'Really Invaluable': Marco Rubio Asked To Work With Congress To Strengthen The Fulbright Program

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At a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) questioned Sec. Marco Rubio about strengthening the Fulbright Scholarship program.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's good to have you, Mr. Secretary. We're very proud of you,

00:06but we do miss having you around very much. I want to follow up a little bit about some

00:13of the path that Senator Moran was going down about food aid. In the process of reworking

00:23the programs, could you speak to how the State Department is coordinating with other agencies

00:28like USDA regarding setting up a new foreign assistance framework? And can you also speak,

00:35I know you've been very, very supportive of the American farmer, as is the President,

00:40how that this can enhance American farmers markets. Well, first of all, and I think this

00:46committee probably understands it, but others perhaps don't fully appreciate. We actually do

00:51foreign aid across multiple other agencies as well. So USAID does some, HHS does some. So there are

00:57other agencies that do. So that's a process we intend to look at and see if there's some

01:01duplication there that we can avoid and perhaps increase our efficiency in regards to delivering

01:05services. In the case of food aid in particular, Secretary Rollins, we've been in touch with her

01:11team and obviously we've done a lot of reform and a lot of change over the last few months. So this is

01:17one that is a little further behind. But I think the intent is to find a way that we can leverage what

01:22USAID is already doing, USDA is already doing to enhance how we provide food assistance around the

01:30world in a way that benefits the American farmer but also fulfills our desire to provide assistance

01:36around the world where needed and where it furthers our national interest. Good, very good. Let me talk to

01:41you a little bit about the Fulbright program. And the Fulbright alumni, 44 Fulbright alumni have served as heads

01:53of sight in government. 89 foreign governments contribute over 90 million dollars annually. I know

01:59in my travels and your traveling so extensively now and have been for many, many years, it seems like every

02:07time that you're in a foreign country and you're visiting with the cabinet members, you know, half of

02:12them are Fulbright scholars and they're very, very proud of it. 49 governments match or exceed the US

02:22government's annual contribution. I guess the question is, would you be willing to work with us to find a

02:29solution that strengthens the program and yet fits into today's challenges which are different than they

02:38have been in the past? But the opportunity for the leadership of these other countries across the ranks

02:48to have them such that they're very, very familiar with the United States in that way I think is really

02:55invaluable. Well, and I think that's most certainly going to be a part of our processes. You know,

02:59we're at the beginning of this appropriations process going into the new year. We have a

03:02submission we've made to you, a preliminary submission. Obviously, I served here long enough

03:07to know that you'll have your own set of ideas about what the priorities should be and what we should

03:12be looking to do and we understand that and we'll work very closely with you on those priorities because

03:16in the end we'll tell you what we need in order to run our agency and then you'll tell us what we

03:20need as well. That's the way it worked in the 15 years I was here, 16. I imagine that's the way it'll continue

03:25to work. I do think ultimately we want to do is share the same goal and we owe you that document

03:30as a starting point and I wanted to interlace it with the org chart. Again, I know some people don't

03:35want to talk about reorganization but I do think they're intertwined and they're deeply important.

03:39Not that they don't want to talk about it but they want to separate one from the other.

03:42But look, we're going to be engaged with you in this appropriations process because I think it's

03:46beneficial to us but also because we have to because ultimately you will write that and I think the

03:51department will be stronger if you can pass an appropriations bill and get it through the other

03:56house and have it signed by the president. We want you to be able to pass an appropriations bill.

04:00Yeah, very much. One of the things in traveling, you know, you're there, you get the in-country

04:06team briefing and stuff and you're just wondering, you know, what the state department's doing

04:12to further U.S. economic interest, including advocating for U.S. businesses abroad. Can you tell us

04:19kind of what your ideas are in that regard? Well, it's a mission that we have in this

04:25reorganization. The economics team will really focus on it, but it is a mission we have to try

04:30to connect American companies to business opportunities abroad. And in many of the countries

04:35around the world that you go to, particularly those that are developing, maybe not underdeveloped,

04:39but developing countries, they seek American expertise. Where we have seen barriers to entry in

04:44some countries manifest in one of two ways. The first is, frankly, there are a lot of countries

04:49that are open to American investment, but they don't have strong rule of law. By that I mean,

04:53you can sign a contract with them, but if a month later someone else's cousin gets elected

04:58judge or mayor, someone will come knocking on your door and saying, this business no longer belongs

05:02to you, it belongs to us. So there's that sense. In some cases, it's security. They just feel

05:09that there's not enough security in the country for them to make long-term investments. And in other

05:13cases, frankly, we have competitors that bribe foreign officials. We lose business opportunities

05:21because someone shows up with a bag of cash, and that's unlawful and illegal for an American

05:25business to do. That said, we are constantly looking for opportunities where American expertise

05:31can provide resources. One of the areas we're seeing a lot of that now is in the mining of rare

05:35earth minerals, where multiple countries are lining up to invite American companies to come in

05:39and do that sort of mining in an ecologically responsible way, not in a destructive way to

05:44their natural environment. We think that's a huge opportunity as well for the US. And again,

05:49we want that going back as it's a broken record. But these are the kinds of opportunities that are

05:54driven from the local level up when you get these cables saying the local government or local economy is

05:59looking for greater US investment in this sector. It allows us to partner with companies here that are

06:06looking for expansion abroad and hopefully create those opportunities for them.

06:10Very good. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you.

06:12Thank you. Senator Sheen.

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