Welcoming Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to the United States

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, on Friday this week, September 20, our country will be welcoming the top official of the country of Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who will be arriving in Washington, D.C.

It is an important event, I think, for both countries, because this alliance between our two countries is so deep and the bond is so strong. The times that we are living in are so critical in terms of, again, just reaffirming all of the work that our two countries do together in so many ways, whether it is in terms of our military alliance, intelligence, trade, our cultures in terms of everything from movies to literature to music. Again, it is a deep and rich bond between our two countries.

Mr. Speaker, during the August break, we had a bipartisan group, a number of us, who actually went to the country of Australia for a joint Members of Parliament/Members of Congress conference that took place in Perth, Australia. There were about a dozen Members, bicameral and bipartisan. I can tell you that the prognosis is very good in terms of the connection between our two countries.

As I said, the integration of our two militaries could not be deeper and more connected. Again, it is a relationship that goes back to World War I, when U.S. troops, the first group that arrived in the expeditionary force in World War I, actually fought under an Australian general, John Monash. Obviously, that carried through during World War II, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.

In Vietnam, they were our ally, one of the few that actually fought with our country during that conflict; and, obviously, in the Middle East, Australian troops have been part of, again, operations, to this day, between the two countries in terms of the fight against ISIS and others.

When we were in Australia, again, the situation that I think is most urgent and something I really think all of us need to pay attention to is that the environment in the Indo-Pacific region is changing dramatically.

We now have a leader in the country of China, Xi Jinping, who has declared himself President for life and who has openly and brazenly basically signaled that he is prepared to disregard all international rules-based order, which has really been the foundation of that region since the end of World War II, whether it is maritime law, where, again, they are building islands totally in violation of maritime law, or whether it is a claim of the Nine-Dash Line, which is a territorial claim far out into the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

Again, what is happening there is egregious. It is harmful in terms of safe passage and open lanes of maritime traffic in the region. They obviously are engaged in an unprecedented military buildup, again, developing missile technologies that put surface ships of both countries and others in the region at great risk.

So we have a lot of work to do.

Rare earth minerals, which, again, China dominates. They have a virtual monopoly. Everything from our cellphones to aerospace and maritime equipment require the use of that.

Western Australia, in particular, has deep deposits of rare earth minerals, and it is time for our two countries to work together to create a different supply chain that does not rely totally on the country of China to make that happen.

What we also heard was that the best way that our country can move forward is to really, I think, point to what makes us most attractive in the world today, which is our embrace of democracy, free speech, openness, and generosity.

Again, those are policies which we heard loud and clear from our colleagues in the Australian Parliament that they are looking to America, which has been the leader since the end of World War II, to promote, that type of international rules-based order.

That is really the question of the day for this administration, which is in a go-it-alone trade war with China. Again, they have got the symptom right, which is that China's behavior is egregious and malign, particularly in terms of the trade practices that they engage in, but the question is: How do you push back? How do you execute a policy that should be multilateral, collaborative with our allies, to make sure that the World Trade Organization actually has real teeth in terms of enforcing egregious violations that China has been engaged in in terms of intellectual property and government involvement in terms of trying to capture different markets like solar panels and many, many others?

So, again, I just want to say to our friends in Australia that they are welcome in this country. We look forward to, again, a very rich and strong alliance moving forward. The coequal branch of our government in Congress is part of that message and part of that policy.

Again, we look forward to many years of productive work together based on common values as well as common interests and, obviously, the embrace of democracy for the region and for the rest of the world.

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