Tammy Duckworth Questions Assistant Secretary Of State Nominee About His Past Work In Thailand

7 months ago

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) questioned Michael DeSombre, nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State.

Transcript

00:00ah senator you're up thank you mr chairman ambassador de sombre thank you for coming to

00:05speak with me in my office yesterday i'll jump right in to follow up with our conversation

00:11if confirmed it will be your responsibility to fight for the people and programs under eap

00:16and based on your past experience in the business world and as ambassador to thailand i think you

00:20will be very well positioned to do so we talked about how your experience in bangkok gives you

00:26particularly good insight into the value of the interagency presence in the region can you

00:31elaborate a little bit on some of your positive examples of leveraging that interagency effectively

00:36like the us tda the ic law enforcement and how you'd like to empower our missions in the region

00:42to continue that work senator thank you very much for the question again thank you for making yourself

00:47and your staff available to meet yesterday and also for obviously your support last time when i was up

00:52for nomination i appreciate that as well um yeah the the nature of our presence overseas is is very

00:59important and the interagency aspect of that can be very valuable uh some examples in thailand for

01:03example we have the international law enforcement academy in thailand and very significant law enforcement

01:08cooperation in various different arms of both the thai law enforcement but also regional law enforcement

01:13that come to thailand to train at the ilia academy is a great example of ways that we can increase

01:19connectivity and also promote more appropriate law activities by and you know by by police officers

01:25and and law enforcement agencies um on the economic front uh from the deal team perspective i use with

01:31ustda quite substantially particularly on the lines of effort on infrastructure and aerospace and defense

01:37and ways that we could get uh you know studies done that could show the feasibility of various different

01:43projects and i mean there's the list goes on and on there's lots of things that we can do together

01:48and i believe that that will be my role in eap to really make sure that we do that in all the

01:52countries around eap thank you um similarly there's an actually a quite a sizable american population

01:59throughout uh the asia pacific region folks who need access to u.s citizen services and american

02:04businesses who are trying to operate on a level playing field in the region how do you quantify the

02:10value of retaining an active presence across this large region and the economic value of business deals

02:15that are facilitated by our embassies and consulates i mean basically how do we make sure that our

02:19foreign service professionals are given credit for the work they do that directly contributes to

02:23american prosperity senator it's a very good question and clearly the safety and security of americans

02:29overseas is one of the top priority of the state department and ensuring that they have sufficient

02:32access to uh consular services and others is critically important and is something that we need to

02:37ensure happens obviously some countries are more densely populated and have more americans than others and so

02:44where we have those services is something that we obviously need to to look at from time to time

02:49but uh i definitely believe that that's important both in terms of the services for the american

02:54citizens but also for promoting the commercial activities of american businesses in those countries

02:58as well thank you um touching on another issue related to our nation's prosperity a real economic issue

03:04that impacts folks here at home although they may not all realize the connection is the prevalence of

03:09these cyber scam centers that are targeting americans a lot of them are originating throughout southeast

03:14asia can you talk about what types of existing authorities you can use to help address this issue if

03:19confirmed and any actions we can take on a multilateral or bilateral basis senator thank you very much i

03:25i am very much aware of those cyber scams obviously the countries of particularly burma cambodia and lao

03:30are where many of them occur i understand that over 10 billion dollars has been lost of cyber scams by u.s

03:36citizens so you're absolutely correct this is a critical issue and something we need to try to

03:40address and something i will if confirmed look into the the best way of addressing it we clearly have

03:46ability to go after individuals that are violating your laws and and be able to do that obviously

03:52sometimes that may not have great effect if they're in a country that we i can't do anything about

03:55them while they're there but i think in those countries for example greater in cooperation in the law

04:03enforcement area so they can improve their capacity to enforce their laws because in many circumstances

04:07these are happening either with or without the consent or approval of the relevant country they're

04:12happening there and sometimes increasing law enforcement cooperation to increase capacity could be

04:16one way that we might think about addressing it thank you look the united states is a pacific nation

04:22people forget that um and the ap is full of critical allies and partners i hope to see that reflected

04:27in how we prioritize our engagement and empower our people overseas if you're confirmed i hope you and i can

04:32work together to make that happen through strong coordination and collaboration between the executive

04:36and legislative branches and i hope that you'll make yourself available to me in my office as uh once

04:40you're confirmed senator duckworth thank you very much for that and i definitely uh will intend to

04:45cooperate with this committee on all matters and i agree completely that eap is a priority region and i think uh

04:50as has been stated i mean china is the pacing threat and we need to address that thank you are you're back mr chairman

04:56thank you mr chairman and uh congratulations gentlemen on your nominations um mr pratt let me start with you um

Tammy Duckworth Questions Assistant Secretary Of State Nominee About His Past Work In Thailand

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