John Garamendi: ‘The Trade War Significantly Diminishes Our Power Throughout The World’

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During a House Armed Services Committee hearing held before the congressional recess, Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) questioned Military officials about Trump's trade war.

Transcript

00:00Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you for your opening remarks as well as

00:07Ranking Member Smith about this set of issues. I'm going to very quickly Mr.

00:13Knoll your response to my colleague Courtney was totally inadequate. It was

00:19wrong. You've got to send back to the Secretary that the trade war significantly

00:27diminishes our power throughout the world. To do anything other than to send

00:33that message back is simply a dereliction of your duties as an acting assistant

00:39secretary. So be aware last night it appears as though Trump's tariff war

00:44seems to be at least in part a gambit to open negotiations with individual

00:49countries. His message last night to the Republican conference was to open those

01:00negotiations with this message, kiss my ass. You might ask the Secretary just how

01:08well will that work in maintaining good relationships that are absolutely

01:14essential in the Pacific. Don't expect a response but I expect you to do your job.

01:19Send the message back that these negotiations this trade war is a very

01:24serious challenge toward the Indo-Pacific region and other parts of the world.

01:31Now from my perspective this administration's approach to addressing

01:39China is reckless and misusing our national instruments of power. So Admiral

01:46Parpero let's talk about the Pacific Islands. Are they important in your

01:52strategies in the Pacific? Congressman just as in the Second World War the

01:59Pacific Island countries Guadalcanal throughout the Indo-Pacific to Bora Bora are

02:05important as well and that's why the People's Republic of China has efforts of

02:10elite capture of the attempted partnership with their security

02:14apparatuses and so on history on geography and on interests they're quite important.

02:19Good. Are we missing the opportunities with the trashing of USAID and also not

02:30using the Coast Guard to full effect in the Pacific Islands? The USAID aid is under

02:38review and I'll be advocating most strongly for that aid for for all of the

02:43countries and the Coast Guard provides a critical role in the South Pacific and

02:47that is counter lawfare counter illicit trafficking counter illegal illicit and

02:55unregulated fishing and those are key advantages. The Coast Guard is uniquely

03:00capable of doing that and they've done a wonderful job for us. Are they

03:04available 365 24-7? Presently they're on another task but and we're

03:13compensating for that with appropriate naval capabilities and air capabilities but

03:19they are quite they are quite critical to that mission. I'm told it costs about 140

03:24million dollars to have a Coast Guard cutter available operating in the Pacific

03:31Islands. Is that an investment that you're willing to make from the Pacific

03:35Defense Initiative? Yes sir. Thank you. I appreciate the direct response. 140 million.

03:44There's also issues of basing relationships with various ports in the

03:52Pacific. Will you be using the Defense Initiative to enhance those facilities that

03:58are necessary for the Navy as well as for the Coast Guard? Yes sir. Those bases,

04:03places, the airfields, the ports, the piers are absolutely critical. They're key to

04:09our principles of expanded maneuver that enables us to put geography to work to

04:14deter and if necessary to win. Good. I don't think I'll go back to the fact that

04:18we are imposing tariffs on islands that do not have any exports to the United

04:23States but that's another silly sloppy piece of work that the administration is

04:28doing with regard to the tariff issue. I want to spend a few moments on logistics.

04:38The support of the Navy, some of this came up with the military ships, the amphibs. Could

04:46you talk to us about the necessity of transcom and non-kinetic ships providing

04:53support in the Pacific? The combat logistics? I think we're going to take that in writing. My time has expired.

04:59Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.

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