Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. OGLES. Madam Chair, under section 706-1 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for fiscal year 2003, the President is authorized to identify a list of countries that are major drug transit or major illicit drug production countries, also known as the majors list.

China was added to the majors list in September, citing the PRC's role in the production of precursor chemicals used to produce illicit drugs.

We have, sadly, seen the impact of Chinese fentanyl in real time. Overdose deaths in my beloved home State of Tennessee have increased by 200 percent over the last 5 years, driven in part by a near-doubling of fentanyl seizures at the southwest border from fiscal year 2022 to 2023, 14,700 pounds versus 27,000 pounds.

While Joe Biden did add China to the so-called majors list, that designation came with a caveat. The President effectively said that despite overdose deaths regularly topping 100,000 a year, he was only adding China to the list because of the statutory definition of major drug source countries. It was expanded to include source countries for precursor chemicals.

Biden also said that it is hard for large countries with significant chemical and pharmaceutical industries to prevent precursors from being diverted to the production of illicit drugs. The President even brought up an argument saying that it is hard for the U.S. to do it.

It may be hard, Madam Chair, but we do do it. I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. OGLES. Madam Chair, I appreciate my colleague's comments, but the pressure being applied by this administration is clearly ineffective. Just ask the families of the kids in my State or your State or his State who have overdosed because of the moral equivocation that Joe Biden has displayed between China and the United States.

It is why we need to ensure that he is not tempted to remove China from the majors list. If he reluctantly put China on that list, Congress must make sure that he doesn't go back on his word.

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Mr. OGLES. Madam Chair, again, I appreciate my colleague, and I do agree on the urgency of the situation. Extreme times sometimes require extreme measures. It is important that we dot the i, cross the t, and underline and underscore that this is a crisis in our country.

Tonight, somewhere in my home State, someone will overdose because of fentanyl. Someone in your home State will overdose because of fentanyl. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has allowed the border to be wide open, overrun, and unmanned. That is unacceptable.

Madam Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. OGLES. Madam Chair, if you want to come up with the right policy position on any issue related to foreign affairs, talk to Antony Blinken first and then do the opposite.

We have all seen the Secretary's inability to be correct about our major foreign policy concerns in the last 20 years, whether it be Iraq, Libya, or Yemen, giving the Iranians access to tens of billions of dollars, or the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan.

He is undoubtedly one of the most professionally incompetent individuals to hold the title of Secretary of State. If incompetence by itself were a sufficient ground to remove a Senate-confirmed Cabinet official, the President would have very few advisers left.

In the case of Secretary Blinken, it is more than just about incompetence. It is about corruption.

We have long since learned from former Acting CIA Director Mike Morell that the infamous ``spies who lie'' letter, an event responsible for Donald Trump not being President today, was led by no one less than Antony Blinken. The letter, signed by 51 intelligence experts, was intended, according to Morell, to give Joe Biden a way to refute the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of a Presidential debate in September 2020.

You would think this would be worthy of investigation if not outright impeachment.

We just found out that at least two signatories of the ``spies who lie'' letter, Michael Morell and David Buckley, were actively working for the CIA as contractors. Think about that. The CIA contractors colluding with the Biden campaign to discredit Hunter Biden's laptop story were getting paid with Federal tax dollars.

The Secretary has also, in perhaps the second highest profile instance during his tenure aside from our botched Afghanistan withdrawal, failed to sufficiently demonstrate America's resolve against terrorist thugs.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, set to address this Chamber next month, expressed concerns about the administrative bottlenecks preventing weapons from arriving in Israel. The White House initially withheld approved weapons sales to Israel, including F-15s, mortars, tank rounds, and Joint Direct Attack Munition smart bomb kits. Thankfully, and finally, 50 F-15s are now on their way in support of Israel.

Munitions delays do nothing but embolden the perception that the U.S.-Israel relationship is fraying. Nothing could be more dangerous for U.S. security interests than promoting this narrative.

For what it is worth, nothing could be more dangerous for international security than perpetuating the lie that the IDF is wantonly murdering Palestinians or that Israel is causing famine. Both claims are top-level absurdities, and honest people will rightfully call these claims for what they are, anti-Semitic garbage.

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Mr. OGLES. Madam Chair, in the House of Representatives, we have the power of the purse, and what I have proposed in this amendment is holding an individual accountable for his failure and incompetence in the role of his duties. That is our job. There has to be accountability.

The ``spies who lie'' letter, CIA contractors undermining an election, the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan--there has to be accountability, and we have the ability to do so with the purse strings. That is a reasonable expectation.

If Joe Biden isn't going to do his job, if Joe Biden isn't going to hold Blinken accountable, if Joe Biden isn't going to fire him, then we must do our job.

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Mr. OGLES. Madam Chair, again, I urge adoption of my amendment. This is straightforward and fair. This is sending a message to the Biden administration and to Secretary Blinken: Close our border, support our ally, and stand for America first.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. OGLES. Madam Chair, National Security Memorandum 20 represents a betrayal of our closest ally in the Middle East.

Both President Biden and Secretary Blinken developed this memorandum to placate the terrorist sympathizers, quite frankly, within the Democratic Party. The memo is as despicable as it is unnecessary.

I encourage my colleagues on the other side to highlight a single new legal requirement mandated by the memo. If the memo does not mandate a new legal requirement on arms shipments, then why do we need it?

National Security Memorandum 20 requires that countries receiving U.S. security assistance provide ``'credible and reliable' written assurances from the recipient country that it will use any such defense articles in accordance with international humanitarian law and, as applicable, other international law.''

This thinly veiled attack against Israel, which has done far more than any other nation in its position to preserve the lives of noncombatants, was developed with indifference to the fact that there are already longstanding statutes that govern the delivery of U.S. security assistance and even make such delivery contingent upon compliance with international humanitarian law.

As the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and his Senate counterpart pointed out in a recent joint letter to President Biden, the Foreign Assistance Act already mandates that ``no assistance shall be furnished under this chapter or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.''

Importantly, this memo also does not create any new legal requirement to obtain U.S. security assistance. On March 26, 2024, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said as much. To quote Mr. Miller: ``It has always been required that these countries that are receiving defense articles from the United States act in compliance with international humanitarian law. . . . That is not a requirement that was imposed by the NSM. It is something that was already required by U.S. law.''

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Mr. OGLES. Madam Chair, I pose the question: If the substance of the memo is already stated in law, then why do we need the memo? The answer is substantive and it is clear: It is political.

This functionally useless memo, replete with unnecessarily vague language throughout, seems to attempt to create two classes of countries that receive U.S. security assistance: Israel, then everyone else. This memo was designed to shine a light and segregate Israel.

As the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee pointed out in his letter, the NSM requires that written assurances from a country receiving U.S. weapons must be credible and reliable.

What exactly does credible and reliable mean? If I was Israel, I would be concerned that Joe Biden would be the one in charge of figuring that out.

When the recipient country says it will use defense articles in accordance with ``humanitarian law,'' which law or laws are President Biden and Secretary Blinken referring to?

Are recipient countries supposed to know or assume what laws they are supposed to follow?

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Mr. OGLES. Madam Chair, the NSM contains language that says recipient countries can't arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede U.S.- supported humanitarian assistance.

What exactly is U.S.-supported humanitarian assistance?

If a national security reason required a recipient country to temporarily restrict whatever U.S.-supported humanitarian assistance is, would that in turn deny Israel weapons it needed to defend itself?

The language in this memo is imprecise and could be used against Israel and, quite frankly, other countries as well by a President who has made the conflict in Israel political.

Israel is fighting for their existence. They are under attack.

If there was a rogue state operator in Mexico that was launching missiles, bombs, or explosives into Texas, we would occupy Mexico City within 72 hours. We may or may not give it back.

Israel has a right to defend itself, and it should not be singled out and undermined by this President or Secretary Blinken.

I have had enough. Israel has had enough. The American people have had enough.

This amendment is important to send a message to Biden: No more politics. Defend our greatest ally in the Middle East.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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