S.Amdt. 6022

SA 6022. Mr. SCHMITT submitted an amendment intended to be proposed
by him to the bill S. 4784, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year
2027 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy,
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of subtitle D of title XII, add the following:

SEC. 1252. STRATEGY TO ENHANCE SECURITY COOPERATION WITH NEW
ZEALAND.

(a) Strategy.--Not later than 180 days after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense, in
consultation with the Secretary of State, shall submit to the
congressional defense committees a strategy to enhance
security cooperation between the United States and New
Zealand.
(b) Purposes.--The purposes of the strategy required by
subsection (a) are--
(1) to strengthen the defense relationship between the
United States and New Zealand;
(2) to improve bilateral and multilateral military
interoperability, support security, and stability in the
Indo-Pacific region;
(3) to expand cooperation on advanced defense capabilities;
and
(4) to identify concrete actions to address shared security
challenges in the Pacific and Antarctic regions.
(c) Elements.--The strategy required by subsection (a)
shall include the following:
(1) An assessment of opportunities to improve information
sharing and intelligence cooperation, as appropriate, with
New Zealand on regional security threats, foreign malign
influence, cyber threats, maritime coercion, and activities
by strategic threats in the Indo-Pacific and Antarctic
regions.
(2) An assessment of the current state of United States
defense cooperation with New Zealand, including defense
dialogues, military-to-military engagements, combined
exercises, port visits, personnel exchanges, and other
bilateral or multilateral activities.
(3) A roadmap to expand military interoperability between
the United States and New Zealand, including through
increased participation in joint and combined exercises,
expanded staff exchanges, improved operational planning, and
greater coordination with Australia and other regional allies
and partners.
(4) An assessment of opportunities to expand defense
industrial base cooperation between the United States and New
Zealand, including with respect to secure supply chains,
aviation sustainment, munitions, maintenance and repair
capacity, trusted vendors, and the integration of New Zealand
industry into allied defense supply chains, as appropriate.
(5) An assessment of opportunities to strengthen defense
and logistics cooperation with New Zealand in Antarctica and
the Southern Ocean, including through the Joint Logistics
Pool, Christchurch gateway operations, support for McMurdo
Station and Scott Base, cold-weather operations, airlift and
sealift coordination, medical evacuation, search and rescue,
communications, domain awareness, infrastructure resilience,
and contingency planning for disruption of access to
Antarctica.
(6) A list of specific actions, timelines, responsible
Department of Defense components, and resource requirements
necessary to implement the strategy.
(d) Form.--The strategy required by subsection (a) shall be
submitted in unclassified form but may include a classified
annex.
(e) Briefing.--Not later than 30 days after the date on
which the strategy required by subsection (a) is submitted,
the Secretary of Defense shall provide the congressional
defense committees with a briefing on the strategy, including
planned actions, timelines, responsible offices, resource
requirements, and any legislative recommendations to enhance
defense cooperation between the United States and New
Zealand.
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