During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) spoke about encouraging foreign students from allied nations to study in the United States.
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00:00Good morning. Thank you for being here and congratulations on your nomination.
00:09Mr. DiDono, I wanted to ask you about nuclear proliferation specifically. One of the things
00:19that President Trump has made very clear is that he expects our NATO allies in Europe to do more
00:25for their own self-defense, and I agree with that wholeheartedly. But it's going to take a while
00:34for them to step up and create the industrial base to produce weapons to build their military
00:42and the like. In the meantime, we're seeing concerning announcements from everybody from
00:49President Zelensky to the new chancellor of Germany to the president of Poland talking
00:57about, well, maybe they need to acquire nuclear weapons in order to defend themselves against
01:03the existential threat of Russia. What do you think the right answer is to prevent proliferation?
01:13Of course, you know and I know it won't stop there. Other countries around the world, if they have
01:19concerns about whether the United States will come to their aid, they figure they better do whatever
01:29they need to do to survive. Thank you for the question, Senator. I think the best answer to those
01:36concerns that I've seen in the press reports is a robust extended deterrence and American allied assurance
01:43policy. During my service in the previous Trump administration, we did exactly that. There's no
01:50substitute for diplomacy. If I'm confirmed, that'll be a top priority of mine to reassure allies and
01:59partners that the United States will stand shoulder to shoulder with them. I watched Secretary Rubio and
02:06Ambassador Whitaker at NATO this past week, giving those extremely strong support to the alliance,
02:12while calling on them to do more. I would also note in my preparation for this hearing, I noticed last
02:18week that the Dutch, the Danish Navy, excuse me, announced procuring 25 new naval ships and platforms
02:26and underwater unmanned systems and those sort of things. That's in two months since President Trump's
02:31been elected. So what he's doing is working and I look forward to confirm to doing more.
02:36Yes, I'm encouraged when I see our NATO allies stepping up and doing more, but I'm also worried that
02:45when we hear them talk about maybe the the new chancellor of Germany said maybe we have to share our
02:51nuclear weapons with Ukraine.
03:00Ms. Hooker, the role of soft power, I guess it was actually Ms. Rogers, I guess, excuse me,
03:09you were the one who was talking about the importance of soft power. One of the things that I noticed when
03:15I traveled with Senator Shaheen and Senator Cain in South and Central and South America is obviously
03:22China is on the march in South America and Central America and one of the ways that we've
03:30it was interesting the contrast between my most recent visit and previous visits is in many instances
03:36the heads of state of many of these countries had studied in the United States. So they learned
03:42about us, they learned about our values, and they were a friend of the United States. And it seems like
03:52over the last recent years we've had as many as 300,000 Chinese students in the United States which
03:58is a cause for concern particularly when they're studying things like nuclear physics and the like.
04:04But what could we do to encourage more foreign students from key allies and developing nations to
04:13come to the United States to learn more about us and for us to learn more about them?
04:19Ms. Thank you Senator for that question. As I noted in my opening testimony these foreign exchange
04:25programs are really some of our strongest soft power assets and they're great human capital investments too.
04:30I think by this administration's attentiveness to the vetting process for student visas and other visas
04:38we ensure we do the utmost to ensure the quality of every single person we let in which bolsters the
04:43quality of the success of these programs and I think telling the American story highlighting American
04:49excellence highlighting American innovation creating a safe strong prosperous America will be you know will
04:55be the city on a hill that others will want to visit and learn from and be part of and I think
05:00we'll see those fruits manifest in our in our exchange programs and elsewhere.
05:05Ms. Hooker, how would you deal with Mexico?
05:09Thank you Senator for that question. Well the President and the Secretary have begun to
05:16take great and do a lot of work on Mexico obviously with the upcoming USMCA
05:21review and the other work that's being done to secure our borders. Mexico is an incredibly important
05:29partner for the United States. If confirmed I look forward to working with the Secretary to ensure
05:35that the diplomacy that needs to be done to secure our southern border is done and that our trade
05:40relationship is balanced and even and made reciprocal. I look forward if confirmed to communicating with
05:47you on that if you have other issues you'd like for me to look into. But thank you for the question.
05:55Mr. Senator Cain.
05:58Mr. Senator Cain.
06:00Mr. Senator Cain.
06:02Mr. Senator Cain.
06:04Mr. Senator Cain.
06:06Mr. Senator Cain.
06:08Mr. Senator Cain.
06:10Mr. Senator Cain.
06:12Mr. Senator Cain.
06:14Mr. Senator Cain.
06:16Mr. Senator Cain.
06:18Mr. Senator Cain.
06:20Mr. Senator Cain.
06:22Mr. Senator Cain.