00:00We will now consider log number 5582 by Mr. Smith.
00:05For what purposes does the ranking member seek recognition?
00:07I have an amendment at the desk, Mr. Chairman.
00:09Will the clerk please distribute the amendment without objection?
00:12The reading of the amendment is dispensed with.
00:14The chair now recognizes the ranking member for the purpose of explaining his amendment.
00:17Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:18I will attempt to be brief.
00:19This is an amendment basically to prohibit the Department of Defense, the president,
00:23from using military force to grab territory from Canada, Panama, or Greenland.
00:30We will remember during the hearing, Secretary Hanks asked,
00:34despite Mr. Turner's noble efforts to try to give him an opportunity to say so,
00:38would not deny that they had a plan to use the U.S. military to by force take land from any one of those three places.
00:49I think that is a very bad idea.
00:53for a number of reasons.
00:55Most importantly, it has been a cornerstone of our foreign policy since the end of World War I
01:00to try and put in place a rules-based international order.
01:04Now, I understand that is not perfect and certainly hasn't been perfect,
01:08but it is an incredibly important principle of international law that really didn't used to exist.
01:13Fascinating article in Foreign Affairs just last month outlining the history of it.
01:17And prior to World War II, it was kind of accepted that if countries wanted to take land, international law allowed them to do so.
01:24Changing that has given us the most peaceful 80 years in the history of human civilization.
01:31I know it may not seem like it, but by comparison, it is.
01:34If we, the United States of America, who was most responsible for positing that change in international law, just shredded to go after Canada, Greenland and Panama,
01:47we are jeopardizing the very global security system that we put in place and offering justifications to Putin and Xi and others who want to do the same thing.
01:58It is horrible to talk about that as the president has.
02:03It's horrible that the Secretary of Defense did not even deny that there was potentially plans to do it.
02:09Now, the argument will be made, well, you never know.
02:12Okay, do we really want to tie the president's hands in terms of using military engagement?
02:18And I will, you know, admit I'm fond of the phrase, the future is notoriously hard to predict.
02:24But I will say that I'm going to go out on a limb on this one and say that we are not going to be militarily threatened by Canada, Panama, or Denmark through Greenland.
02:36That's not going to happen.
02:38And the risk of allowing a policy to stay out there that we think it is acceptable to threaten weaker neighbors, because that's all we're doing.
02:46There's no national security threat here.
02:48They don't threaten us at all.
02:49We merely, they have something that we want, so we've decided that it is okay to use force to threaten them, which makes us no better than Putin, because that's exactly what he's doing in Ukraine and the threats that he's giving to other countries.
03:02This is a policy that I think this committee should stand for.
03:06We should stand up for the principles of international law and not threaten our partners and allies just because we think we can.
03:15I yield back.
03:15The gentleman yields back, Chair, and I recognize this as himself.
03:19Despite my enormous respect for the ranking member, I see this as a messaging amendment that has real-world consequences.
03:27It would tie our military's hands in a crisis.
03:30We'd be prevented from honoring our NATO Article 5 commitments if Greenland or Canada were, in fact, attacked.
03:36Worse, we would be unable to defend our own troops if our base in Greenland came under fire or U.S. forces were targeting while transiting the Panama Canal.
03:46We'd be forced to stand down.
03:48Even rescuing American hostages in danger would be off the table.
03:51Leaving American citizens and service members exposed is unacceptable.
03:56Therefore, I respectfully have to oppose my friend's amendment.
04:00I would like to recognize the gentlelady from New Jersey.
04:02Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
04:04I'm supporting this amendment because I agree with the ranking member that normalizing the idea that a country can simply annex another country will lead to further destabilization and is against the rules and norms of the international community.
04:17And I yield back.
04:18Gentlelady yields back.
04:19Chair, and I recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. Jacobs.
04:22Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
04:24Honestly, I can't even believe we're debating this.
04:26Like, this is too crazy even to be a Veep storyline, and yet here we are.
04:33This is not a strategically sound military decision that anyone should actually make.
04:38First of all, it's unnecessary and risks destabilizing the region, antagonizing Denmark, an ally, and provoking our adversaries into increasing their own Arctic footprint.
04:48No current threat justifies a deployment of U.S. troops.
04:51We already have the Patufic space base that meets our current defense needs, and we don't need an aggressive posture there.
04:58And Greenland, unlike its name would suggest, is cold throughout the year.
05:02It's remote.
05:03It's cold.
05:04And contrary to what Vice President Vance seems to believe, Patufic space base can't accommodate an endless number of U.S. troops beyond the ones that are already there.
05:13Maybe he would know that if anyone had agreed to meet with him.
05:16Any increased presence would be costly, logistically challenging, and a hardship to the military families forced to deploy there.
05:24Deploying U.S. troops would be a waste of time, a waste of resources, and a waste of money.
05:29So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to prevent such a silly deployment.
05:36I yield back.
05:37Generality yields back.
05:38Gentleman from Connecticut.
05:40Mr. Courtney is recognized.
05:41Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
05:42I yield to Mr. Smith.
05:44I do realize that this is probably not the decisive factor.
05:47But nothing in this amendment says that we can't defend these territories or that we can't come to their aid.
05:55It just says that we can't use our military force to seize their territory.
06:00So I disagree with the chairman's interpretation of that.
06:03This is about preventing us from seizing territory through military force.
06:08It does not prevent us from meeting our treaty commitments or defending our allies, which would be a preferable approach.
06:16I yield back.
06:17I yield.
06:17Gentleman yields back.
06:19Chairman, I recognize this gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Bacon.
06:21Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
06:22Chairman, I would submit if we did a sense of Congress saying we disagreed with the comments about Canada, Greenland, Denmark, Panama, that that would address the concerns that we have about the president's comments, but would also address the chairman's concerns about tying our hands for hostages and things like that.
06:42But, you know, I share the concerns from the ranking member of the comments made.
06:46I know many businesses in Omaha who have lost business with Canadian clients because they're angry at us.
06:55We're seeing a decrease in Canadian tourists coming here.
06:58I have personal friends in Denmark.
07:02The Danes have lost more people per capita in Afghanistan.
07:06Of all the countries in Europe fighting by our side, they felt very hurt by the comments of our administration.
07:12So I think it would be fair game to say we disagree with the comments.
07:16These are our allies as a sense of Congress without tying our hands in some of the scenarios that the chairman meant or the chairman said.
07:25I yield.
07:26Gentleman yields back.
07:28Gentleman, gentlelady from Washington, to recognize Ms. Strickland.
07:31Thank you, Chairman.
07:32The fact that we are even having to have this conversation is absurd.
07:37And under any other president, Democrat or Republican, we wouldn't have to bring this forward.
07:44But here we are with this administration and words that get thrown out there.
07:49I was on a CODEL with Leader Jeffries and a group of folks, and we were in Denmark, among other cities.
07:55And when we did the presser, the entire Danish press had one question that kept coming up with every outlet.
08:03Are you going to do something if President Trump tries to invade Greenland?
08:09Will Congress try to stop them?
08:11This is a big concern to them.
08:13So even though we say to ourselves, well, he just said that, he really doesn't mean it.
08:18You just don't know what to expect with this administration.
08:21Again, any other president, Democrat or Republican, this would not be necessary.
08:26But there's an issue of trust.
08:28There's an issue of credibility.
08:29And we have to make sure that we are standing with our allies.
08:32I yield back.
08:33Gentleman yields back.
08:34Gentleman from California.
08:36Mr. Khan is recognized.
08:37Mr. Chairman, my biggest concern with the annexation is not simply the violation of the international
08:45rule of law, as Ranking Member Smith says, but also that it is a fundamental misunderstanding
08:51of power in the 21st century.
08:55I mean, power in the 19th century was about the acquisition of land.
08:59And if President Trump was born at the time of James Polk, maybe he would have been a great
09:04president.
09:05But power in the 21st century is about technology leadership.
09:09It is about having supply chains.
09:12It is about leading in biotechnology, in quantum computing, in electric vehicles.
09:17And I would submit that the most important article yesterday in the New York Times was by David
09:22Otter, an MIT professor, who says we're losing to China on industry after industry in terms
09:28of building our economic power.
09:30So, to me, this is just a distraction of a nation that would be in decline if we don't
09:37reverse our industrial policy and our technology leadership.
09:42Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
09:44Gentleman yields back.
09:46Gentleman cheering.
09:46I recognize the gentleman from Georgia.
09:48Mr. Scott.
09:48Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
09:50I'll be brief about this.
09:52But I think this hits on one of the points that President Trump has been trying to make
09:57that nobody is paying attention to.
09:59If you look at Canada, they spend about 1.5 percent of their GDP on defense, somewhere
10:04less than $30 billion.
10:05The fact of the matter is, they're totally dependent upon the United States to protect
10:09them if somebody attacks them.
10:12These other countries, like Canada, have got to reach closer to the 5 percent and help with
10:17the security of the world.
10:19So, I mean, there's no plan to invade Canada.
10:23But the fact of the matter is, if anybody invaded Canada, they would be totally dependent upon
10:28the U.S. to defend them because they have not done their job in building their own...
10:35Sure.
10:35So, you're saying that basically this is just telling Canada, hey, if you don't get
10:39your stuff together, we're coming for you.
10:41No, we don't want them.
10:44We don't want any more liberals in this country.
10:47We're trying to export.
10:48We're trying to export people that think like that.
10:51But back to the...
10:54It's a serious issue that the rest of the...
10:57A large portion of the rest of the world, including Canada, has become dependent upon
11:01the United States taxpayer to cover their back.
11:05Canada and the majority of the countries of the world are not putting in what it takes
11:09to have reasonable defense mechanisms against aggression.
11:12And they, I believe, have the second lowest percentage of contributions of GDP in NATO, below 2%.
11:23I think there are two countries below 2% and NATO is one of them.
11:26With that, I yield.
11:28The gentleman yields back.
11:29Does any other member wish to speak on this amendment?
11:32There will be no further debate.
11:34The question occurs on the amendment offered by Mr. Smith.
11:36I also mean, if you're in favor, we'll say aye.
11:38Aye.
11:39Those opposed, no.
11:40No.
11:40The Chair, the no's have it.
11:41Recorded votes requested.
11:42Recorded vote will be postponed.
Comments