve only been shared in classified. But I don’t think I’m prohibited from describing things that aren’t targeting criteria. So I’ll give you an obvious example. Everyone on the boat is right-handed. That’s not a targeting criteria. It would be ridiculous.

SENATOR KAINE: Everyone on the boat is what?

RUBIO: Everybody on the boat is right-handed. That’s not a targeting criteria. It’s obviously not a targeting criteria. It would be improper for it to be a targeting criteria.

SENATOR KAINE: Here’s one that’s not so obvious and that surprised me. There’s evidence of narcotics on the boat. That is not a targeting criteria. I have been briefed on Southern Spear since the first operation on September 2 and most recently within the last couple weeks and I’ve asked again and again, have the targeting criteria changed? No, they have not. What are their criteria?

Operation Southern Spear: Targeting Criteria Concerns

SENATOR MURPHY: Here’s what they are. I can’t describe it here. But the presence of narcotics on the boat has never been a targeting criteria. Would you have any ability to explain? And the administration could have picked that as a targeting criteria.

They chose items that were targets, that authorized the use of the US military to sink boats and kill people, but they have not used the presence of narcotics on the boat as one of the targeting criteria. And I would suggest to my colleagues, if you go look at the individual files of all the strikes, and I’ve looked at the first 46, they are consistent with what I’ve just said about something that’s not on the list of targeting criteria. Why would the administration not include the presence of narcotics on the boat as a targeting criteria in Operation Southern Spear?

SECRETARY RUBIO: As you just outlined, I can’t discuss the specifics of the targeting criteria, but I can tell you the one thing that is obvious is that the targeting criteria is not single source. In essence, there are multiple checks. There are three elements to the targeting criteria. Right, and all of it informed and infused by intelligence collection. In essence, they have to have true links. I can tell you they do walk away from strikes. There are multiple times that I’ve been aware, I’m not aware of every strike because it’s not reported on a regular basis, delegated, but there have been strikes that they’ve walked away from because it doesn’t meet the criteria or because there’s doubt.

SENATOR MURPHY: I’m not saying that the strikes that I’ve reviewed don’t meet the targeting criteria, but I’m saying how odd it is, especially since the administration always announced this is against narco traffickers, we’ve attacked narco traffickers. How odd it is that the presence of narcotics on a boat is not one of the targeting criteria. And I would encourage my colleagues, get the same briefing I’ve gotten, take a look at the strike files. You’ll be as surprised as I am.

Legal Opinions and Congressional Oversight

Here’s the second question. Again, in your dual role, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. The administration’s operation in Southern Spear, we could agree with it or not, but the administration presented a legal opinion from the DOJ that we could review. Absolute Resolve, the effort against Maduro. The administration presented a legal rationale that we could review. Now we could review both in classified, they’ve not been made public. We’re 92 days into a war against Iran and the administration will not let Congress look at the OLC legal opinion justifying the war.

Intel committee members, SFRC members, Armed Services Committee members, rank and file members, the administration will not make it available to us. Now you can imagine: A, we’re the oversight committee, B, you’re here asking for a budget and in the Armed Services Committee they’re asking for a trillion five, an increase of 40% over last year’s budget, but won’t let us see the legal opinion.

And Mr. Secretary, you know what kind of thinking we do. If you’ve showed us the legal rationale for two wars and you won’t show us the legal rationale for the third, is there something in the rationale they don’t want us to see? Is there a dissenting opinion that says it’s not legal? Are there conditions like you can’t strike civilian infrastructure like schools and bridges? Are there factual assertions like the war will be over in two days or Iran will never close the Straits of Hormuz?

By not sharing the legal opinion with the Article 1 oversight branch, you give us the opinion that there’s something in there you don’t want us to see. Could you use your influence as the president’s chief national security advisor, Secretary of State, NSA, to get the administration to share the Iran war legal opinion with Congress?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, look, first of all, obviously the Department of State does not develop the legal opinion. That’s an Office of Legal Counsel.

SENATOR MURPHY: But you’re the chief national…

SECRETARY RUBIO: So I think what you’re asking is why haven’t the Office of Legal Counsel provided it? They don’t work for the National Security Council. They don’t work for me.

SENATOR MURPHY: I’m actually asking, will you use your influence as the president’s chief national security advisor?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I will certainly inquire as to why. Here’s what I’ll do. I can certainly inquire as to why it has not been available. I don’t think there’s a reason why. I am not aware that, in fact, my understanding is they have provided documentation to the committee.

SENATOR MURPHY: And not the opinion part of the war?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Not well, that’s…

SENATOR MURPHY: And you wouldn’t accept that?

SECRETARY RUBIO: All right, well, let me take that back and ask the Office of Legal Counsel. But it’s certainly they provided the legal rationale for the strike. You’re asking for the actual written opinion the way it was provided to us in the Southern Spear and Absolute Resolve. I’ll take that back.

SENATOR MURPHY: Thank you.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Certainly.

Secretary Rubio Commended by Senator

SENATOR RISCH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, Secretary Rubio, for being here. You look like Rick. It’s up. I apologize. This through the office. Well, look, all this beautiful and we can’t help that. But thanks for all of your efforts. You are a very effective spokesperson for not only President Trump and the administration, but for the United States, and I’m grateful for that.

The Fractured Iranian Regime and Negotiations

I was wondering at the outset if you could talk to us a little bit about the fractured Iranian regime and how that might be making negotiations more difficult. One of the things I’ve wondered, for example, are whether the diplomatic Iranian channels are sort of crosswise at odds with or working hand in glove with the IRGC, which is itself causing a lot of these ceasefire violations. Or is it all sort of coordinated chaos to try to undermine and tip the scales in favor of Iran in the negotiations?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, that’s a great question. Let me try to give this answer to you in a way that’s not boring or wonky, because it’s been a shift. Obviously, the original supreme leader, the one that was there, is no longer with us. His son takes over, nobody hears from him for a month. By all reports, open source reporting, I think you’ve all seen it. He was severely injured in the same strike and so forth.

SENATOR RISCH: Are you confident he’s still alive, by the way?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I think there’s indications that, in fact, we’ve not heard from him publicly, we haven’t seen him publicly, and I would imagine, given what’s happened to multiple leaders in that system, being very public is probably not something that’s recommended for them internally. But that said, I think there are indications out there that he is increasingly engaging at some level, although all of his communications have been in writing and through intermediaries.

So the way to think about it is the following. You have the supreme leader, and understand that at the end of the day, the supreme leader in their system, there really is no analogy to it in our system or anybody else’s system. It is the theological office. It is the head of the Islamic Republic in the sense of the ultimate decision maker. And every major decision has to be run by them. They are advised by a council. It’s not clear if it’s six people or eight people, but there is a council made up of both IRGC and other elements of the regime that surround that supreme leader. And ultimately that council has to sign off on anything.

And then there are the people you see on TV, like Araghchi, who’s out there every single day, and Ghalibaf, who’s the speaker of the Majlis, who’s been playing a pretty prominent role. And they are the ones that they have sent to negotiations and so forth. It is our view of the system, as we understand it, and as it’s been expressed to us both by the intermediaries and by Iran directly, that what Araghchi and Ghalibaf bring or take from us, they then have to run back to this council and ultimately get guidance from them. And that process oftentimes takes three to five days to get a response.

Now, some of it is logistical. They’re operating probably using couriers and things of this nature. Part of it is internal fissures on exactly what they should agree to or not agree to.

I think the second point that needs to be driven in this regard is that there is evidence that there are communications issues within the regime as well. So for example, it’s pretty clear that at the outset of hostilities in the conflict, they had delegated decision making to field commanders. And so oftentimes field commanders have delegated authority to act on a, let’s say, a pre-operational planning that was already put in place.

And so unlike our system where perhaps you know that the president or the Secretary of Defense is directly making orders and decisions or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. In their system, a lot of decision making at the tactical level, like which ships to hit and so forth, are being made at the commander level.

SENATOR RISCH: So that’s why from the outside it can look like fire, ready, aim, but it’s part of the design of the system perhaps?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think it was a design of the system in the sense of regime survival and the ability to operate in case there were decapitation strikes or people removed. But let’s go back to the essence of the negotiations. What’s complicated them is you ultimately are negotiating with people who then have to negotiate within their own system to see what they’re allowed to give and what they’re allowed to agree to.

What is abundantly clear is that Iran is facing severe internal economic… All the problems Iran had before this conflict, not only are still there, but there were all the things that led to the protests. All these are worse than they were before. And I think there’s definitely elements within that regime that understand it. And then there are other elements of it that are more immune to it and perhaps more resistant to making agreements.

And so what we are working through is, in many cases, delays in getting the responses to people. And this is why you see reporting about there might be a deal in the next few days, because internally it takes time to get responses from them, sometimes upward to five or six days. Undoubtedly, they’re using that to their advantage, sort of like the car dealer where the salesman has to go talk to his manager and make you wait and think about it for a while.

SENATOR RISCH: Even more complicated than that.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Even more complicated than that.

Zeroing Out Funding for NED and USADF

SENATOR RISCH: One more question. I think we could benefit from hearing from you about the need to zero out funding for a couple of entities, including the National Endowment for Democracy and USADF. Can you tell us about that?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, look, these programs, I think, have served a purpose in the past, and obviously there’s a congressional role to play here. I mean, at the end of the day, these programs have had, especially the National Endowment for Democracy has had support in Congress in the past. And look, I was here for 16 years. I understand that you’re going to pass an appropriations bill and the appropriations bill is going to have things in it that we don’t have in ours. That’s just the way it is. And we understand that we’ll make it work.

But we are concerned or have been concerned in the past about organizations that sort of have lost their purpose and what they’re advancing. And at the end of the day, look, we have a lot of resources. The United States is the richest country in the world. We have the largest government budget in the world. But we don’t have unlimited resources. We still have to be able to strategically spend our money.

And the State Department, when I took over, a lot of people are like, oh, that’s a mess. State Department is not that big. The majority of our employees are local hires overseas. We have Foreign Service officers, career civil servants. But compared to some of these other agencies that are out there, we’re not that large, and yet we have a global footprint. We’re really, other than the department, I would say beyond the Department of Defense, we’re the only ones that are present almost everywhere on the planet.

So we have limited resources, and we have to be able to allocate those resources in ways that are driven by the core mission of advancing our national security. And oftentimes that will mean that things we have paid for in the past, we can’t continue to fund. Because there are other things. It might be good, but there might be something else that’s more important and even better.

Other cases, we may still spend money on a purpose, but we want to be driven not just by how much money we’re spending on something. We also want outcomes for it. We want to show outcomes. That’s been the goal behind these MOUs, these compacts with the 32 countries that we’ve entered into. And we plan, we’re not just trying to solve the disease problem this year, we’re trying to build the local capacity so that five years from now they won’t need aid anymore because their local systems can handle it. Saying five years, some countries may take ten years, but nonetheless that’s the goal and it’s been very well received.

SENATOR RISCH: Thank you.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you, certainly.

Senator Merkley on the Impact of AID Shutdown

SENATOR MERKLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Secretary. Good to see you. As Senator Shaheen noted, you’ve expressed that no one died as a result of the sudden shutdown of AID. And I did ask you last time you were here about that and I won’t repeat all that, but I want to note that the folks who study this at the schools of public health, the Harvard Chan School, the Boston University School of Public Health, estimate that over 500,000 children have died from that sudden shutdown.

I want to kind of put a note on that. If you were to walk across this country, you’d see one dead child equivalent every roughly 30 feet. That’s the level of carnage. I know you disagree with that, but many experts who are in this field, that is their estimate. I hope you’ll ponder that as we strive to rebuild our programs related to malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, HIV, nutrition, and certainly infectious diseases like Ebola.

Taiwan Policy and Arms Sales

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY: I wanted to turn, though, to Taiwan. It is an area that you and I worked on quite a bit together when you were here, including the Taiwan Relations Reinforcement Act and the Transnational Repression Policy Act, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Certification Act. And I am very concerned about the President’s comments on his recent trip. He noted that arms sales to Taiwan are a, quote, “very good negotiating chip.” And when he was asked about how much he talked about arms sales with China, he said, “We discussed arms sales in great detail.”

The six assurances included that arms sales to Taiwan would never be a negotiating chip. My concern is that the President now has kind of accentuated the arms sales by not approving, not putting the stamp of approval and completing the arms sale that Congress has already funded. And that this sets a stage for China to very much proceed to pursue more aggressively their effort to incorporate Taiwan into the broader framework of China, including extinguishing Taiwan’s democracy. So I’d just like to hear your thoughts. Hopefully there’s a path here that will re-accentuate our support for Taiwan’s democracy.

SEC. MARCO RUBIO: Thank you. That’s an important question. So let me first say on Taiwan, and I actually I think I made this point myself either on the trip in China or thereafter when we return. There’s been no change to US policy towards Taiwan. I think there’s, obviously the Chinese side would like to see a change in the verbiage, but no change has been made in that regard.

The second point I would make is, I believe in December, I know in December of this year, we did approve an arms sale, I think $11 billion. I think it’s the single largest arms sale ever. It was a huge sale to Taiwan. This was just last December. I think it’s more than the totality of the four years under the Biden administration.

And I would recall that there were a six year period of time under the Obama administration where there were no sales to Taiwan. There was a second pending sale which I think is the one you’re referring to, it’s the $14 billion one and that remains under review. But we just did one in December. So I don’t think it’s, and I’m not saying you’re saying this, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that the U.S. is not providing it, but we just had a massive arms sale and it was so big and so noticeable that the Chinese became very aggressive about it and some of the incursions they undertook as a result of it.

And as I said, it was more in one sale than we did in the entirety of the Biden administration, if I’m correct, and I think I am on that point. But the most important thing to understand is we want to see the status quo preserved, as is at this moment. That’s our policy. That’s what we’ve said. That’s what we continue to say.

It’s a very, as you know, a very delicate relationship to balance. But our policy on Taiwan has not changed and it did not change on this trip.

Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY: Another issue that you and I worked on was the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. And it’s really been the most effective strategy for saying that products produced by slave labor will not be admitted into the United States. And we’ve turned down a lot of products from China, but then they’re trans-shipped, often just into Canada.

It would be a far more effective policy if Mexico, Canada and Europe were to join us. Is that an effective avenue you can pursue in your role?

SEC. MARCO RUBIO: It is and as you said it’s an enforcement challenge. I think the initial enforcement was easier because it was more straightforward. I think the trans-shipment issue makes it harder because it requires more paperwork, more due diligence, and frankly, in many cases, some of it is obscured.

But I want to make this point, there’s clearly a humanitarian aspect to it. There’s clearly a humane aspect to forced labor, which is horrifying. Separate but related, there’s an economic aspect to it. It is also unfair competition for our companies to have to compete against someone who has free labor, basically compelled and forced labor. So we’ve made the argument on two fronts, not just is this immoral and horrific, but it’s also an enormous economic disadvantage, not just for us, but for companies all over the world.

As you can imagine, depending on the country, some are more willing to lean in on these issues than others. I think just last week, the foreign minister of China was visiting Canada and where they sort of announced or at least put out the prospect of how Canada can export more to China next year. That was the carrot. What we don’t know in those, and I’m not blaming Canada, I’m just saying in general, they do this all over the world. There’s a stick associated with it.

And I would imagine that China’s putting, I know, that they put tremendous amount of pressures on countries around the world not to comply with restrictions like the ones we put.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY: I agree. We’ve got Canada and Mexico to agree, given our current trade arrangements, that would make it far more effective. To date, we have not been successful at convincing them that they should do that, because among other things, I think they fear retribution. But we certainly will continue to raise it because we think it harms them.

G7 and NATO Priorities

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO: Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, great to see you again.

You opened by talking about American leadership and American interests, and later this month the G7 is going to be meeting in France, and then next month NATO meeting in Turkey. Just an overview, what are the priorities you’re going to go into those meetings with?

SEC. MARCO RUBIO: G7 and NATO, yeah, coming up next month. Well, NATO will be a fun meeting.

Let’s start with the G7 one. The G7 forum this year has largely been focused obviously because of the straits. So when I went to the foreign ministers meeting in March, a lot of the conversations in April were about the straits. And the one point we’ve made is, and what’s interesting is a lot of the countries involved there, even though it’s not a military forum per se, the UK and France are members of it, they’ve put together this initiative, which they say they will send minesweepers and escort ships, but they will do so once hostilities has ended. Kind of a catch-22 on the one hand.

I mean, why do you need naval escorts if no one’s shooting at the ships? That said I don’t diminish the utility of it because I would imagine the first few ships to go through are going to like to be escorted. So I think that’s going to be a key feature of that conversation.

I think there’s a shared interest in all these countries on rare earth minerals and supply chains generally. I think there is a growing global consensus and we had a great, maybe a few of you had attended part of it, we had a great ministerial here earlier this year on rare earths and supply chains that brought in dozens of countries and all the G7 countries were represented at it. So I think that’s going to be a feature here is how do we create, how do we diversify the global supply chain on anything from rare earths to pharmaceuticals. There’s growing consensus, so I think that point will be quite dominant.

And then given the makeup of who’s in the G7, the Russia-Ukraine conflict will always come up because obviously it directly impacts at least three or four of those members who are on the continent. So we will also, and I don’t know, I don’t recall exactly who the French have invited, but in addition to the G7, they’ll always invite two or three other countries to attend. I believe Ukraine has been invited, if I’m not mistaken. There’s usually a couple other countries that they’ll invite that are not members of G7.

But I think those issues will dominate depending on where we are with the straits and then clearly the critical minerals and supply chains has been a key focus of G7 actions.

The last point is I think there’s been an interest in, and I think Canada deserves credit for this, the Canadians have really taken a lead, and we’ve been very supportive of this, in highlighting places like Haiti. As a result of these G7 meetings, we’ve actually had a number of countries in the G7, including Japan step up and contribute to the effort there.

Sweden as a NATO Ally and Technology Partner

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO: The reason I mentioned NATO, there’s an article in The Hill, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that we put this in the record. It says Sweden is now America’s most valuable tech ally.

You’re talking about working together with other countries. It goes on to say, this is just last week, Sweden joined NATO. They’ve now signed the Bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreement. They said in March, Sweden became the first European Union member state to sign the PAC-SILICA Declaration, Washington’s flagship initiative to secure global AI and semiconductor supply chains, and now the technology prosperity deal. I wonder how you’ve accomplished so much, and is this a model for US relationships going forward with NATO?

SEC. MARCO RUBIO: Yeah, the interesting thing about Sweden is because they, and Finland to some equal extent, is because they were not members of NATO for many, many years, they had a self-sufficiency in their defenses. And so now that they’ve joined, they’ve actually added to the equation. I’m not here to beat up on any specific country, but generally speaking, the countries you added to NATO were countries that needed from NATO. Sweden and Finland have actually contributed because they brought their own defense industry, their own advanced technologies. So they’ve been a great partner.

They’ve been an extraordinary partner. We were just there because we had the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Sweden, and it was phenomenal. And I think that Sweden is a great ally and a country that we’re continuing to find a lot of synergy and cooperation with, especially on the field of technology, but also on defense. I mean, they have their own defense industrial base, which is an impressive defense industrial base. I wish every country in NATO had what they have, but I understand why Sweden has it.

NATO Defense Spending Commitments

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO: The number of travels that a number of members have done in bipartisan ways, we found out as we go around Europe that most countries will say they’ve been too dependent on the United States for military, too dependent on Russia for energy, and too dependent on China for materials. This administration has really made these nations step up to do what they need to do in terms of putting the money forward in defense. So I want to know what the next concrete steps we can do in terms of making some of the pledges of moving from 2% to 5%, making sure that they deploy the military capabilities.

SEC. MARCO RUBIO: Yeah, well, I mean, look, some countries are on track to do that, others are not. Let me just speak about it in general terms.

There’s a real challenge. On the one hand, they’ve made these pledges that they’re going to increase their defense spending and their defense capability. It actually has to be on defense. That’s the first thing. You can’t say that pensions for former soldiers and sailors is part of your 5% or your 3.5. I mean, that can’t happen.

But the bigger challenge that much of Europe faces, many countries in NATO faces, their economies are not growing, and in order to spend more money on defense, they’re going to either have to raise taxes or cut social programs. And part of the reality of NATO, whether we like to hear it or not, is that many of the countries in Europe were able to build these very robust social safety nets because they didn’t have to spend it on defense, because NATO and the United States were providing it for it. So they’re going to have to deal with that reality.

The second point is, and this is not an anti-NATO statement, but it is the reality, the United States has global obligations. At the same time as I’m in NATO, I have to speak to the Indo-Pacific countries who are also worried about what’s our force posture there going to be. We obviously are involved in the Middle East. We have counter-terrorism issues with regards to Africa. We have growing mill-to-mill cooperation in our own Western hemisphere, especially taking on these transnational terrorist organizations and the like. So we, and we don’t have unlimited military resources even though we have a very large budget. They’re not unlimited.

And so we have to be able to allocate our resources and our personnel in ways that make sense and it has to come at the expense of something. And so I think that’s the reality that we have shared with our NATO partners from the very beginning of this administration and have been consulting every step along the way. But these countries will have to step up. They, at a minimum, have to be able to conventionally defend their own sovereign national territory for the most part.

Questions on the Iran War

CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator Van Hollen, you’re next.

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Mr. Secretary. This is your first public hearing since President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu launched an illegal war against Iran. Netanyahu said he’s been waiting 40 years to do this. Turns out he finally found a president who was both stupid and reckless enough to join him. The war has killed 14 American service members, wounded hundreds more, and killed thousands of civilians.

It’s driving up the price of gas, food, and much more. Trump obviously doesn’t care. He called high gas prices peanuts and said, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” That’s from the President of the United States. And all for what?

The President told us 91 days ago that we had, quote, “won the war in Iran.” Last year he told the country, “Iran’s key enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” Was that false? Let’s face it, Mr. Secretary, the Trump foreign policy has become a dumpster fire.

Senator Merkley’s Questions on Cuba and Foreign Policy

SENATOR MERKLEY: This is the same president who is more interested in flattering Vladimir Putin than in protecting Ukrainian sovereignty. The president who lifted restrictions on the transfer of sophisticated U.S. chips to China but came back from his trip there with nothing but ballroom envy. He tweeted about that the other day.

This is the president who brought on Elon Musk to take a chainsaw to AID, which has enabled the current Ebola outbreak in the DRC.

We’ve also witnessed corrupt crypto deals with the UAE royal family that have enriched the Trump family at the expense of our national security. We’ve seen an administration engage in extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean, hijack Venezuelan oil, threaten to invade Greenland, and weaken the NATO alliance.

Here at home, a Reagan-appointed judge said that you and former Secretary Noem abused your powers when you locked up and still seek to deport students for protesting the destruction of Gaza. The Reagan-appointed judge said you did that, quote, “primarily on account of their First Amendment protected political speech.”

Speaking of Gaza, the so-called Board of Peace seems to have run around.

Meanwhile, while Senator Rubio once proclaimed that the U.S. must, quote, “work to ensure that refugees who flee war, torture, and persecution are provided safe environments to live and thrive in,” now as Secretary of State in this administration, you have capped refugees at a record low of 17,500, and white South Africans, Afrikaners, have comprised roughly 99 percent of those slots, Mr. Secretary. A race-based refugee system.

At the same time, the President is preventing Cuban political refugees from entering the United States, even as you’ve imposed a near-oil blockade on that repressive regime.

The stated goal is to change the government there, but the only real change is humanitarian crisis inflicted on millions of people, not members of the regime.

And in that regard, Mr. Secretary, I have a question for you regarding the designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. On the very first week at least of this administration, you reinstated — the administration reinstated that. And in a recent January 26 EO, you made statements suggesting connections to Hezbollah and Hamas.

The previous administration did a thorough review with the intelligence community and concluded that there was no evidence that Cuba was engaged in ongoing state sponsor of terrorism. Did you find new evidence to support that conclusion?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, first of all, let me just say that was your question, but you made this long statement of which I disagree with most of it, but we won’t have time to address every point that you made. So let’s stick to Cuba specifically, because that’s the question that you asked.

Cuba has sponsored terrorism and it has supported groups. For example, virtually every left-wing radical violent terrorist group in the Western Hemisphere has at some point relied on support from Cuba. The ELN, the FARC, the FARC dissidents including them have been involved there. We also know, for example, that Cuba continues to host a pretty substantial collection of intelligence sites on behalf of the Chinese and the Russians. But you look at the region and you look at all of these leftist, Marxist terrorist organizations, all of them in many cases got their money from Cuba.

SENATOR MERKLEY: Mr. Secretary, if I can move on. I noticed you did not answer my question, because my question specifically related to whether there was new evidence — new evidence — to support that conclusion.

SECRETARY RUBIO: I can just tell you —

SENATOR MERKLEY: Why would I need new evidence?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Because you’re claiming that they’re a state-sponsored terrorism, suggesting they’re ongoingly involved in that.

SENATOR MERKLEY: My final question to you, Mr. Secretary, relates to the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex. There have been reports that the United States is working with Israel to take away the Kingdom of Jordan’s custodianship over the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in East Jerusalem. Can you confirm today that there’s no truth?

SECRETARY RUBIO: I’m not even aware of those reports.

SENATOR MERKLEY: There are reports, so I was hoping you could confirm.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Is that like a media report?

SENATOR MERKLEY: There have been several media reports.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, you know the media is always accurate.

SENATOR MERKLEY: No, they’re not, and that’s why I’m giving —

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, no, I’ve never even heard that. That’s the first time I even hear anybody discuss that.

SENATOR MERKLEY: All right. Well, I’m glad to hear that, Mr. Secretary, but we have a great relationship with Jordan, you know. We’re very helpful.

SECRETARY RUBIO: I’ve just never heard that before. You should — I don’t know what article you’re referring to, just give it to me, I’ll look. I’m happy to visit a credible website.

SENATOR MERKLEY: I’m glad to hear you say, Mr. Secretary, there’s no truth.

SECRETARY RUBIO: I’ve never heard that discussed by anybody.

SENATOR MERKLEY: Thank you.

Senator Danes on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Agreement

CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, John. Senator Danes was here earlier. I apologize. Senator Danes.

SENATOR DANES: Chairman, thank you. Ranking Member Shaheen, good to see you as well.

One of the under-reported successes for your diplomacy in this administration is what’s happened to the peace agreement — a landmark agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. I know, Secretary, you just were in the region most recently.

A major step forward for a region long beset by conflict, nearly 40 years of a hot war. And through your leadership and President Trump’s leadership, you’ve brought true peace to an area of the world sandwiched in between Russia and Iran.

It was creative thinking that led the establishment of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity as a solution to some of the stickier issues in that negotiation. The program promises to be a boon, not only for Armenia and Azerbaijan, but also many neighboring countries.

As Brzezinski once said, talk on the global chessboard — his book — that Central Asia is the wine bottle and Azerbaijan’s the cork. You uncork the wine bottle, suddenly you’ve got oil and gas and critical minerals flowing back towards the West instead of to Russia, to China, and to Iran.

Mr. Secretary, can you tell us a little bit about how you plan to implement the TRIP framework agreements and deliver major economic benefit to both the United States and a very historically troubled region?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Thanks. Actually, as you said, I was there last week — or was it Tuesday maybe? We signed the TRIP agreement between the U.S. and Armenia, and this is described as a corridor, which I — look, I know it’s the anchor of a peace agreement with Armenia and Azerbaijan, and that’s critical, but it’s much more than just the anchor of a peace agreement.

It really has the opportunity to revolutionize Armenia’s strategic location and become a center hub for trade in the region. It solves the issue of access that Azerbaijan cared about and it was an irritant in their relationship. But it does much more than that. It has the ability to transform the Armenian economy in a very powerful way.

Here’s the other thing that it’s done. For a long period of time, our relations with Armenia were quite stagnant and in many cases I would argue almost non-existent. It has also reinvigorated that relationship between our two countries and allowed us to explore opportunities in all sorts of other fields. So we’re involved in that very heavily now.

We just literally just signed the agreement and it will allow us to drive and hopefully incentivize U.S. private sector investment in this corridor to the benefit of American companies and American interests, but also to the benefit of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and other regional countries.

I think you should talk to the chairman and the ranking member about putting it on the agenda with you guys. They’re right there, you can tell them.

SENATOR DANES: It’s finance.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Oh, it’s finance? You don’t have jurisdiction over that?

SENATOR DANES: It is. And Mr. Secretary —

SECRETARY RUBIO: It’s finance. Well, that’s what I do, too. It’s not my job.

SENATOR DANES: And our encouragement from our friends over in the House will be healthy. We’ll work with you on that, Mr. Secretary.

SECRETARY RUBIO: You should get it passed. I mean, look, it would be very helpful.

SENATOR DANES: Yeah, it would be. Thank you. Absolutely.

CHAIRMAN: First of all, let me say that I absolutely concur with the Secretary and Senator Danes. You and I have talked to the president about this, as you know, and I have actually talked to the chairman of the Finance Committee, who I know relatively well, and we actually have a plan for going — where you and I are going to meet on that here very quickly.

SENATOR DANES: I’m glad I have friends in high places, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. You’re absolutely right on that. It’s just in the queue.

CHAIRMAN: So with that, let us go to Senator Coons.

Senator Coons on Taiwan and NATO

SENATOR COONS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Mr. Secretary, National Security Advisor, good to see you again.

I know from our service here together that you agree that China is the greatest national security threat that we face. And one of the key reasons is there are repeated threats to take control of Taiwan by force if necessary. And Taiwan, as we both know, is not just some faraway island. It produces 90% of the semiconductor chips critical to everything from F-35s to iPhones. And its geography makes it indispensable both to global commerce and military power. Do you agree with that?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Taiwan? Yeah, it’s very — it’s not just strategically important in terms of where it’s located, it also is the message that it sends to the world if something were to happen to it.

SENATOR COONS: Agreed. That’s why for decades, really with leadership from the Senate in a bipartisan way, we’ve provided arms to deter the PRC’s potential military aggression. In fact, you introduced the Taiwan Peace Through Strength Act of 2023. In January, Congress pre-approved a $14 billion arms package for Taiwan. It’s been six months. We haven’t received a notification. Have you advised President Trump to proceed with this?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, it’s under — I don’t know if you were here a moment ago when I discussed — we just did $11 billion in December, which was I think the largest sale in history. I think it was more than the cumulative amount under the Biden administration. And I recall during six years of the Obama administration there was zero gone to Taiwan. So in some way you would argue that we’re trying to make up ground.

SENATOR COONS: So why hold off on it now?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, so the other $14 billion is being reviewed. It’s under review. It hasn’t been — I think it’s been noticed, but it hasn’t been reviewed. I mean, it hasn’t been approved yet. So it’s under review under the White House.

SENATOR COONS: Mr. Secretary, my concern is that President Trump has said publicly that arms sales to Taipei are a great negotiating chip with China. And my concern, at a time when the PRC has been far more aggressive than they were in previous years — centerline crossing, circumnavigation of Australia, aiding Iran and Russia in their war goals and aims, frankly, literally helping Iranians target U.S. service members — I respect the importance of our having an open negotiation and relationship with the PRC. But in the meetings you were in in Beijing, did the President offer to condition arms sales to Taiwan in order to placate Xi Jinping?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, look, I’m not going to discuss what were the President’s words in a meeting. And outside of that, I would say that that specific question you just asked — that’s not the context in which the President has raised this in the past.

When the President says it’s a great negotiating thing, what he’s really saying is it’s because China, as you can imagine, always mentions this. This is a top priority for them. They are constantly talking about Taiwan arms sales. But that in no way is what is holding up our decision making or the White House’s decision making. It is something the President will have to decide on the timing of when and how that is executed on.

It’s been approved by Congress. It’s been noticed. The money’s available. And as I said, we are just coming off the heels of a very large sale in December of last year. So there are a variety of reasons why these things don’t happen immediately.

SENATOR COONS: Well, I’ll just assert, Mr. Secretary, that there is more reason than ever for the administration with congressional support to continue providing robust military capacity to Taiwan, given that the PRC is more and more regionally aggressive.

You also introduced and passed legislation in 2023 prohibiting any president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO. I assume this was because you recognize that our alliances are a key advantage against Russia, against China, against other adversaries. Do you still consider Article 5 an unconditional commitment?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, so let me address that holistically if it’s okay, because I think we have time to do it.

First of all, you’re right. I have throughout my entire career in the Senate, and through much of my time now in this administration, been a supporter of NATO. I see its utility. The key — and I’m just being honest with you when we talk about this — one of the key arguments that I would always use on behalf of NATO is the fact that it allows basing rights that we could use in a contingency operation in a time of conflict and the time of need that we just have had.

So when you have countries in this alliance — because understand, at the end of the day we are providing basically the defense backbone of an entire continent of rich countries. These are not poor countries, these are rich countries. And the utility of NATO for us is that it provides these basing rights.

Now we are living in a world in which some of these countries — I point to Spain as an example — openly brag about how they’ve denied us the use of these bases. And so if the core rationale for us being in NATO, if what we get out of NATO is the ability to use bases, and then we have members of that alliance that are basically denying the use of those bases in a contingency, it calls into question the entire thing.

SENATOR COONS: Forgive me, I have one more question I want to make sure we get to. Is it not true that some of the challenges in our NATO relations have only come after President Trump threatened to seize territory from a trusted and reliable and —

SECRETARY RUBIO: No, I don’t think that’s fair.

SENATOR COONS: — contributing partner.

SECRETARY RUBIO: I don’t think that’s fair. I think he publicly said both.

Afghan Allies, Drug Boats, and Iran Negotiations

SENATOR RAND PAUL: I know, but I don’t think… He would use tariffs to coerce Denmark into giving up Greenland. Yeah, but just to tell you, look, if you go back and study the history of it, NATO tensions and debates within the US of whether we should be in NATO. In the 1970s, it was the reverse. It was the administration trying to stay in NATO and Congress trying to get us out.

Yes. I happened to see a speech, I don’t know, they were playing it after he passed away on C-SPAN, Jesse Jackson at the 1988 Democratic Convention calling for the United States to get out of NATO. I was there. So these debates over NATO, you were asked that? It was Joe Biden.

Oh. Joe Biden didn’t support that position then and I don’t support that position. But my point is these debates about NATO have been ongoing for a long time.

There’s about 1,100 vetted Afghan allies being held at Camp Asaliya in Qatar. And that includes 400 children and 150 family members of currently serving active duty U.S. Service members. They’ve been stranded there for a year and a half. And there is talk of sending them either back to Afghanistan, into the waiting arms of the Taliban, or into war-torn and now Ebola-infected countries like the DRC.

These are people who they or their immediate family members served alongside U.S. Soldiers at great risk. Can you commit to working with me and others in this body to support the relocation of these vetted individuals to the United States, especially those who are family members of currently serving U.S. Soldiers?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I can’t, first of all, as you know, we’re under an executive order now after the National Guard attack here, and so, that happened last year, so we can’t admit any Afghans at this point into the country. That said, you just pointed to them being sent back to Afghanistan. Our goal, we’ve worked on this, and we’ll work with you on it, is we have talked to multiple countries.

Now, I don’t know of any single country that’s going to take a thousand people, but we’ve talked to multiple countries about taking several hundred of these people and allowing them to move to a safe location. As you know, we are operating under not just those restrictions but broader restrictions about immigration into the United States after 25 million people entered this country illegally over a four-year period leading up to this administration. But I’ll work with you to find the right places for them to go. We want that to happen.

SENATOR RAND PAUL: The President just raised the refugee cap exclusively to allow Afrikaners into our country. I would welcome a chance to work with you to find safe third countries for these Afghans. And I frankly think we ought to be revisiting our refugee policy because the refugees who have come into our country in the past are the most vetted and often the highest contributing.

As you know, my childhood church hosted a South Vietnamese family, and seeing the five of them become great Americans, entrepreneurs, contributors, it is refugees from oppression overseas, whether from Cuba or Venezuela, Vietnam or Afghanistan, who have long contributed to the United States. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Drug Boats and Iran Sanctions

SENATOR SARAH PAUL: I’d like to revisit for a moment the boats that were blowing up in the Caribbean and the Pacific that referred to as drug boats. I think it’s interesting that the three secret criteria we’re using to blow up the boats doesn’t include whether they have drugs on board. I would like to add that the statistics from the Coast Guard also say that when we interdict alleged drug boats in the historic way, the way we’ve always done it, about one in four don’t have drugs. We make mistakes.

We see something suspicious about the boat, we stop them, and they don’t have drugs on board. I would also like to add that drugs is not a criteria for blowing up the boats, the boats that are called drug boats, but neither is arms. So in order to blow them up, we don’t have to say that they’re armed or have drugs. I think a lot of people would have questions, which I still do.

I am glad to hear today, though, that the administration and the negotiations are willing to trade sanctions relief for removal of enriched uranium. I’ve said for a long time and argued for a long time that sanctions in and of themselves rarely if ever are of any value. I’ve yet to see any Chinese behavior that’s changed because of sanctions. I’ve yet to see any Russian behavior change because of sanctions. I’ve really yet to see any Iranian behavior change because of sanctions.

However, sanctions do have some leverage and ability to exact change if you remove them. So the removal of sanctions actually might actually have some hope. So I support the administration in this.

Now there are many Republican critics who have been vocal on the airways recently saying, “Oh, no, we can never negotiate with them. These are terrible people.” Well, you don’t really negotiate with really friendly, good people. In a time of war, you’re going to have to negotiate with an adversary. So I do commend and am supportive of the idea of this.

And the other thing is it’s very verifiable. You don’t have to wait for verification. You could say the trade sanctions and as soon as we get the 440 kilograms of enriched uranium, that has to be dug, I guess, some of it from under a mountain of rubble, but at the same time be very verifiable.

But what I would argue and what I would advise is that you really, you know, why not offer everything, offer all of the relief of virtually all of the sanctions if you get it. Now you can wait if that’s what you want, is the enriched uranium out and a promise. Now the rabid hawks will argue, “Well we’re not going to negotiate with terrorists, we’re not going to negotiate with bad people.” Then they’ll continue to have enriched uranium and they’ll continue to enrich uranium.

So I do think that the argument that there hasn’t been a military solution to this is largely proven by the fact that even though we’ve militarily obliterated their military, all of that is true. It says, Fred Icklay wrote in Every War Must End, that military victory doesn’t always translate or lead to political resolution or to things that you want done. You know, what we really want done is no more enriched uranium and you don’t enrich uranium, you give up on these hopes.

But I would say that as we are looking at trading sanctions, you say there’s some you can do on your own, there’s some that are congressional, I would be bringing in the leaders in the Congress who can give up on these sanctions and hopefully try to get their voice saying yes if they will give up. Because if you give up like oh a few piddling ones that won’t change things that the White House says he’s voting to do and you still have all these congressional sanctions, if you’re on the other side of that equation, you might say, “We’re not giving up the one thing we think is leverage, the enriched uranium, for maybe a little bit of sanctions relief.”

So I would say really go all in on it because it would be verifiable. You don’t have to wait and prove it. You would have to prove in the future whether they’re enriching. But I think that is a good step forward. But it’s also important for people to have a discussion of what diplomacy is and that diplomacy doesn’t always have a bad name. And frankly, I’m glad to hear that the administration is negotiating and I wish you luck and I’d love to hear your response in general.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, first of all, the president’s made clear the priorities, Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. And what do they need to have a nuclear weapon? They need a couple things. They need the ability to enrich that has been substantially destroyed but could always be rebuilt over time. And the second is the ability and highly enriched uranium, it’s 60 percent that could quickly be enriched to 90 percent weapons grade.

The second point you make is about sanctions. So that’s the goal here. And the sanctions, first of all there’s a combination of sanctions. There’s sanctions that block direct sort of activities that generate revenue. And that’s problematic beyond the nuclear program because they also use this revenue to fund sponsors, to sponsor terrorism like Hezbollah and others around the region.

And then there’s the frozen assets, which are related to sanctions. But these are Iranian assets that have been frozen that they don’t have access to. So what I would argue, and again I don’t want to get ahead of myself because we’re not engaged in this conversation with them yet, but if you get into a situation in which the reason why there are sanctions are because the nuclear program, and so they comply with what we’re demanding on the nuclear side of zero enrichment, get rid of the enriched uranium, they’re complying with these things, then I think that’s the place where the frozen assets could be discussed. The more they give, the more they would get.

I think ultimately we will still face other challenges related to Iran separate from the nuclear program, like what they use their money on, which is to sponsor Hezbollah and to sponsor Hamas and to sponsor terrorism around the world. But on the nuclear question, which was the president’s been focused on now, no nuclear weapon program, the sanctions that are directly related to the nuclear program, the more they give theoretically, the more they should be willing to get. What they’re not going to get it as a down payment. They’re not going to get it as a signing bonus.

And I would also point out that negotiations on nuclear matters are highly complex, highly technical. And so it will take some time to work through that as the sanctions, by the way, highly technical and in many cases multifaceted. There are UN sanctions, there are US sanctions, there are US congressional sanctions. So there’s a lot to unravel there. There’s benefit from the idea of trading sanctions relief for activity. And if you don’t ever trade them, if you just have them on the book, then I think they’re of little value in changing behavior.

SENATOR SARAH PAUL: Thank you.

Africa, Public Health, and Ebola Concerns

SENATOR BOOKER: Thank you very much. Mr. Secretary, you and I talked a lot about Africa, and I raised concerns about a lot of the cuts. We’re seeing globally an increase in tuberculosis, an increase in malaria cases. We see a continued ongoing on the continent HIV crisis. And the United States has pulled back from a lot of its investments in those areas.

Now with the crisis with Ebola, we see the challenges that have been brought about as a result of our surveillance, early detection and the like. So I’m just very concerned about what the administration’s strategy is because we’re clearly seeing here that what’s going on in the continent of Africa directly affects our public health as well.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, first of all, I don’t agree with that assessment. I mean, first of all, it’s not about cutting back. The response here is not just how much money you spend. It’s what results you’re going to get. Now, let’s talk about Ebola for a second. Ebola, the outbreak in Ebola was in a war-torn, isolated, rural area in the DRC. That’s where that began. Since that time, our response has been very quick, very rapid.

SENATOR BOOKER: Well, so you’re saying you did not cut early detection periods. I’m not talking about…

SECRETARY RUBIO: I’m saying that whatever you’re pointing to as the cut is not the reason why there was an Ebola outbreak.

SENATOR BOOKER: I’m not connecting the two. I’m simply saying…

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, you are connecting them. You said that our cuts…

SENATOR BOOKER: Secretary Rubio, I’m not trying to get in an argument with you. I would really like to actually have my questions answered. So very quickly, we cut early detection, comes to infectious diseases on the continent. Factually, this is not an opinion. We made those cuts. We cut early warning systems on the continent.

SECRETARY RUBIO: It had nothing to do with the Ebola outbreak.

SENATOR BOOKER: So I don’t need to tell you, Secretary Rubio, that we’re living in a place where an infectious disease crisis anywhere is a threat to public health everywhere. The United States has made major reductions in these areas and has put us more at risk. There’s clearly Ebola crisis, there’s other things and other cuts we’ve made, and you see it factually, even our own State Department personnel that I’ve talked to, saying we’re prepared for global outbreak than we were before. And my worry is specifically in a budget hearing, is this budget makes even deeper cuts into the kind of things that could prevent the next outbreak or as we’ve seen with, unfortunately with COVID, have us more prepared.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I don’t agree with that assessment. I don’t know who told you that at the State Department.

SENATOR BOOKER: So just let’s move on. My time is limited. I know that’s an important question. I don’t want to eat up your time, but I need to answer that because I just don’t agree with that.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Mr. Secretary, you can’t even agree on the facts. We need to—

SENATOR BOOKER: That’s not accurate. I mean, again, you look at what we’ve entered into—

SECRETARY RUBIO: It’s not accurate that we cut early detection—

SENATOR BOOKER: Because those have all been repurposed and different arrangements that we now have with these countries as an example. When we—

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I would like for the record because we’re not going to cover it in my short time. If you’re telling me we are as prepared or more prepared before the Trump administration came in, I don’t see the facts.

SECRETARY RUBIO: I think when these reforms are finalized, which we’re on the verge of doing, we’re actually going to be better prepared. We are responding today faster, not just to humanitarian crisis, but to outbreaks than we were before. We are responding in some cases within 72 hours are able to move funds to task. We weren’t able to do it with the system. And we’re also building the capacity to make these states through these compacts.

SENATOR BOOKER: Mr. Secretary, may I please reclaim my time to shift gears? The Strait of Hormuz, I was listening to the conversations you had with some of my colleagues.

The Strait of Hormuz and Iran Nuclear Negotiations

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We’ve now seen the strait close for months and you explained that we’re going to see an opening of the strait and ultimately the exchange we will get for that is after that fact we will release certain sanctions. Is that correct?

SECRETARY RUBIO: No, that’s not what I said. What I said was that if they open the straits, we will lift our blockade. The straits and the blockade are what are interrelated.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And so for the nuclear program, in exchange for getting rid of the fiscal material out of country, I imagine, is what your highly enriched uranium, we would release sanctions, is that correct?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, it’s not just that, it’s also their enrichment activity. They would have to make very severe and significant concessions on what they intend to enrich in the future. And already with the March relaxing of sanctions, allowing Iranians to sell oil to the Chinese, estimates between $10 and $50 billion, they got from that relaxing of sanctions. How much money might we see in a deal in our relaxings of sanctions in order to get rid of the highly enriched uranium and stop their enrichment?

Well, let me just tell you on that portion. The sanctions that were released on Iran were boats on the water. And so that oil was already out in the marketplace. It was sold at market rates, but the sanctions covered, and to the extent we’ve been able to enforce them, we had the revenues of those sales. So yeah, the oil, the Iranian oil was unsanctioned so that it could be sold, but the revenue would have to flow back to blocked accounts, which our sanctions were able to go after.

We’ve also seized, I believe, six vessels in the Indo-Pacific that involved Iranian-sanctioned oil on top of it. So that wasn’t necessarily a trade. They didn’t get $50 billion directly as a result of it. They might have gotten some of it. They certainly didn’t get the majority of it.

They are now losing hundreds of millions of dollars a day in revenue because of the blockade. And the blockade exists because of what they’re doing in the straits.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right, and I guess the conclusion I have in my time has expired is that the Strait of Hormuz was open before this unjustified war. We’re now scrambling to try to find a way to get it back opened again. Not only is it causing economic havoc to our country and to residents all around this nation, families trying to make ends meet.

But you see on top of that, the Iranians finding ways to leverage that as we allowed them to do with the Chinese for tens of billions of dollars. And so my point is, before we even get to a nuclear negotiation, this regime is getting money to rebuild, purchase more drones, cause more havoc. And this is before we’re even trying to get back to—

SECRETARY RUBIO: But I apologize, I don’t understand how they’re getting this, what revenue are you referring to?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, there’s two sources of revenue we’re seeing. One is the revenue from the Chinese, that’s factually documented, and number two, the revenue that you’re proposing that they should receive by releasing all of their highly enriched uranium as well as in making a commitment about their enrichment capacities.

Debate Over Iran Policy and Negotiations

SECRETARY RUBIO: Hold on.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And that was the exact deal that you guys vilified, that the president and you vilified President Obama from having. Yeah. Here we have a worse situation where our adversary and our enemy, who’s causing havoc in the region, who is funding proxies and terrorists, has discovered, thanks to you all, the power of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz.

SECRETARY RUBIO: No, they didn’t, they knew that a long time ago and they’ve done it before.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, clearly we all knew that a long time ago, that’s why this ill-conceived war should have never happened. You have made our adversary in a stronger negotiating position. We are the strongest nation on the planet Earth and we’re in a stalemate with Iran. And now we’re begging to get back into a deal that you all trashed in the first place.

SECRETARY RUBIO: There’s no one begging.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Clearly this is a shame.

CHAIRMAN: Senator Booker, your time’s up. Senator Rubio, since he’s gone over, you can respond.

SECRETARY RUBIO: I do want to address some of these points, because they go to the heart of the matter.

No one’s begging for anything here. The Iranians might be begging, because their economy’s losing hundreds of millions of dollars a day, that they are losing. Understand, Iran had street protests going on before all of this started. All of those factors, economic factors in Iran are far worse today than they were six months ago when those protests were happening. They have hyperinflation, their currency’s completely devalued, they’re struggling to make payroll for their government workers.

Iran is in a very serious situation and if it was up to the political class there, and I understand everybody there is sort of radical in some way, but if it was up to the people that actually go to elections and wear the suits and you see on TV, they’d probably make a deal tomorrow. The issue they’re facing is that the supreme leader in the IRGC core are a little bit more immune from those pressures until they can be convinced otherwise. And I think that’s the direction that they’re moving in.

Because the reality there, I don’t know where you’re getting this perception that Iran is stronger. Iran has no Navy left. They’ve lost a substantial percentage of their defense industrial base. Iran has lost a substantial percentage of their missile launchers and their economy is far worse today, and I mean far worse today, than it was six to nine months ago. And they are looking at hundreds of billions of dollars of reconstruction costs just to get to where they were six to nine months ago.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mr. Rubio, you keep telling us how we’re winning this war. The president keeps saying—

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the war is over now.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The war is not over. And yet the American people see how we’re losing at the pump and with their costs, and yet this thing still hasn’t been resolved. Every day he tweets out, “Oh, we’ve obliterated them, we’ve annihilated them, they’re going to surrender,” but yet we still find ourselves spending billions of dollars a week.

CHAIRMAN: Senator Booker, you’ve gone way over and it would be nice if we had hearings where people— Thank you, Senator Booker. Senator Scott.

Iran’s Nuclear Weapons and the Stakes for Global Security

SENATOR SCOTT: Secretary Rubio, so first off, do you think it’s important to Americans that the Iranian regime doesn’t have nuclear weapons and ability to destroy it?

SECRETARY RUBIO: I think it’s important to the world.

The whole world. I mean, this question about the Straits is a great example. Imagine the Straits gives them leverage. Imagine what nuclear weapons would give them leverage to do. At that point, they wouldn’t even have to announce that we’re controlling this.

They would just say, “We control the straits. There’s nothing you can do about it because our nuclear weapon will allow us to do it. You will have to pay us a toll for using an international waterway from now on, and you can’t do anything to us militarily because we’ll blow you up with a nuclear weapon.”

That is the leverage that they were trying to build. If they ever got a nuclear weapon, not only would they have a nuclear weapon, not only would they control the straits, they would be able to act with impunity because you wouldn’t be able to touch them. You wouldn’t be able to do anything about them.

Venezuela: Progress Toward Democracy

SENATOR SCOTT: I want to thank you for what you’re doing. Let’s talk about Latin America, which is, as you know, important to a lot of people in our state. So thanks for what you’ve done with both Venezuela and Cuba. Let’s do Venezuela first.

I think everybody, every Venezuelan I know is appreciative of what’s happened with Maduro. And I know you have a three-step process to get to democracy there. Can you talk about where you are? I mean, I know you have busted your butt to try to get Desi Rodriguez to do the right thing. We still, unfortunately, have prisoners not released. We still have oppression. So can you just talk about the process you’re going through?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, first of all, I remind everybody, well, it’s today the second. So it’s literally been five months. Right. I know it seems like it was 10 years ago, but it’s been five months. And I think Venezuela is in a better place today and in a better trajectory today than it was five months ago. Now, is it where it needs to be? Is it where it needs to ultimately wind up? The answer is of course no.

Ultimately, in order to truly transition they have to have multi-party free and fair elections, but the conditions for free and fair elections are the following. First of all, you have to have a free and open media. And while you’ve seen independent journalists are now for the first time activated again, that has to exist. Political parties have to be given the space and time to organize. The National Electoral Council has to be reformed so that it has members in it that will actually accurately count the vote. You have to have certain conditions in place. I’m not telling you that’s five years from now, but it’s been five months, so I want to be relative to that.

Here’s what I can tell you. For the first time, certainly since whenever, in the pre-Chavez era, maybe ever, certainly since the post-Chavez era, the oil wealth of the country is not being stolen. The oil wealth of the country is going directly to pay government workers, buy medical equipment, by KPMG. That’s a significant advance. That’s not a permanent situation, but that’s a very valuable one today.

You have seen reforms. You have seen, for example, the infamous prison, El Acoy, that has been closed. You still have about 400 and something, what we determined to be believed to be political prisoners, but you’ve had many others that have been released, including many high-profile ones. You’ve seen a reform, a systemic reform in individuals involved in their government replaced by new people. You know some we don’t know well, others we know a little bit about but certainly better than the people whose place they took before.

You’ve seen a level of cooperation on a couple of topics that I actually can’t even discuss in a setting like this, but be more than happy to talk to you about, any of you about, in the appropriate setting. I think that’s been a positive.

By the way, you’ve seen the retrieval. The United States, with full cooperation of the Venezuelans, went in and retrieved highly enriched uranium. They had highly enriched uranium in their country because of an old reactor program, not because of nuclear weapons or anything, and they wanted it out of their country. And we were able to go in and actually retrieve it along with a UK mission that went in with us and get it.

We have a functioning embassy, and we have direct flights for the first time. Venezuelans are now able to go back, not just visit relatives, but begin to engage in the economic life of the country.

All of that is to say, it’s been five months. There is a lot more to go. This is not the direction we want Venezuela to be. But what I will say is that the Venezuela that’s there now, under the interim authorities, does not pose the threat to the United States that it posed five months ago, when it was an open base of operation for Iranian operatives, for Cuban intelligence, and for others who used it as a base of operation against the national interests. But we have a lot of work to do. We are nowhere near where we want to get to there.

Cuba: A Military Holding Company in Control

SENATOR SCOTT: Can you give the same about Cuba?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Cuba’s a very different thing. I think the misnomer about Cuba or the misunderstanding about Cuba, Cuba’s actually not controlled by the government. Cuba’s controlled by a military holding company named Gaysa. And Gaysa virtually owns anything. They own the tourist sector, they own mining, they own the gas stations, they own everything. They generate about 70% of Cuba’s GDP is under the control of this military company. And they’re sitting on between $14 and $17 billion in assets.

So you have people literally starving, people literally with a power grid that hasn’t been maintained in 10 years, and yet you have this holding military company sitting on these assets. And by the way, not a penny of the money in the military holding company translates over to the public treasury.

So the fundamental challenge we have here is that Cuba needs to be, in order for it not to continue to be a failed state, which poses a threat to the United States, they need systemic and serious reform. They need to have economic reforms. And the question is, can they possibly reform, given the people who are currently in charge both of GAISA and of their government? I think the answer is they can’t. I really don’t believe this system is capable of reform unless new people take over or a new mindset takes hold.

Now we’ve engaged in conversations with them. We’ve offered them what I think needs to happen in order for their economy to recover. And that’s the last point I would make, because I think somebody raised this issue of oil blockade. Cuba was having blackouts well before January 3rd of this year. They were having blackouts for years.

And they were having blackouts for two reasons. Number one, no one will give you free oil except Maduro. That’s what’s changed here. What’s changed here is they’re no longer getting free oil from Venezuela. And number two, the main reason why they have oil energy blackouts is because they didn’t invest a single dollar back into their plants, back into improving their plants.

And they could have bought this equipment from any company in the world, but they didn’t invest in it. Instead they invested it to build tourist hotels that now sit empty because there’s no tourism in Cuba. So Cuba’s a little bit more complicated than Venezuela, but it’s a mess.

SENATOR SCOTT: Thanks for what you’re doing.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you, Mr.

Senator Duckworth’s Statement on Budget and Foreign Policy

SENATOR DUCKWORTH: Secretary Rubio, I trust you’re familiar with then CENTCOM Commander and future Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’s famous quote about the importance of funding a foreign policy apparatus. In 2013, in response to a question from the now chairman of SASC, General Mattis pointed out that if you don’t find, and I quote him, “if you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately,” end quote.

Unfortunately, despite his service in the first Trump administration, the second time around, you seem to have taken the message as a blueprint rather than as a warning. The budget that you’re presenting today cuts the State Department by about a third after you previously tried to enact steep cuts and eliminations last year, many of which were already rebuked by Congress on a bipartisan basis.

Time and again, this administration uses our military as a first tool of choice, manufacturing new crises and new conflicts that worsen the situation for folks abroad as well as for American people back here at home. And now you’re here to justify a budget request that further undermines our diplomatic apparatus, the tools and professionals that are critical for not only preventing crises before they begin but those who will be responsible for negotiating our way out of Trump’s war of choice in Iran and whatever other nightmares he dreams up with.

So based on how this administration has conducted itself with the last year, our adversaries are learning that the United States is not a reliable negotiator. They’re learning that we will quickly turn to using force before working to alleviate crisis points and prevent war. I’m very concerned that in turn that that in turn increases the risk of our adversaries jumping to use force first, increasing risk to American citizens and American interests around the world.

We saw that instinct for the military option in the Caribbean and in Venezuela. And now we’re seeing threats of it in Cuba while we’re still engaged in the Middle East where President Trump is blowing a shocking amount of money and failing to uphold his solemn duty to put our service members at risk only for the most serious and imminent national security threats to the American people.

Mr. Secretary, you also wear the hat of a national, I would say a national security advisor. So with both that hat and as Secretary of State, do you agree that this administration has spent more on Trump’s war in Iran than you are requesting today for this entire State Department budget request?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I can’t speak to, the Department of War would have to speak to you about the money and what they calculate or the costs. I just I can’t give you an accurate answer on that because that’s not the thing that I look at.

SENATOR DUCKWORTH: I would think you would have some oversight, some insight because you are on national security.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I’ve seen the testimony that Secretary Hegseth and others have conducted in front of their oversight committees, but I just can’t, I don’t want to give you an answer that’s not accurate.

SENATOR DUCKWORTH: Okay, well this week, let me put out some numbers that I have. This week, the cost of President Trump’s illegal war choice against Iran are likely to balloon past $35 billion by the rate from DOD’s own May calculations and surpass your FY 2027 budget request of $35.1 billion for the State Department and related programs.

That’s an astonishing figure. Worth repeating, in just 14 weeks, 14 weeks, President Trump will have blown through as much if not more money in Iran than he thinks Congress should spend on US diplomacy for the entirety of the next fiscal year. This administration’s distorted priorities have unfortunately revealed some stark lessons for our allies and partners as well. The United States’ use of force first will make them less secure as they’ll be caught in the crossfire, left scrambling to protect themselves and their people.

Mr. Secretary, do you agree that under Operation Epic Fury, our allies and partners in the region have expressed concern about their security and the threats that have followed from this administration’s uncoordinated actions?

SECRETARY RUBIO: No, I think our allies in the region have been very cooperative, some obviously very aggressively cooperative, like the UAE as an example. Kuwait’s been fantastic. Obviously, no country likes to have their oil and their energy infrastructure hit, but I think it’s a reminder to them of the threat that Iran poses. And the one lesson when this is all said and done is it’s reminded them of, despite all the friendly talk that you’ve seen in the past, how dangerous Iran is to their own interests, how the billions of dollars Iran has spent despite sanctions. Iran found the money to build drones and rockets and luckily we’ve taken a lot of them out but they still have some and they still have the ability to…

SENATOR DUCKWORTH: My question is about our allies in reaching and expressing concerns because you see public reporting in early May revealed that Saudi Arabia denied US basing and overflight related to Trump’s ill-conceived plan to escort ships through the Straits of Hormuz, and they’re still not supportive of this risky tanker escort plan, and the strait is still worse off today than it was before Trump initiated this war.

And that doesn’t even touch on the wider global lessons being learned by our allies and partners. I come home from the Shangri-La dialogue where I heard from folks across the Indo-Pacific and especially in Southeast Asia who are being hit hard by the same rising energy costs that are devastating American communities. And frankly, this administration insists on using military force as a first resort instead of a last resort, no matter the deadly cost of self-defeating impacts. Your budget request here would sadly perpetuate that trend and undermine the roles and responsibilities that you should be fulfilling as Secretary of State.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Secretary Rubio’s Response and Exchange with the Chairman

CHAIRMAN: Okay.

SECRETARY RUBIO: I didn’t get to answer any of that.

CHAIRMAN: I didn’t ask the question.

SECRETARY RUBIO: What, she didn’t answer any questions? She doesn’t want me to answer? Can I answer any of them?

CHAIRMAN: You may.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Okay. Well, but she made a bunch of points. I get to answer them, right? First of all, I don’t understand this thing. Let me tell you, we were just here, maybe you weren’t here, we were just talking about it. We did a peace deal with Azerbaijan and Armenia. We just signed the trip agreement yesterday actually or last week we signed it last night I officialized it. That was diplomacy.

SENATOR DUCKWORTH: That’s great but the Trump administration is still blown through in 14 weeks.

SECRETARY RUBIO: When do I get to talk to you?

CHAIRMAN: Do I get to talk to this committee? Senator Duckworth, Senator Duckworth, I’m going to let Senator Rubio reply to the statements that you made at his request.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, that’s the first. But we want, we’ve got a hard stop at 12:30.

CHAIRMAN: Okay, but I know, but you said a lot of stuff.

SECRETARY RUBIO: I get to answer some of it. Alright, so the first is, the second is India-Pakistan. We ended that war. We were involved in helping broker that. Thailand, Cambodia, that’s diplomacy.

We’ve been very engaged in, in fact, as I sit here now speaking to you, I’ve got the Lebanese government and the Israeli government meeting at the State Department, starting at 8:30 this morning, for the fourth time after engaging last week at the military level. So we’re carrying out diplomacy all over the world constantly and very successfully in many cases.

Now let me make one more point that you raise about the budget request. Guys, we understand how this process works. OK, you guys understand. I know because I’ve been involved time we, OMB produces sort of timelines for every agency. We put it forward a budget. We say this is the money we’ve been allocated. This is how we would spend it. There is a congressional process which I’m sure you’re aware of and in my time here 16 years that I was here, I don’t ever recall us once ever taking the president’s budget and passing it into law.

I’m not walking away from the budget. We can make it work if that’s the budget you give us. But I have a sense, I have a suspicion, right Senator Schatz, that we’re not, we’re going to have to work with you, Schatz, that we’re going to have to, well you know, that we’re going to have to work with you guys on a budget request that meets your priorities and ours. That’s how it works. You guys are the appropriators. We have to work within the, we will tell you what we care about, we will tell you how we’re going to spend the money, but ultimately you will provide a spending bill, and we will work through those parameters, but we have given you what we can live with, we can make it work.

But if you want to, you know, you’re obviously going to have changes here in Congress. But this stuff about diplomacy and the money spent on the war, diplomacy’s always cost less money. We don’t buy missiles, we don’t buy rockets, we don’t buy large airplanes and aircraft carriers, but we’ve been very effective. And I can give you list after list of places that we have had an impact in either deescalating crisis before it started or ending active wars. And I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done in that regard, some of which haven’t even been publicly discussed in some cases because they weren’t high profile.

And my last point, we remain heavily engaged in areas that maybe not at the core of our national interests, but nonetheless are related to our national interests. You think about Sudan for a moment and the Quad. This has been a very frustrating situation to put together, but we helped convene a donor conference that got pledges for when that is resolved. We’ve put a lot of time and energy in a situation there and now unfortunately has turned into a proxy in the Middle East because of the UAE and the Saudis on opposite sides of it. In Libya where our work in Libya now has, it’s still divided but they for the first time ever have a joint budget, for the first time ever are cooperating on energy deals that are going to be beneficial to the people of Libya.

So I just don’t think it’s fair to say we’re not actively involved in diplomacy on last year’s budget and spending because we are and we have been and to great success.

CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Senator Curtis.

Senator Curtis Questions on Taiwan and Countering PRC Influence

SENATOR CURTIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Clock center, thank you for resetting the clock. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. And I’m always truly impressed with your ability to navigate around the globe so articulately and explain the positions.

Like you previously, I chair the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. One of the focuses that I’ve had is on Taiwan and Taiwan’s relationship in the Western Hemisphere. We actually had our first subcommittee hearing on Taiwan’s allies in the Western Hemisphere. And as you well know, Honduras switched diplomatic recognition away from Taiwan in 2023 in exchange for a lot of promises from China. No surprise, those promises have not been fulfilled. The current president during his campaign talked about returning back to Taiwan and restoring that relationship with Taiwan.

In your budget, you have $245 million for the countering PRC influence fund. And I’d like to note Senator Van Hollen and I have a bill that would actually carve off a portion of that specifically for Taiwan and countering the PRC influence there. So I guess my question is what can the US do potentially with that fund, countering PRC influence fund for Taiwan, particularly as it relates to Honduras, kick-starting that relationship, developing joint set of economic priorities for Taiwan and the West Bank or anything else we can use that fund for to keep it?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, well first of all, the reason why these countries switch recognition primarily was because the Chinese would go in and they would say, if you switch recognition, we are going to provide you this loan, and in some cases worse than loans, maybe there was even cases of bribery and things of this nature, but we’re going to provide you a free this and a free that. We’re going to build an auditorium for you. We’re going to build a bridge. We’re going to build a port. And they haven’t kept many of those promises.

So I think the first thing is to just point to the fact that…

SENATOR CURTIS: They didn’t switch. Yeah.

SECRETARY RUBIO: In many cases, these things are not provided. The other angle of it is if it’s loans, they create these debt traps, which is an argument we make all over the world, but particularly in the hemisphere.

But the broader goal of this fund is not just simply Taiwan-related, although that’s an action they took as a result of this leverage that was established on them. But more broader, in many cases, these countries are trying to develop their telecommunication system. They’re trying to build roads. They’re trying to develop whatever it may be. And frankly, the only companies that show up are the Chinese companies. And they show up with lower cost, a financing mechanism, etc., etc.

Now, there’s a track record of not completing these projects. There’s a track record of flooding the country with Chinese workers that come and do the work. So I think part of this fund is designed to create alternatives to that, to give these countries alternatives to the Chinese or other foreign malign influence that might be occurring in their country. Part of that is attracting US commercial ventures to do it, but part of it is providing the resources so these countries can go out and do this without being subject to or vulnerable to this sort of leverage tactic that’s used against them.

SENATOR CURTIS: Thank you. Let me switch to China for just a minute. Your budget notes the merging of the Foreign Service Institute where a lot of the state language training takes place with the Human Resource Bureau and I’m hoping that can improve the language capacity. But here in the Senate I’ve picked up the Uyghur Policy Act which you led when you were here.

Uyghur Language Training and Foreign Service

SENATOR: Part of the bill that I’m especially supportive of is the provision that’s supporting the Uyghur language training for foreign service officers is not only important but required and that we have foreign service officers in Asia and China that can speak that language. It’s absolutely vital that our diplomats be able to understand the people in their own language as to the abuses that are going on there. Given your previous experience on this bill and the department’s focus on the CCP’s repression, do you still support this provision and can you just speak to how important this is?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, well I think obviously the Uyghur language is not a widespread language around the world, but it’s incredibly valuable in an important part of the world. And so I think we want to see a language proficiency.

That’s generally been a challenge writ large over a period of time. And one of the goals of the consolidation is to be able to drive language school more effectively and more quickly to afford service officers before they’re deployed. Obviously proficiency in certain languages are very difficult. They take longer periods. Some languages are harder to learn than others, especially if the base of the language is, just to give an example, it’s easy to learn Italian if you speak Spanish.

It’s much harder to learn Mandarin, and the Uyghur language for that matter. But language is a priority for us. And it’s one that, by the way, in our recruitment tools, is one of the things we also look for, is whether potential candidates already bring an existing second or third language, which is a huge benefit.

SENATOR: Yes, and just very quickly, do you want to clarify, use this opportunity, the president had a tweet about speaking with Hezbollah yesterday. Do you want to clarify for people what happened and anything that you’d like?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we received communications via the Lebanese government and the speaker over there on behalf of Hezbollah as early as Sunday about that they would restrain from attacking Israeli territory if Israel did not strike new strikes in Beirut. And so it came from Hezbollah but through Lebanese authorities. I think that clarification is important.

SENATOR: Thank you for being here today.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you.

Senator Rosen Questions Secretary Rubio

SENATOR ROSEN: Thank you Chairman, ranking member Shaheen, thank you Secretary Rubio for being here. Secretary Rubio, I applaud the administration facilitating a ceasefire last year between Israel and Gaza that will keep Israel safe, further Hamas attacks, and end the suffering of Palestinian civilians. But I have serious questions about transparency, about the funding for the so-called Board of Peace in light of recent reporting that suggests donor funds have been deposited into a private JP Morgan account with no independent transparency mechanisms in place.

As a member of the Board of Peace executive board and Secretary of State you should be in a position to provide us with some answers. And you, as a former Senator, know our role here, trying to get answers. And my team’s been asking for a contact with the Board of Peace for several months just to do our due diligence, but we’ve received no response. Can you tell me exactly who my team should be reaching out to please?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well I can now because the Board of Peace has finally hired some staff. It’s going to be a very lean operation. They’re working out of the Institute of Peace building, so for some period of time they really were not, it was just a very lean operation.

SENATOR ROSEN: But do you have a name for my, do I just, I don’t have it on —

SECRETARY RUBIO: We’ll get that —

SENATOR ROSEN: That’s fine, but they’ve, I think they just hired staff like in the last two —

SECRETARY RUBIO: We will follow up with you.

SENATOR ROSEN: Thank you. I have a few other things. Can you tell me how much money in the World Bank administered board fund?

SECRETARY RUBIO: I don’t have the answer because there’s not US dollars that have flowed, these are funds so —

SENATOR ROSEN: Can you tell me how much is in the JP Morgan accounts? Who has oversight?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Ultimately, the oversight over the funds of the Board of Peace will be, and especially when it comes to dollars, will be done by you in Congress. We have not committed those funds there yet, although they’ve stood up the Board of Peace. The administration will have oversight ability, especially on the US dollars.

SENATOR ROSEN: Can the money in the JP Morgan account be used to compensate the president or his family or anyone directly with the president?

SECRETARY RUBIO: No one’s talking about doing that.

SENATOR ROSEN: And you said you just hired folks and it’s going to be lean, about how many full-time personnel do you expect?

SECRETARY RUBIO: I think they ultimately want to get up to 15 or 20 full-time. I think they’ve started at 5, if I’m not mistaken. I could be wrong, but those are the numbers I recall.

SENATOR ROSEN: So is the $50 million in U.S. taxpayer money that your department wants to give to the Board of Peace, is that going to cover the story?

SECRETARY RUBIO: I think that $50 million was reversed. We ended up not doing that as a result of the way it was constructed. The Board of Peace is now built out as an international, non-governmental organization. We’ll talk with you on that once you give us a contact after this.

SENATOR ROSEN: Thank you.

Women and Girls Programming

SENATOR ROSEN: So Secretary Rubio, during your confirmation and budget hearings last year, you committed to me you would support women and girls programming at the State Department. But under your leadership, you’ve terminated dozens of awards supporting women and girls, you shuttered the Office of Global Women’s Issues, you fired the entire staff. You said repeatedly that regional bureaus will now be responsible for programs to support women and girls, but my staff has asked every single regional bureau if they have a plan to do this, and not a single bureau can provide me with an answer.

And so, Secretary Rubio, I’m just so disappointed. I want to believe that you didn’t lie to us, lie to me, and so I want to give you an opportunity to explain how women’s issues have been integrated into the Bureau.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I don’t know. Do we have an outline? I don’t know who’s telling you that at the regional bureaus because that’s not accurate. Now, some regional bureaus have a larger mandate on women’s issues than others. There’s a new example, like in Europe, it’s probably less intense than in Africa.

SENATOR ROSEN: Can you tell me, on your team, we can reach out to them to find out? Because we’re not getting, they’re telling us they don’t know. The regional bureaus tell you they don’t know?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Not only does every regional bureau have someone in charge of women’s issues or at least in charge of that portfolio, but most of our embassies, especially in some of these key places, are advocating this.

SENATOR ROSEN: Can I call you and have a conversation?

SECRETARY RUBIO: We didn’t eliminate the program. We simply felt that there’s a difference between the women’s issues, for example, that you would face in Africa versus what you may be facing in some part of Asia.

SENATOR ROSEN: Could you name a single new program that you’ve stood up in the last, since the office was closed? Do you know of any?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, first of all, almost every single one of our programs that we do now, our humanitarian response crisis, our food programs that we’ve distributed, all of them have a women’s component, primarily because in these societies, women are the first ones affected.

SENATOR ROSEN: Can you follow up with your team, please, so we can get some clarification?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Follow up and I’ll give you the right people. But each of these bureaus has someone, or more than one case, more than one person.

SENATOR ROSEN: The last one here is the International Women of Courage Program. You and the First Lady have championed. Are you going to be maintaining that?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Which one, I’m sorry?

SENATOR ROSEN: The Women of Courage Program. You and the First Lady have championed that.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, well we had an award ceremony last year. I don’t know if one is scheduled for this year yet.

Secretary Rubio’s Role During Pakistan Negotiations

SENATOR ROSEN: Thank you. With the remainder of my time, I’d like to remind the American people that as the Secretary of State, your main duty as America’s chief diplomat is to maintain our relations with foreign nations. This is why I was shocked to see that you were at a party with President Trump in Miami instead of accompanying Vice President Vance to Pakistan for negotiations.

SECRETARY RUBIO: What party was I at? I was at a party?

SENATOR ROSEN: And there’s photos there. But what party?

SECRETARY RUBIO: No, no, no, no. But you’re going to say that. I’m going to answer it. I’m going to answer that question. That’s an absurd statement. I was not at a party.

SENATOR ROSEN: If I finish my paragraph, he can answer. People are going to slander me.

SECRETARY RUBIO: I’m going to answer it.

SENATOR ROSEN: In fact, Eve Whitcoff and Jared Kushner, both of whom were never confirmed by this body to be America’s diplomats, accompanied the vice president in the negotiations. Even Iran’s foreign minister was not there, yet you were not, was there, excuse me, and you were not. I just feel that’s embarrassing for us and it’s embarrassing for you.

So Mr. Secretary, Congress represents the American people. We have the power to confirm who represents America abroad. We confirmed you to be our Secretary of State. We confirmed you to be in the negotiations that are happening. It’s just unthinkable to me you are not, you are missing high stakes negotiations or that you’re not involved. It’s sad to say.

CHAIRMAN: Senator Rosen, your time’s up. So let me just. Senator, Secretary Rubio.

SECRETARY RUBIO: You’re 100% inaccurate and 100% wrong. Here’s why. Number one, the vice president of the United States was there and he wasn’t confirmed by us and he was elected by the American people. He is the second in line to the presidency of the United States. He was present.

Mr. Witkoff is the president’s envoy for negotiation for peace deals. Mr. Kushner is a private citizen that serves as an advisor on these functions. They were the team that we sent to Pakistan.

I was not at a party. Where I was is next to the president. Because in the midst of those negotiations I was in communications with them and in fact I think there is media reporting from that evening on how on multiple occasions I went into a back room, I came back out and spoke to the president, and was constantly updating him. That evening I spoke to Mr. Kushner and our negotiating team and Mr. Witkoff on at least six occasions, including twice on a secure line from the phone they had access to over there.

So you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just making stuff up.

CHAIRMAN: Senator Rosen, he has a floor, please.

SECRETARY RUBIO: I know your staff wrote up this cute statement for your TikTok video, but it’s not true, and it’s not real. That’s not what happened. I am the National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. I was co-located with the President in the midst of a high-stakes negotiation so that I could immediately inform him about events occurring halfway around the world. I was where I needed to be at that moment because we had a very capable team on the ground in Pakistan, led by the vice president, led by the vice president of the United States.

CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Senator Cornyn on Iran’s Nuclear Threat

SENATOR CORNYN: Secretary Rubio, I’ve heard some of my colleagues here on this committee suggest that the U.S. started a war with the Iranian regime 92 days ago. I happen to believe that the Iranian regime started a war against the West and Israel and has been at war with us since 1979. What’s your view?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, if you go back to 1979 and the taking hostages and build it out from there, I don’t know the numbers if we could even add them up. It’s incalculable. Thousands of people around the world, including many Americans, have been killed because of direct Iranian action. All the IEDs, those roadside bombs that maimed and killed our soldiers, were all the mastermind work of the IRGC for decades. The IRGC sponsors terrorist attacks all over the planet.

In fact, they were involved, for example, in the bombing of a Jewish center in Argentina in 1993 or 1994. They’re consistently, it’s now we have people convicted, convicted in the United States of America and one was arrested yesterday, Iranian agents plotting the assassination of American political leaders including the president of the United States. They’ve been waging non-stop, not to mention their massive sponsorship of Hamas, of Hezbollah, and all the activities those groups have undertaken.

So you’re absolutely right that the Iranian system has been waging war on the West, but why is anybody in the United States and specific for over three decades, but why is anyone surprised? They openly chant, openly chant, “Death to America, death to Israel.” They openly say Israel’s the little Satan, but we’re the big Satan. So I think at some point when people say this repeatedly, you believe their rhetoric and their actions back their rhetoric.

This is a very dangerous regime. And the notion that they would ever possess nuclear weapons, that people that are willing to conduct those kinds of terrorist acts would ever possess a nuclear weapon is unthinkable, unbearable and unacceptable. And it’s not going to happen under President Trump.

SENATOR CORNYN: So ever since, well, since the Iranian nuclear program started, and they basically blocked the IAEA and others from doing the inspections that would be required in order to monitor their use of enriched uranium, we’ve had presidents, Democrat and Republican, say that an Iranian nuclear weapon was unacceptable, but it took President Trump to actually do something about it.

It shocks me to hear some of our colleagues suggest that there was not an imminent threat from an Iranian nuclear weapon. You and I both sat in the same skiff on the Senate Intelligence Committee. We won’t talk about the details, of course, but we knew that they continued to enrich to the point where they could produce a nuclear weapon within a specified time. There’s some debate about how long that breakout would take, but the idea that an Iranian nuclear program did not present an imminent threat to the United States to me is just ludicrous and I think it defies all evidence to the contrary.

But do you think if they had acquired a nuclear weapon that that would change the ability of the United States and our allies like Israel to deal with this nuclear-armed Iran?

Iran’s Nuclear Threat and Regional Stability

RUBIO: I think if Iran ever acquired a nuclear weapon, they could very well use it, because given the theological nature of their decision-making. But just as problematic as they would have immunity. At that point, your options on what you could do about them would be quite limited. And their ability to hold the world hostage. They’d be like North Korea, for example. They’d be North Korea, but worse.

They’d be better funded. They would, at that point, decide that they own the Straits of Hormuz forever and everyone has to pay them a toll and nuclear anything about it they would be able to act with impunity they would sponsor Hezbollah they would sponsor how much they would hyper scale their efforts of global terrorism and completely try to drive us out of the region and ultimately destroy the state of Israel.

That’s what their goal would be, and you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it because they have a nuclear weapon and would threaten to blow people up if you tried to move against them. Notwithstanding the importance of denying Iran a nuclear weapon, I do applaud the president’s attempt to try to use some diplomacy here in order to deny them access to the enriched uranium and their other weapons that they use against Israel and the West.

But tell me, why do you think anything that the Iranian regime agrees to that they will comply with? What evidence is there that they will agree to anything that they ultimately will stick with?

Well, again, and that’s why any deal with them has to, you have to enter into it with clearly verifiable steps. So as an example, simply putting something on a piece of paper is not satisfactory. You have to actually do it. You have to actually do it.

And so that’s our view of it. Our view of it is that any consensuals that are made, and I don’t even call them concessions per se, but any arrangements that are made with Iran have to come after not just they agree to certain things but they actually do certain things.

Let’s be clear about this because I don’t think this is talked about enough. If what Iran wants is nuclear energy for their country, there are mechanisms to do it. There are countries all over the world that have nuclear energy, but they don’t enrich. They certainly don’t enrich the 60 percent. They don’t do it hidden in a mountain, deep, buried underground somewhere. What they want is nuclear energy. They can have it. There are mechanisms for them.

The problem with Iran is not that they want nuclear energy. The problem with Iran is that everything they do is consistent with the activities of a nation that seeks to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

Senator Schatz Questions on China and Asia-Pacific

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you, Senator. Senator Schatz.

SENATOR SCHATZ: Thank you, Chairman. Secretary, thank you for being here. Tomorrow I’m going to have you in the Appropriations Committee and we’ll walk the list that we talked about a couple of weeks ago on a conference call, so I’ll cover that.

I want you to sort of answer the China watchers who saw that visit to China and saw that Nvidia is now going to sell H200s. I understand that’s not our highest technology, but it’s better than what China has, and that’s why people are worried. And that, I mean, it’s pretty plain that it violated one of the six assurances that the ambassador and you and others have sort of followed up to kind of smooth the edges.

But I mean, it’s pretty clear, he says, “We discussed arms sales in great detail. It depends on China. It’s a very good negotiating chip for us.” So what do you say to China watchers who say they got some pretty good deliverables and we didn’t get much?

RUBIO: I don’t see the trip there were some deliverables, you know, the purchase of additional Boeing aircraft which of course is beneficial to the Chinese as well, but helps our company, some of the agricultural concessions. But the trip was largely, for the most part, about the fact that the two largest, most powerful countries in the world have to have direct interaction with one another. And this was an opportunity to do it.

He will reciprocate by visiting the United States later next year. Separate from that, and I’m not sure if you were here at the outset in my opening statement, or maybe it was in response to one of the questions, I think two things are clear. Number one is that we’re entering into a period of strategic stability that I think serves the interest of both countries because the last thing we want is a largely destabilizing event in the Indo-Pacific.

But the second is that there are clear differences of priorities. There are clear irritants in that relationship that are longstanding and that are going to be long term. So, critical minerals, dependencies, things of this nature. So it’s one of those relationships that require very deaf diplomacy and mature decision making.

SENATOR SCHATZ: Sure and this is why I like our engagement. That makes sense to me, but it seems to me that if the main objective is to kind of touch gloves and initiate conversations, then why give away any of the things that they’re already seeking, in exchange for essentially nothing. You’re basically saying it’s better to talk than not to, it’s better to engage than not to, it’s better to be in a period of stability than not. I agree with all that. I just don’t understand why we would want to sell them our second best chips and why we would start to at least complicate the question of our assurances regarding Taiwan.

Energy Crisis in the Asia-Pacific Region

SENATOR SCHATZ: I’m going to move over. We’re staying in the Asia Pacific region. The Marshalls, the Philippines, and Tuvalu have declared a national emergency on their energy situation. South Korea says its energy crisis is a war-like situation. You’ve been around a long time on this committee and now as secretary. It is always the case that something in the Middle East undermines our ability to project power in the Asia Pacific region.

But it’s not just a question of opportunity cost, intentional challenges. Now we’re talking about our allies in the Asia Pacific region really taking it on the chin with energy costs because of the Strait of Hormuz, just hang in there?

RUBIO: Yeah, no, a couple points. It’s one of the steps that we’ve taken and some of the things that we’ve done around the world, whether it’s the release of strategic reserves, whether it’s not popular, but you know, we’ve got questions about here earlier today, but making available for limited period, both Iranian oil on the water, though they don’t enjoy the revenue of it, and some of the Russian oil on the water as well.

The third point though that this points to is a much deeper one and that is that while the Straits of Hormuz provides about 20% of the global oil supply, it is probably 80 or 90% of the supply in the Indo-Pacific given the geography and so forth. So one of the things that I think is going to come about as a result of all this in the long term is more diversification and where they’re going to get their energy from including from the United States potentially, certainly with Japan and some other countries in the region will benefit. But you know that the sort of project, it takes time. It all takes time.

SENATOR SCHATZ: I understood. That’s like cold comfort if you’re running a country and your gasoline and your fertilizer and all your input prices just skyrocketed because of President Trump’s decision to go to war with a country clear across the world.

RUBIO: But see, I don’t… and I understand your point, but I also think in all these questions, we’re getting a lot of questions about us. I don’t think it’s fair because ultimately the people who have closed the Straits of Hormuz are Iran, and they’re doing so in violation of every international law you can imagine. The Chinese are against it. Everyone is. We have, I think, a record number, 140 co-sponsors at the United Nations on this resolution that hasn’t come up for a vote yet to condemn what they’re doing and to reopen the straits. Nobody is defending what Iran is doing.

SENATOR SCHATZ: I think what we’re saying is this was not predictable. It was predicted. This was what everybody said. You don’t have to be some expert in foreign policy. You don’t need to get into a skiff. You could literally put this into an LLM and say, what will happen if we take a dedication against them? And the first thing that would pop out is, well, they’re probably clandestine for a move. So it’s really shocking to me the degree to which this administration expresses shock that the thing that everybody said was going to happen ended up happening.

RUBIO: But here’s the point I would make on that and that the reverse of that is so that the alternative is to say well then we have to go ahead and let Iran develop a nuclear weapon or they’ll close our moves. I mean, at some point you have to take action on this situation, understanding there’ll be a reaction to it, but it cannot be. Iran will always have the ability to threaten the straits. You don’t need much sophistication to, if you threaten commercial vessels and shooting them, they’re going to stop moving. Drop, you know, dropping mines. By the way, it’s not just Iran that can do it, the Houthis could do it in the Red Sea, and they’re not nearly as large as Iran is.

I think this is a more fundamental challenge, and that is, are we now forever limited doing anything? Do we just have to let Iran go ahead and develop a nuclear weapon because of their threat to close the Straits of Hormuz? That’s an untenable situation.

Senator Cruz on Iran’s Military Defeat and Red Lines

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Senator, Secretary Rubio, thank you. But I’ll see him tomorrow, so don’t worry.

RUBIO: Yeah, okay. Tomorrow’s a pro.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I know we’re supposed to have a hard stop at 1230, but no we’ll do it. Senator Cruz has been patient. I hope you’ll give us only because it’s him one more bite of the apple.

SENATOR CRUZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will say, Mr. Secretary, since you left the Senate, I’ve been obliged to serve Cuban coffee in my meetings because you left me as the only Cuban American left behind. So come by if you want a cafecito.

Let me start by saying that President Trump’s decision to strike Iran was the most consequential decision of a second term as president. And I want to commend you, I want to commend the president and the entire administration on the extraordinary success we have seen. In less than 40 days, the United States has utterly and completely destroyed the military and nuclear infrastructure that the Iranian regime spent nearly 50 years building.

Every day that passes increases American leverage. Iran is weaker, poorer, and more isolated than it’s been in decades. The president has laid out four red lines for any resolution to this military conflict. Number one, that there be zero enrichment by Iran. Number two, that they hand over all of their enriched uranium. Number three, that they stopped funding terrorism worldwide. And number four, that they opened the Strait of Hormuz.

I agree with all four of those red lines. Do you agree with those red lines? And how achievable do you believe they are in the coming weeks and months?

RUBIO: Yeah, you stated the four positions of the president accurately. And the entire administration is supportive of it, because that’s what we take our directives from the president. And personally, during my time in the Senate, these would be consistent with my thinking.

I would only reverse it in the following order. The Straits of Hormuz, it would have to come first because what they’re doing there is unlawful and illegal to begin with. That has to open immediately and that has to open immediately in exchange not for anything else other than us lifting the blockade. We have a blockade on Iranian oil leaving. And the reason why we have a blockade on Iranian oil leaving is because they close the straits.

If they open the straits, and by open the straits, understand what we’re saying. It’s saying you’re not going to threaten to shoot at commercial vessels of civilians and create ecological disaster. That’s what they’re doing. It’s unlawful, it’s illegal, it’s outrageous. Every country in the world condemns it. If they end that, we lift the blockade.

Then we enter into the second phase, which is the nuclear question. On enrichment, they don’t have to, they don’t need to enrich. If what they want is a nuclear energy program, they can have one without enrichment. And it was somebody, a few questions ago, I forgot who it was, said that what we’re working on is similar to JCPOA. It is not. JCPOA would have expired this year and it allowed them to keep all the enrichment equipment that they needed, and clearly that equipment could get them to 60 and 90 percent because they’ve done it to 60 percent as a result of it.

So it would have to deal with that question, and it would have to deal with the highly enriched uranium that they currently are in possession of. The only reason to have 60 percent enriched uranium is to turn it into 90% enriched uranium and put it into a weapon.

Hezbollah, Lebanon, and Iran’s Sponsorship of Terrorism

RUBIO: So those remain, and on the sponsor of terrorism, absolutely. To the point where I would argue, for example, it’s one of the interesting things that’s happening, and I know Senator Shaheen has a great interest in Lebanon, it’s one of the most ironic situations in the world. The Lebanese government and the Israeli government could do a peace deal tomorrow. Israel has no territorial claims in Lebanon.

And Hezbollah in particular, in fact Hezbollah has called for the overthrow of the current Lebanese government. The impediment in Lebanon is the fact that Hezbollah has embedded itself into that country and is the reason for all the suffering that’s happening there right now and all the suffering that’s historically happened, entirely funded, entirely controlled by Iran. There is no Hezbollah without Iran. There is no Hezbollah without Iran. I mean, there might be a political movement with ideology, but they don’t have a bunch of rockets, they don’t have a bunch of weapons without Iran.

Hezbollah, Iran, and Lebanon

SEN. TED CRUZ: They are a complete total proxy of Iran, and that’s the kind of activity that needs to be… I want to come back to Hezbollah in a moment, just focusing for a second on Iran itself. For some time, I have urged the administration, I’ve urged Israel to arm the protesters in Iran. I don’t think it is fair to expect the Iranian people to stand up, protesters to stand up with rocks against soldiers with machine guns. Are we arming the protesters and should we be?

SEC. MARCO RUBIO: Yeah, I’m not aware of any program to arm civilians in Iran to overthrow their government. I mean, there may be other countries doing it or other elements, but certainly not the US government.

SEN. TED CRUZ: All right, let’s go back to Hezbollah. So you spoke with the Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, over the weekend. The State Department sent out an email to journalists shortly after your call, in which the State Department Spokesperson said, quote, “Iran wants to prolong the conflict in Lebanon so it can claim credit for saving the day.”

I have to admit that didn’t strike me as accurate. I don’t think Iran wants to keep the conflict going in Lebanon. I think they desperately want Israel to stop killing Hezbollah. Do you agree with that?

SEC. MARCO RUBIO: Yeah, I think the point I was trying to make is that we are trying to view the Lebanon Israeli talks as separate and distinct from Iran. And what Iran wants to do is mix it all together. Because Hezbollah’s not legitimate. There’s a government in Lebanon. That’s who we’re dealing with. And Hezbollah’s not their equal in terms of who we’re going to be dealing with or who needs to be in charge.

So the point we’re trying to make is that is what Iran is trying to stymie. They are trying to stymie any effort in which Israel and Lebanon can work together and prolong it so that if an arrangement is reached at some point in the future, they can claim credit for having forced it through leverage.

And that’s why you see, for example, Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire about a week ago and then immediately violated within hours.

SEN. TED CRUZ: You would agree every Hezbollah terrorist that the IDF kills makes America safer?

SEC. MARCO RUBIO: Well, Hezbollah’s a danger to the United States. There’s no doubt about it. I think the question is how do you do that and how do you achieve the objective of demilitarizing and defanging Hezbollah while at the same time strengthening the legitimate government of Lebanon and particularly the president and others.

That’s been the challenge there for a very long time. That remains the challenge now, of course. The capabilities of the LAF are not where they need to be, but there are also elements within the LAF that are not who they need to be because they facilitate in some cases and cooperate with Hezbollah. So it’s a very tricky situation.

But I point you back to two things that have happened in the last few months. Number one, the Lebanese government expelled the Iranian ambassador because of Hezbollah. The Iranian ambassador says, “I’m not leaving, and you can’t make me.” That’s number one.

The second thing that’s happened is just a week ago Hezbollah openly called — went on set — they openly called for the overthrow of the Lebanese government. So no one here should be under any illusion — Hezbollah is not just an enemy of Israel and an enemy of America. Hezbollah is an enemy of Lebanon and of the Lebanese people.

Closing Remarks

SEN. TED CRUZ: Thank you.

COMMITTEE CHAIR: Thank you. Thank you, Senator Cruz. Secretary Rubio, you’ve been very generous with your time. We appreciate that. I, for the information of the members, the record will remain open until the close of business tomorrow, June 3rd. With that, the committee is adjourned.

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