During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) spoke about the Trump administration ending foreign aid and diplomacy programs in Africa.
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00:00Thank you very much Chairman, Risk Ranking Member Shaheen for this important full committee hearing and to the Ambassador and to Mr. Preservey thank you for your testimony. What I hear from both of you is more engagement not less. More of what we have done that works and that the abrupt and chaotic closure of a very wide range of our most effective tools for engaging with Africa from the MCC to YALI to the PEPFAR program puts all of this at risk.
00:29Mr. Chairman, if I might, given your opening comments in the exchange, I'd love to work with you on clarifying the U.S.-Kenya relationship. Their foreign minister and national security advisor were just here last week meeting with the president and folks at the White House and I agree with you that some of those statements with the PRC are very concerning given the deep and long relationship and the security relationship we have with regards to al-Shabaab in Somalia.
00:54It's disappointing to say the least.
00:55You referenced how important it is that there be more students from Africa coming to the United States. Well, I've got a solution for you. It's a 15-year-old program called the Young African Leaders Initiative that has sent 20,000 vetted promising African students to the United States.
01:13The University of Delaware happens to be one of the 20 hosting universities at a very modest cost that is about to be shut down.
01:21Not a good idea. It brings promising young African leaders to the United States for a summer to meet with businesses and entrepreneurs, to meet with civil society,
01:31to convene in Washington and then go to 20 different states all over the country.
01:35One of many things I don't think we should shut down. To the point you just made, Ambassador Gavin, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, MCC, launched under President Bush,
01:45explicitly used corruption and combating corruption, reducing corruption as one of the key indicators for whether or not a country would get a long-term development partnership with the United States.
01:57It is all but closed. Most of its staff have been laid off. Many of its compacts have been shut down.
02:04PEPFAR, Mr. Miservi, is all but closed. It has been trimmed dramatically from its scope. A 25-year-old program long deserving of bipartisan support.
02:15I would just be interested in both of you briefly saying what does it do to our reputation on a continent of 54 countries, a continent with enormous human potential and natural resources,
02:28a country that China and Russia see as the continent of the 21st century.
02:34What does it do to our place in East Africa and across the continent if we abruptly shut down these long-standing demonstrated and effective programs?
02:42Madam Ambassador and then Mr. Miservi.
02:45Thank you, Senator. It is incredibly self-defeating, is my view.
02:52I just don't understand why we are taking a bunch of tools in our foreign policy toolbox and tossing them into a dumpster.
03:00I think the term was a wood chipper.
03:03Okay. I suppose so.
03:06It's tougher to reassemble things that have been put through a wood chipper,
03:11than things that have gone through a reasoned considerable review,
03:16which is the process that we should have gone through,
03:19is to have this body, Congress, work with the new administration to say,
03:23okay, trim this, reform this, change this, shutter this, expand this.
03:28That's not what happened.
03:30No. No, it's not.
03:32And not only have we lit our credibility on fire,
03:37and you see particularly China making hay of this.
03:41The favorite phrase now is reliable partner.
03:44China's a reliable partner.
03:46They're not going to abruptly pull the rug out from under you.
03:49And I think that, you know, some of the kind of knock-on effects,
03:54consider the tens of thousands of health workers in Kenya who are out of work now.
04:03These are educated, engaged citizens.
04:08And, you know, the messaging we want to do about this long relationship with Kenya,
04:14it's at odds with their lived experience now.
04:18Indeed. I'm about out of time. I've got less than a minute.
04:20Sorry.
04:21Ms. Zervi, if I might.
04:22I do agree that a bright spot is the hard work done under the previous administration
04:27by Avril Haines in DRC Rwanda, and it's continuing under Special Advisor Boulos.
04:32There's a real chance of peace there.
04:34I can't think of a more concentrated example of the PRC-U.S. competition
04:39than the two adjacent bases in Djibouti.
04:42I've just introduced with Senator Ricketts a bill to try and prioritize focusing
04:47on denying the PRC more basing opportunities on the continent.
04:51What do you think we ought to make a priority in doing that important work?
04:56Yeah, thank you, Senator, and I'm very pleased to hear about the bill
05:00and your attention to this problem.
05:04I would especially highlight the danger of an Atlantic Ocean base.
05:08We know quite reliably that China has been pursuing such a base for years.
05:14It's not hard to see how problematic that would be for security of the American homeland.
05:21I mentioned in my original remarks that commercial engagement should be at the heart of a strategy.
05:33I think we need to start giving African countries more of what they want and less of what they don't.
05:39That seems like an obvious proposition, but frequently our Africa strategy doesn't seem to be guided by that principle.
05:44So the existential crisis that every African government faces is youth unemployment.
05:50And our development assistance and humanitarian assistance, as useful as that is in some contexts,
05:58is not going to address those problems.
06:00I do think that the Development Finance Corporation and the MCC really focused on private sector partnerships
06:07that fuel growth from the bottom up.
06:10I think to the extent we can focus our messaging, our investments, and our partnerships on combating corruption,
06:16on being a secure and reliable partner, and on helping create reliable, high-growth jobs,
06:21this continent of 4 billion people by the end of this century is a place where we can win in the competition with China.
06:28And if we don't, if we continue our retreat, we won't.
06:31Thank you both.
06:32Agreed.
06:33Thank you, Senator.
06:34Thank you, Senator.