S.J. RES. 54--MOTION TO DISCHARGE--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Presiding Officer.

Mr. President, I just returned from a trip to a major transatlantic conference in Europe. While the Europeans have spent a lot of time over the course of the last 12 months hand-wringing about whether the United States is committed to Europe, committed to NATO, committed to our common defense, my feeling upon going to Brussels for this particular conference is, they are kind of over the hand-wringing. They are now just making plans to move on without us. They are making plans to protect themselves without us. They are making plans to set the rules of the road economically, politically, and culturally around the world without the United States. The evidence of that was very clear.

The Europeans are setting up something called the European Defense Initiative, in which they are going to start doing military planning and purchasing outside of NATO because they are just not convinced, not confident that the United States is going to be seriously engaged in NATO. That compromises our security as the Europeans start to make plans for their defense without us, even though we still have an obligation under the treaty to protect them.

Over and over, you see the world moving on as they watch this massive withdrawal of America from the world. The President said at a rally in Alabama a few months ago that the world is starting to respect the United States of America again. That could not be further from the truth. The Pew organization charts other countries' opinions of the United States. It also charts whether other countries believe the United States is going to act in the best interests of the world. The numbers are, frankly, startling.

Of the 37 countries they surveyed, only two of them have higher confidence in the United States under Trump than they did under Obama. One is a rather statistically significant increase, that being Russia, which by 42 percentage points is more confident that the United States is going to act in that country's best interests. South Korea had 88 percent confidence under Obama and has 17 percent confidence under Trump. Canada had 83 percent confidence under Obama and has 22 percent confidence under Trump. Germany is 86 to 11. They have come to this belief because, as my colleagues have mentioned, the Trump administration had signaled its unwillingness to try to set a moral tone for the world in the way that it budgets. The budget they presented to us reduces accounts dedicated to countering Russian aggression around its periphery by 63 percent. It is a clear telegraph to Europe that they are on their own, that countries that are trying to fight back against a country that wants to reestablish a new version of the Soviet Empire will have no help from the United States.

In this budget, the National Endowment for Democracy is cut by $100 million. It is no secret that countries like Hungary and Poland are starting to slip away from traditional democratic norms. Countries like the Philippines are doing the same because there is not a moral force here in the United States committing to bring them closer to the ideals of participatory democracy.

There is a $1.6 billion cut in humanitarian aid, telling the rest of the world: If you want to solve these enormous problems of humanitarian catastrophe--famine and refugee displacement--you can't look to us anymore. You are on your own again.

There is a 35-percent cut in overall international narcotics and law enforcement funding, just at a time when record amounts of fentanyl are finding their way into the United States.

The moment of panic is over for the world. They have watched this administration walk away from its traditional obligations to try to stand up for the rule of law, to try to promote democracy and human rights, and to try to protect America's interests and our allies. They are simply making other plans. I hope the next administration will be able to correct that, but those plans are hard to break once they are made.

I hope Republicans and Democrats will stand up to make sure that America does not become any weaker in the world than it already is today, 15 months into this administration. We are less safe as a nation because of this wholesale withdrawal from the global stage. It is not too late to try to turn it around.

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