During a House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) questioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken about PRC lending, transitions for foreign service officers and the Fragility Act.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 I don't know if any of the other remaining members have any additional questions they'd
00:04 like to ask before we conclude.
00:07 In terms of economic statecraft, the PRC is the world's largest creditor just by raw volume
00:13 and has grown its influence through the Belt and Road and lots of other ways of giving
00:19 loans but often behind a very opaque and needlessly coercive set of terms.
00:28 It's increasingly important we work with like-minded governments to create alternatives.
00:33 Last week this committee held a hearing with DFC, EXIM and MCC.
00:39 I just welcome your thoughts on what more we could be doing to strengthen our efforts
00:43 to provide alternatives to PRC lending and the work we're doing together and the whole
00:48 of government is doing together.
00:49 I will soon go to the Philippines in part to talk about the Luzon corridor.
00:55 Sarah Murray recently led a trip to Angola where we were largely looking at the Lobito
00:59 corridor.
01:00 What more could we be doing?
01:01 Yeah, so I think, Senator, what you're putting the spotlight on, Senator Murray's putting
01:06 the spotlight on are extraordinarily positive examples of what we can do when we effectively
01:13 marshal our resources, both the resources of the U.S. government so that everyone is
01:17 rowing together in the same direction, notably DFC along with USAID, along with the State
01:24 Department, along with Commerce, Treasury, you name it.
01:29 Also our ability to catalyze private sector investment, because as we were discussing
01:33 earlier that really is for us the comparative advantage that we bring to the table.
01:38 But government is critical in particularly challenging investment environments to be
01:43 able to do things to secure investments in ways that bring the private sector in, and
01:49 then to also do this in a way where we're working with allies and partners so that we
01:54 can take advantage of their own investments and focus.
02:00 So the President put together PGI at a G7 meeting at the beginning of the administration
02:07 where we are mobilizing together resources with G7 partners to direct them at specific
02:13 investment opportunities.
02:14 Similarly, we have this Mineral Securities Partnership where we now have 14 countries
02:21 that are prepared to make coordinated investments in developing critical minerals, rare earths,
02:30 and to match them up with countries that have these things, and to do that in a coordinated
02:37 way where we get a much bigger impact because we're managing to get other governments, other
02:42 companies – other countries working with us.
02:45 I think Luzon's a really good example of what we're doing, in this case mostly bilaterally
02:50 with the Philippines.
02:51 We're – it's the first PGI project in the Indo-Pacific.
02:57 We have Subic Bay, we have Clark, we have Manila, we have Balangas.
03:03 These are economic hubs that are all being joined with an effect in infrastructure corridor,
03:08 rail, port modernization, agribusiness, semiconductor supply chains.
03:13 And then the Project the Libido Corridor, which I saw as well, is truly extraordinary
03:19 where you now have the infrastructure starting to come in place linking Angola, Zambia, the
03:26 DRC, right across the continent in ways that are creating tremendous efficiencies but that
03:32 are in the same corridor, bringing together the transportation, primarily rail, the communications,
03:38 the agribusiness, all of that coming together in ways that are benefiting the communities
03:42 along that corridor and that are moving things much more efficiently and more effectively
03:48 than ever before when it's fully realized.
03:51 So for us, having the tools to start these projects, obviously the diplomatic resources
04:00 to go around and about, identify them, bring countries together on them, bring the private
04:05 sector in, the tools then to finance not the full projects but, for example, the feasibility
04:11 studies, delivering government – capacity to the host governments to be able to manage
04:17 them on their side.
04:19 All of these things are critical to their actual realization, and that's where things
04:22 like our own budget, DFC, is essential.
04:25 MR TONER: Thank you.
04:27 You've been doing this work a lot longer than I have, but one of the things I've
04:30 noticed in, I guess, 14 years now of going and visiting posts and asking Foreign Service
04:36 officers about their work-life balance, their experience, their career, knowledge transfer,
04:44 it's completely understandable that there's a structure whereby, partly because of needing
04:49 to move on to the next post, partly because of family and school schedules, often someone
04:57 will be at a post two or even three years, build a lot of relationships, connections,
05:02 and have the best of intentions to write a very long and detailed memo and leave behind
05:05 all sorts of numbers and pictures, but they end up leaving, and then their successor at
05:10 post arrives weeks later, and there is not a warm handoff, and particularly in cultures
05:16 where personal relationships matter, and saying the sorts of things that you might not want
05:22 to write down about you can really trust this person, you really can't trust that person.
05:27 I'd just be interested in what you think we might be able to do together to provide
05:31 more resources and strengthen the ability within the department for there to be engagement
05:37 from the departing officer to the incoming officer.
05:40 I would think in the age of Zoom and social media platforms and iPhones, it would be
05:46 easier than it may have been in decades past, but as we're about to take up the state
05:51 authorization bill, I wondered what your thoughts were on this topic generally and what we might
05:54 be able to do.
05:55 Yeah, look, it's a great point, and one of the things that we hate to see is reinventing
06:01 the wheel, because someone's been at something for a while, they leave, the knowledge doesn't
06:05 get shared effectively, and then someone has to pick up from where they started.
06:10 So we do try to correct for that, and so, for example, we try to make sure that in a
06:19 given embassy, if someone from one unit is leaving, it's staggered with other people
06:24 in that unit so that to the extent we actually have all those resources, which is another
06:29 question, that there is some continuity, and that if there's not overlap between the incoming
06:34 and the outgoing, that at least the outgoing has shared a lot of that with other folks
06:42 or maybe his or her boss in ways that get passed on as effectively as possible to whoever's
06:48 coming in.
06:49 But you raise a really interesting question, which I think we should look at, about whether
06:52 there's more we can or should do to have some kind of more sustained connections between
06:59 someone who's left and has built up tremendous expertise and maybe somewhere else, but whose
07:03 knowledge is still essential to whoever's coming in.
07:06 And that's – I want to go back and look at that, because it's an interesting idea.
07:10 I think it would help both with the effectiveness of the incoming officer in terms of how quickly
07:15 they get up to speed, but also improve work satisfaction, career satisfaction for the
07:21 outgoing, because you spent years building these relationships, and then to feel like
07:25 you now have to go on.
07:27 And maybe it's because I visit more posts in Africa than anywhere else, and they tend
07:30 to be understaffed.
07:31 They tend to be stretched a little thin.
07:35 And this is another challenge that we're facing, which is understaffing.
07:38 And by the way, it's interesting.
07:40 It's not just in Africa.
07:42 We have the critical mid-level positions, including, for example, in our European Affairs
07:48 Bureau, that are open and understaffed.
07:51 We've had two of the largest incoming classes of Foreign Service officers in a decade, which
07:56 is very gratifying, but it takes a while for people to work their way through to a point
08:01 where they're taking on these very important positions.
08:04 And we do have real gaps that we're trying to rectify.
08:06 Now, we've gotten new authorities also to bring in people mid-career.
08:10 That's helped.
08:13 But ultimately, we have to have a department that not only continues to attract the talent,
08:17 but that retains it and supports it as it goes up the ladder in these jobs.
08:23 MR.
08:24 HUME.
08:25 That's something I'm passionate about, supporting you and helping you achieve.
08:27 Last question, promise.
08:29 The Global Fragility Act, we've talked about it a number of times.
08:31 It was signed into law back in 2019.
08:34 I've talked to the Secretary of Defense about it.
08:37 Earlier today, I talked to the Secretary of the Army and Chief of Staff about it.
08:41 Bluntly, it's a lack of involvement by the Department of Defense that concerns me most.
08:46 State Department has the lead.
08:47 AID has been a good partner.
08:49 There's a number of identified countries for implementation that I think are outside the
08:53 mandate of the act.
08:54 But at the very least, Papua New Guinea, Mozambique, coastal West Africa strike me as great examples
09:01 of where we should be able to demonstrate a strategy that is state-led, AID partner,
09:07 DOD partner, with a common agenda, common priority to prevent fragile states from becoming
09:12 failed states.
09:14 I just would be interested in how you see the State Department's efforts in ensuring
09:19 we actually can move ahead with meaningful implementation.
09:21 Yeah, look, I think – I've got to tell you, I think the importance of the act and
09:26 actually implementing it effectively has only been reinforced by what we've seen in the
09:29 Sahel, which is – the countries, of course, are not part of the act, but countries adjacent
09:34 to the Sahel, the ones you've – in some cases, the ones you've cited, are.
09:38 And it just reinforces the fact that whatever we're doing in terms of security assistance
09:42 to countries, that may be necessary, but it is certainly not sufficient in allowing these
09:48 countries not only to remain stable but actually to move forward.
09:51 And in the absence of that, then you're likely to see what we've seen in the Sahel,
09:55 which is coup after coup.
09:58 And at the same time, when these coups happen and our military, which may have been helping
10:04 deal with violent extremism and terrorism, leave, we know what comes in typically afterward,
10:10 including, for example, Russian proxy forces, make things worse, not better.
10:15 And so countries find out the hard way that this is not a good development.
10:19 But I think it just places an emphasis on trying to make this work and work effectively.
10:23 We are reviewing on a yearly basis how this is working.
10:31 We're assessing the different commitments that partners have made to it, the availability
10:36 of resources, the actual status of the program so that we are in real time judging whether
10:41 is it – are we actually doing this, is it being implemented or not effectively, is it
10:45 – even though these are, of course, 10-year programs, are we starting to see movement
10:52 and progress?
10:53 And we'll be sharing our own thoughts on that.
10:57 I think it has helped us leverage multidonor mechanisms to some extent.
11:04 We need to do more of that.
11:06 I think it has helped us start at least to more effectively align assistance across the
11:11 government, which was one of the big intents, but it's not yet where it needs to be in
11:16 terms of implementation.
11:17 So here again, given your leadership on this, this is something we should really work on,
11:21 and I think the Sahel has just reinforced the importance of it.
11:24 MR KONDIK: My core concern is the DOD doesn't really focus or respond until there's a
11:31 profound security crisis, and then when they do, they tend to respond massively.
11:35 And Coastal West Africa, their national leadership has been here repeatedly.
11:42 Some of our leaders have been there, and they are calling and calling and calling for more
11:47 significant partnership.
11:49 And I think if we fail to deliver on that, we'll be disappointed at the choices they
11:53 may make.
11:54 So I am, in closing, grateful that we are hosting President Ruto this week for what
12:01 I think is an important state visit.
12:04 You and the Vice President, obviously the President, and many other Cabinet officials,
12:08 some congressional leaders – I think it's important for us to highlight the centrality
12:13 of partners that are democracies that share both economic and public health and climate
12:18 and security goals.
12:20 So thank you for everything.
12:21 Thank you, Charlie.
12:22 MR KONDIK: Mr. Secretary, thank you for what has been a very full day for you of testimony
12:25 before two committees.
12:26 I appreciate your service.
12:28 And with that, the record will stay open one week for any member of the committee who wants
12:34 to submit a question for the record.
12:35 Otherwise, this hearing is hereby adjourned.