During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last week, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) spoke about the United States' posture in South East Asia.
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00:00Colonel Rayburn, I've known you as a soldier, as a gentleman, as a man whose
00:10integrity is beyond reproach, and I am more than willing to personally vouch for
00:16your character and your integrity here today for all of my colleagues. I am
00:22extremely troubled by any attempt to somehow use guilt by association with
00:28someone that you may have been as a soldier working with, but certainly not
00:32responsible for comments they may have made to the media, etc. You have been one
00:37of the most loyal members of the former Trump administration and made
00:41significant contributions. I'd just like to open the floor to you. What would you
00:44consider your greatest contribution during the first Trump administration to
00:48our national security? Senator, I thank you for the opportunity to say that. You're
00:54absolutely right. In the first Trump administration, during the campaign for
01:02president and during the current administration, even in my capacity as a
01:07private citizen, I support the president's policies 100%. I supported the
01:11president's policies and his ideas for America since he first announced his
01:17candidacy in 2015. I was very proud of the opportunity that I had during the first
01:22Trump administration to serve on the National Security Council staff to try to
01:26bring fresh eyes to the the most critical national security problems that
01:32we faced. I would just say that one of the greatest achievements that I think
01:37President Trump could point to in his first term were the Abraham Accords and you
01:42played a critical role there. Could you give us and enlighten the committee here a bit
01:46about what you what you can say? Absolutely, Senator. I mean there were many people who
01:51contributed and led on the Abraham Accords. I was proud to play a small part both in
01:55the run-up to the Abraham Accords and then in my role as at the State Department in
01:59the Near East Bureau at the time and playing a supporting role and including by for
02:04a senator taking the necessary step of implementing the president's policy to
02:11show that we were willing to neutralize the threat from the Iranian regime in
02:18order to create the political space for our other allies and partners to make the
02:22historic agreements to reach peace between Arab partners and and our Israeli
02:29allies to to so that they could they could take the political they could be
02:34confident and take the political risk that they had to take in order to make
02:37those concessions to work with our Israeli allies to work with our with our Arab
02:42partners and allies to bring that about. I was very proud of that and still am. I am too. When I
02:48served as ambassador I worked very hard to get secondary sanctions of sanctions
02:52imposed in Iran. I did it with Japan. We stopped their purchases of energy from
02:56Iran. Maximum pressure actually worked. You worked on the prosperity piece of that
03:00equation and and the the resolve that was demonstrated by America under President
03:04Trump with your able assistance I think made a massive contribution and I just
03:09want to be clear that those contributions should be viewed in light of who you are
03:14and certainly any attempt to try to tie you to somebody else that is not you
03:20someone you might have reported to because that was the chain of command
03:23that you respect as a soldier I think is wholly inappropriate and again I
03:27encourage my colleagues here in the committee to to look at the fine person
03:31that's sitting before us and his qualifications as an individual. Ambassador
03:35Sombra I'd like to turn to you. Your charge as head of East Asia Pacific
03:41Fair should you be confirmed is going to be one of the most challenging parts of
03:45the world. I know that you've had a lot of time to consider this you've lived in
03:49the region you've worked in the region you understand the culture but I'd
03:53certainly like to get your thoughts in terms of your priorities specifically with
03:57respect to economic prosperity and how you might use that tool LNG comes to mind
04:03but but but but other ideas that you may have in terms of strengthening our
04:07posture in the region. Senator thank you very much for that question this was
04:11indeed one of my top priorities when I was ambassador to Thailand was to
04:15strengthen the economic partnership in Thailand and use all the toolkit that we
04:18have at our our our availability which a lot of that includes the strength of our
04:23US companies and getting them to be able to find opportunities. I actually
04:27rolled out a deal team process in Thailand where I took interagency people who
04:32across four different industries health care pharma technology technology
04:36technology and infrastructure aerospace and defense and I guess fourth one is
04:43technology again and you know managed to push opportunities to really make sure
04:50that the deal team was looking at any opportunity for American companies to come
04:54into Thailand and opportunities for Thai companies to also come back to America for
04:57investments and you're absolutely right LNG was actually an interest one or
05:00in that case natural gas because there's a big gas field between Thailand and
05:04Vietnam that currently is not exploited because of overlapping claims issues
05:08between ownership of that between Taiwan and between Thailand and in Cambodia and
05:14so trying to solve those issues and helping them develop their own resources while
05:17using American companies like Chevron and others to be involved in that so my plan is
05:22to roll out those sorts of initiatives across all of EAP and really make sure that we use
05:26commercial diplomacy to try to strengthen relationships between all Asian
05:30countries and America thank you ambassador Sarah Rosen well thank you mr. chairman
05:37really appreciate everyone holding this hearing I want to thank our witnesses for
05:42testifying today your families and friends that are here with you your
05:45willingness to serve and mr. Rayburn thank you for meeting