Mr. President, we heard over the course of many hours last week and, indeed, over the many months that Foreign Affairs nominees have been languishing on the Senate floor, the concerns of the junior Senator from Texas related to the Nord…
Mr. President, we heard over the course of many hours last week and, indeed, over the many months that Foreign Affairs nominees have been languishing on the Senate floor, the concerns of the junior Senator from Texas related to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. We also have heard at length from Members of this body about the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan--from the junior Senator from Missouri.
As I have said publicly and repeatedly, I share my colleague's concerns about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. He put up a series of my quotes. They are all true. I am still of that view, but I am not of the view that you stop the national security apparatus in order to pursue a policy difference and create a whole host of other serious risks for the United States.
I believe and have said that the evacuation from Afghanistan was fatally flawed. In fact, the Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing and heard from Secretary Blinken about the situation in Afghanistan. The Foreign Relations Committee is holding a briefing tomorrow about the administration's efforts to bolster European energy security to counter Russia's efforts in this area. And I intend to continue oversight of the situation in Afghanistan and why, over the course of 20 years, we have failed.
What I fail to understand is the relationship between the foreign affairs nominees pending before this body and those topics. These individuals are critical to confronting numerous other global challenges, promoting American values, and advancing the safety, health, and economic well-being of America. We need them confirmed today--today.
I therefore will rise to seek unanimous consent for the confirmation of 10 nominees, including seven career diplomats. Each of them moved through the Foreign Relations Committee with bipartisan support. There is no reason for Republicans to block their confirmation.
Let me speak to them for a minute or two.
This is especially the case at the U.S. Agency for International Development. The Administrator of USAID, Samantha Power, is the only member of that Agency's senior leadership that has been confirmed by this body. Ambassador Power needs her senior leadership team in place. Yet her two deputies are languishing on the floor because of Republican holds.
This Agency is grappling with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and other humanitarian emergencies that are ravaging the globe. It simply cannot function at its best without senior leadership. So why is it that Republicans insist on blocking Paloma Adams-Allen and Isobel Coleman, two highly qualified nominees to serve as USAID Deputy Administrators?
Let me take a moment to once again raise Haiti. We hear a lot about Haiti here on the floor, particularly from our Republican colleagues, and the challenge at the border.
Well, in August, a massive earthquake in Haiti killed more than 2,200 people, injured 12,000 more, and destroyed tens of thousands of buildings. This comes after the assassination of Haiti's President. But here, again, Republicans are holding a senior member of Ambassador Powers' team, Marcela Escobari, the nominee to be the Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at USAID. Escobari, who will manage our response to the Haiti earthquake, once confirmed, already held this very job in the Obama administration. Guess what. She was confirmed by voice vote then.
Now we want to deal with the challenge of Haitian refugees coming to the border and other refugees of the hemisphere coming to the border. Let's confirm the USAID Deputy Administrator who will deal with that issue so we can deal with the root causes. How do we create stability in Haiti? How do we provide relief for the Haitian people? How do we create feeding for the Haitian people so they are not fleeing their country? But, no, we are going to stop this nominee who is going to be at the very heart of that. So when you see a new group of Haitian refugees, blame yourself.
We spent many months in this body talking about the challenges posed by the Government of the People's Republic of China. The U.S. Innovation and
Competition Act, passed by this body in June, and the Strategic Competition Act, which passed almost unanimously out of the Foreign Relations Committee, 21 to 1, are proof of that. We have collectively come together on this much: to recognize China as the greatest geopolitical and geoeconomic challenge for U.S. foreign policy. We have rightfully focused on effectively confronting Chinese malign influence. Yet we are failing to ensure a fundamentally critical element of that strategy; that is, empowered leadership in our diplomatic corps across the world.
Our former colleague Senator Ken Salazar is the only--hear me--the only Biden administration nominee who has been confirmed to serve as a country Ambassador representing U.S. interests abroad, the only one in the 9 months of this administration.
Let me be clear. Holding up diplomats is effectively ceding influence to China and actively undermining U.S. national security interests. People come to the floor and talk about China. Well, they are empowering China by not having our people in position to counter their influence.
It is a fact that Congo and Angola owe over 40 percent of their entire national debt--to whom? To China. So I ask my colleagues, why have we not yet confirmed Tulinabo Mushingi, a career Foreign Service officer, as our Ambassador to Angola? Why have we not yet confirmed Eugene Young, another career Foreign Service officer, as our Ambassador to the Congo?
China and Somalia have recently entered into a new fishing agreement, and Chinese vessels are increasingly accessing Somalia's waters and strategic coastline adjacent to the Red Sea. Why have we not confirmed Larry Andre, Jr., a career Foreign Service officer, as our Ambassador to Somalia?
China's influence is spread across the continent of Africa, including its Belt and Road Initiative, which is branded as a development initiative but being used by China to advance its own interests. Why have we not yet confirmed Elizabeth Aubin and Maria Brewer, two career Foreign Service officers, as our Ambassadors to Algeria and Lesotho, respectively?
I spoke on the Senate floor several months ago about Chinese influence in Cameroon. We have not had an American Ambassador in Cameroon in over a year. Why have we not yet confirmed Christopher John Lamora, a career Foreign Service officer, as our Ambassador to Cameroon?
Vietnam sits on the border of China. It is on the frontlines of Chinese coercion in the South China Sea. Why have we not yet confirmed Mark Knapper, a career Foreign Service officer, as our Ambassador to Vietnam?
Colleagues, each of these nominees I mentioned deserves to be confirmed today, and our national security interests demand it.
In pursuit of what I hope will be a recognition of that--because at some point, something is going to happen here in the world, in one of these countries or one of these regions. When it happens and we don't have our representative there, I think a Member who is objecting is going to have to live with that reality.
Let me ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consider the following nomination: Executive Calendar No. 336, Paloma Adams-Allen to be a Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development; that the nomination be confirmed; that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order in terms of the nomination; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.
I have remarks.
I ask that it be in order to make the same unanimous consent request to Calendar No. 337, Isobel Coleman to be Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Mr. President, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 323, Marcela Escobari, of Massachusetts, to be an Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development.
Mr. President, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 237, Tulinabo S. Mushingi, of Virginia, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Angola, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe.
Mr. President, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 238, Eugene S. Young, of New York, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of the Congo.
Mr. President, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 233, Larry Edward Andre, Jr., of Texas, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Federal Republic of Somalia.
Mr. President, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 234, Elizabeth Moore Aubin, of Virginia, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria.
Mr. President, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 235, Maria E. Brewer, of Virginia, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Lesotho.
Mr. President, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 236, Christopher John Lamora, of Rhode Island, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Cameroon.
Mr. President, I ask that it be in order to make the same request with respect to Executive Calendar No. 317, Marc Evans Knapper, of California, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Mr. President, the Senator from Missouri wants accountability. That is fine. But from a slew of
career Foreign Service officers who had absolutely nothing--nothing--to do with whatever decisions were made in Afghanistan, that is where the accountability is going to come from?
These are people who have committed their lives to serving the United States of America. They have committed their lives either in Republican or Democratic administrations. It doesn't matter. They carry out the mission of the United States and its foreign policy as dictated by the President and Congress. They had nothing--nothing--Sao Tome and Principe? The Congo? Somalia? Algeria? Lesotho? Cameroon? Vietnam?--to do with the decisions in Afghanistan. Yet they are the ones we are going to extract a pound of flesh of accountability from--on people who had absolutely nothing to do with the decisions on Afghanistan and who have committed their lives to the career Foreign Service. These aren't political nominees. These are career Foreign Service officers.
I heard my colleague talk about--that our enemies around the world are emboldened. Well, guess what. They are really going to be emboldened when we have no Ambassador to counter them in these countries, because they have gotten clear sailing. They can do whatever they want. They can talk to those heads of state.
There is no American Ambassador to go in and talk to that head of state and say: Mr. President or Mr. Prime Minister--whatever the title may be--don't make that choice. It would be a bad choice. We offer you a different alternative. We offer you a different set of principles, a different set of values--ones that would inure to the benefit of your country.
But no, there is no one from the United States of America who is going to be able to go into those countries and say any of that, because we are going to extract--when I say ``we,'' I should retract that. The Senator from Missouri wants to extract accountability on people who have done absolutely nothing as it relates to making these decisions.
When we have problems in this hemisphere with migration, I want my colleagues to know, who are objecting, that they will bear a significant part of the responsibility, because if we can't deal with the root causes to stop people from coming to our southern border, whether they be from Haiti or Central America or any other place, then we are going to continuously have a flow of people as they avoid disaster, civil conflict, authoritarian governments. But, if we had people in place to develop the plans and the programs and implement them so we could stop the flow and so we could create stability in Haiti--guess what--we are less likely to have people come to the southern border. But, no, we are going to extract accountability on people who have absolutely nothing to do with Afghanistan.
Not only is this shortsighted, but for those who stand on the Senate floor and talk about the national security of the United States, this hurts the national security of the United States. It hurts the national interests of the United States.
So I hope that there will be a reflection. Maybe there are better targets to pick than career Foreign Service officers in countries that have no decision, no policymaking on any of these issues that my colleague has a problem with. Maybe there are better ones to pursue.
In the absence of that, I will tell you there is going to be a rude awakening. Mark my words. I have been doing foreign policy for 30 years between the House and the Senate. It will happen sooner than you think, and you will remember this moment and wish you hadn't objected to some of these people.
I yield the floor.