Economy and Health Care  |  Foreign Affairs  |  Education and Social Issues
 

Final Transcript
Copyright Democracy in Action/Eric M. Appleman

COKIE ROBERTS:  Now we're moving on to the second category.  The second category is foreign affairs, and Senator Hatch has drawn the lot for the first question on foreign affairs and again we will go around the group with each of you with a time limit on this first question only. The president, President Clinton's national security adviser Samuel Berger, has been complaining about a neo-isolationism that he says is abroad in the land, particularly in the Republican Party.  He points to an unwillingness to engage, the refusal to pay UN dues, the cuts in the foreign aid budget, that we've not [funded?] the Middle East peace accords.  Where do you stand on that Senator? SEN. ORRIN HATCH:  Well first of all I don't think that's at all true about the Republican Party.  There are some like Pat Buchanan who do seem to be neo-isolationists, but certainly you've got Senator McCain here and myself--we've joined together with regard to a number of foreign policy issues through the years and we've been anything but that and I think the Republican Party, the party of putting together NAFTA, the expansion of NATO, you can go on and on.  The one thing I do believe is I believe that our president of the United States should run our foreign policy and not the United Nations.  I think it's pretty doggone important that we do that.  Secondly I think that it's important that we stand up for this country over the world and in our vital interests without being the policeman of the world.  We should protect our vital interests and our critical interests.  Vital interests are interests that literally mean an awful lot to this country.  That includes this hemisphere, it includes the Middle East, Europe, Japan, just to mention a few; it includes Israel.  And frankly--critical interests, a good critical interest would be something like Korea, where if the North Koreans came down into South Korea it could affect all of Southeast Asia and in particular our relationship with Japan.  So it's a very important thing.  A lot of us have done an awful lot.  I was a strong supporter of Ronald Reagan's doctrine, his foreign policy doctrine.  I did a lot of work in Central America.  I was the one who convinced Reagan we should use the Stinger--give the Stinger Pulse missile to the Afghanis, to the mouhajadeen, now called one of the [inaudible] reasons why the Cold War came down.  And I could go through a lot of other things, everything from Israel to Europe to Kosovo. COKIE ROBERTS:  Mr. Forbes. STEVE FORBES:  There's no neo-isolationism around.  What is around is an administration, the Clinton-Gore White House, that is adrift, indecisive and just making plain bad judgments.  For example in Panama, they've allowed the Chinese to get control on both ends of the Panama Canal and they've done nothing about it.  They are promiscuous in putting our troops around the world without any thought as to what they're supposed to do there and how to get them out.  You see it in Russia, where we are today subsidizing--by giving billions that these kleptocrats in the Kremlin steal--subsidizing a new system of serfdom in Russia.  Four out of ten Russian workers now go unpaid.  Not because of a shortage of money, but because these thieves in the Kremlin are stealing everything they can get their hands on, and this administration is doing nothing about it.  You see it in China, where they're just in a whole mode of appeasement--no rules of engagement, anything goes.  You see it with the International Monetary Fund and our Treasury Department, which is wrecking nations around the world with misbegotten advice and prescriptions such as higher taxes and devaluation.  So this administration blames--has a real burden of blame for what is happening around the world, and then to compound their felony they're running down our military, hollowing out our military and not giving our people the adequate means, adequate compensation to do the job that's necessary. COKIE ROBERTS:  Senator McCain. SEN. JOHN McCAIN:  We've gone during the Cold War from a very, very dangerous, but a very predictable world to one that is much less predictable and slightly less dangerous because we no longer face the threat of massive nuclear exchange.  But it's complicated, it's difficult, and it requires attention.  This administration has conducted a feckless photo op foreign policy which may cost us in American blood and treasure in the next century.  This administration has failed to understand that we have to have a concept of what we want the world to look like, where our threats and our interests and our values lie.  If there's a problem, send troops to Haiti; if there's a problem send them to Somalia.  Our military men and women are more overtaxed and more overworked and more deployed than at any time--peacetime period in the history of this country.  Our men and women need help.  Our men and women need their morale restored.  They need the equipment and the housing and the pay that they deserve. There are 12,000 enlisted families in America on food stamps.  I'm going to change that.  And I'm going to change it; and it's the Congress' fault as well as that of the president of the United States because of massive pork barrel spending that goes on and on.  And I identified $6.4 billion worth of pork barrel spending on the last bill.  That's a shame. COKIE ROBERTS:  Mr. Keyes. ALAN KEYES: I think that what we have to recognize is that when you live in a world where you have somebody in a high position like Strobe Talbott who tells us that the nation-state is going to be a thing of the past, and we should surrender to some global government, those of us who resist that idea are not isolationists. We're just defending the sovereignty and the Constitutional integrity of the United States. And I think it is essential right now. We should not follow the Clinton Administration in the surrender of American sovereignty. And we should certainly not accept their betrayal.  It's not just appeasement; it's treachery and in terms of handing off our secrets to the communist Chinese, and doing God knows what in exchange for their purchase of influence over our security policies, making decisions that have transferred our technology and the things that actually gave us the security edge into the hands of the country that is liable to be our strongest potential enemy in the course of the 21st century if we are not careful.  It is a huge error and we need to base our foreign policy on a clear sense of our national sovereignty, and our national interest, that puts the interests of the American people in first place, knowing that by doing so we are actually serving the best interests of the world. We also need to understand, though what some of my colleagues here, I think, do not and that that translates into a policy on trade that is not willing to surrender the sovereignty of the American people to the World Trade Organization or any other international body, and that, again there, is willing to put the interests of our people first, by making it clear that if you want to come trade in the American emporium, you can help us bear the freight for keeping that emporium open. I think that's fair to the American worker. COKIE ROBERTS:  Mr. Bauer. GARY BAUER:  Thanks, Cokie.  You know, Cokie, I served Ronald Reagan for eight years and one of the things he taught me when I was at the White House with him is that America did have to be involved in the world, but we had to make sure that when we were involved we were involved defending our values, our concepts of liberty.  Reagan had to spend a lot of time rebuilding the American military because of the neglect of previous presidents, and I'm afraid the next president is going to have to do the same because of the neglect of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.  We've gone from 18 Army divisions that we had at the end of the Reagan administration to 10; we had a 750-ship Navy; it's down to 325 ships.  And on top of the comments that were already made about soldiers on food stamps, which is a national tragedy, a national scandal, there's efforts underway to cut veteran's benefits.  As president I'm not going to allow that.  My father was a veteran.  He served in the United States Marines, was in a Veteran's Hospital for several years.  Those men kept their bargain; we're going to keep our bargain with them.  But there's another important way we need to be involved and that's American values.  In Tiananmen Square, Chinese students stood up waving copies of our Declaration of Independence in the face of the People's Liberation Army.  But we've got a policy toward China not driven by the Declaration and its words "All men are created equal," but driven by trade.  Big corporations calling the shots in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.  As president I will end most favored nation status for China immediately.  The days that they're playing us for suckers should be over. COKIE ROBERTS:  Well, let's talk about trade.  Because trade is a big part of our economy; it's the fastest growing sector in the economy.  Without this kind of trade we would be having the economy we're having.  Is it a good idea or not? SEN. JOHN McCAIN:  We would not, and the fact is we need to break down barriers to trade, for our agricultural products that's one of the best remedies for many of the agricultural problems we have in America today. I want to go just back one second to the veterans.  I just wrote a book and I've been on a book tour, a book-signing tour. COKIE ROBERTS:  You want to hold it up-- SEN. JOHN McCAIN:  Yeah I'll hold it up.  "Faith of My Fathers," Random House, number three on the New York Times bestseller list-- [the camera actually focused on Cokie Roberts during this exchange] I've had the most unusual and incredible experience.  Veterans, particularly of World War II come, and they show me the pictures of themselves and their units and where they served.  Some of them cry, some of them--it's a really emotional experience.  And as Gary just said, they're not getting the health care we promised them.  They're not getting the treatment that they promised them.  They need long term and geriatric care.  We need to work together with the VFW and DAV and the American Legion and provide them with what we promised them when the greatest generation went out to fight and defend democracy.  We need to do that not only for them, but for future generations we may have to call upon. COKIE ROBERTS:  Go ahead. SEN. ORRIN HATCH:  I agree with everything Senator McCain said.  I think that's very important.  On the other hand, you know if we're going to have free trade, we've got to have fair trade.  For instance, we're talking about opening up our southern borders to the south-of the-border states including Mexico to drive trucks into our country, where they haven't passed the same driver's license tests that we have, where their trucks aren't passing the same safety tests that ours do, and they're going to be driving on our roads transporting their goods.  We've seen grain coming from Canada that's government subsidized grain that is in competition with the farmers in Montana, in the northern states, in Iowa, all over this country, and it isn't working very well.  We've got to make sure that if we have trade it's fair trade just as well... COKIE ROBERTS:  What about, what about-- SEN. ORRIN HATCH:  By the way I do differ with Gary.  I do think that Gary is right on the human rights aspects of China, but we cannot help but engage China, and we have to do it on the basis of competition. COKIE ROBERTS:  What about joining the World Trade Organization? [confusion of voices]  All right go ahead. STEVE FORBES:  ...should be no on the World Trade Organization on concessionary terms.  What we need with China, Cokie, is real foreign policy.  This administration clearly does not have one.  The Chinese need to know what the rules of engagement are. GARY BAUER:  Steve, would you repeal most favored nation status for China or not? STEVE FORBES:  I'll give what my China policy is.  And that is, one, you have to know we're going to keep a military presence in Asia.  They're not going to run us out.  They can't take over Taiwan.  Number two, we will hit them on human rights abuses in every international forum possible.  Dissidents in China will tell you how important that is.  Three. We want openness with China.  We want trade.  Which means reducing trade barriers.  And if the Chinese wish to sell technology to rogue states such as Pakistan or North Korea or Iran or Iraq we should put sanctions on specific Chinese companies run by the Chinese Army.  That way the Chinese know if they make mistakes, if they do something wrong there will be consequences to pay. COKIE ROBERTS:  I'll let you get in here Mr. Keyes and then we'll move on. ALAN KEYES: Two things are clear. One, I think we just need a clear answer to that very simple question. Most favored nation status for China sends a signal of business as usual to a bunch of dictators-- GARY BAUER: Sure it does. ALAN KEYES:  --who are brutalizing and destroying the rights of their people, and we shouldn't be doing it. I think it is that simple, and one ought to be able to say so. Second, I think that the answer that was given about fair trade and free trade always sounds very good, until you think through its implications.  It means that through the mechanism of so-called "free trade,"we are going to sit down and negotiate a minutiae of regulations and so forth, to be enforced by what? A bunch of international bureaucrats. So that it turns out that, as I often tell people, free trade is not free trade, it is managed trade. It is socialism. And what we are seeing here on this podium, a bunch of free traders, and what they are actually doing is introducing socialism into America through the international back door. It is not the right thing to do, and we oughtn't to accept it. COKIE ROBERTS:  Not your turn. SEN. JOHN McCAIN:  Very briefly.  Everybody's entitled to their opinions; not everybody's entitled to their facts is an old saying.  The day that NAFTA was signed we had $300 million a day trade with Canada.  Today there's a billion dollars worth of trade.  There have been several hundred thousand jobs created just because of NAFTA.  Think of the potential if we expanded that free trade.  One of the reasons why New Hampshire's economy is so good is because the trade between this state and Canada.  In Mexico, the most prosperous part of Mexico, guess what, is the northernmost part, where we have these free trade zones.  And it's working and it will continue to work. COKIE ROBERTS:  All right, let's move on to another part of foreign policy which is-- UNIDENTIFIED:  Can Steve say one thing? STEVE FORBES:  On most favored nation, if the Chinese want a confrontation after they know the rules of engagement, MFN will go.  And on expanding trade-- [Confused talking over each other]  COKIE ROBERTS:  When-- STEVE FORBES:  --Cokie, I propose a North Atlantic free trade agreement.  Bring in Ireland and Britain.  Let's go across the ocean-- GARY BAUER:  We need to repeal most favored nation status and Steve needs to remind some of his corporate friends that there are American companies-- COKIE ROBERTS:  I need to be tough with you all.  When Pat Robertson gave his key speech to the Christian Coalition this year he talked about Third World poverty--that was his message.  Again back to the bishops, they ask a question: How do we address the tragedy of 35,000 children dying every day of the consequences of hunger, debt and the lack of development around the world?  What about this question of Third World debt, and what about this question of the United States' moral role in the world? ALAN KEYES:  I served as Ambassador to UN Economic and Social Council and Assistant Secretary of State. I dealt with those issues having to do with development and what we do, or don't do, and how third world countries are doing, and what the terrible situations are in day in and day out for several years. And I'll tell you the truth: the notion that we can wave some magic wand, send money, do loans, do whatever, that's fundamentally going to change the situation of a lot of these developing countries is false. Do you know why? Because at the end of the day it is up to the people in those countries themselves to adopt the path of freedom, and to establish the institutions that can sustain it. Including institutions we don't always think of, like honest courts, where you can go to suit in order to sustain business relationships, and things of that kind. I think, yes, we need to take an interest in helping other countries develop to the point where they can be effective trading partners with us but we shouldn't fool ourselves into believing that some "transfer of resources" is magically going to achieve this objective if they are not willing to adopt the right kind of free enterprise policies that will actually sustain their growth and development. COKIE ROBERTS:  Mr. Bauer, you have been short-shrifted in this segment. GARY BAUER:  Thanks Cokie.  You know a lot of these Third World countries play the American taxpayer for suckers.  They accept large loans that are being pushed on them, quite frankly, by the foreign policy establishment in the United States. COKIE ROBERTS:  But what about the people in these countries? GARY BAUER:  Well, not the people of the countries.  But look, this is important.  If the politicians in Washington think that more of the American taxpayers' money ought to go to Third World countries, then have the courage to go to the American people and say we're going to increase foreign aid.  But don't tell us that these are loans and then when the loans build up so high that nobody can pay them back forgive the loans and essentially just give them a grant.  Alan's right, a lot of the problem in the Third World quite frankly is socialistic policies.  Government policies that really discourage free enterprise, discourage investment, discourage the sort of things that will lift people out of poverty.  And I think we need to take what we know about our democratic capitalism, export that, as well as encourage church groups and others that can do tremendous things in those Third World countries.  But the idea that American taxpayers, in addition to everything else we've got on our shoulders, are going to have to bail out everybody elses bad economic policies just doesn't make sense. COKIE ROBERTS:  Is it American taxpayers or American banks? SEN. ORRIN HATCH:  I think its got to be-- you know we can't just saddle American taxpayers with every problem in the world.  Again it comes down to what are our vital interests, what are critical interests and what are just interests.  You know, I suppose we should have done more in Rwanda, but that was not a vital interest to us.  I have to say-- COKIE ROBERTS:  I asked you was it a moral--does the United States have a moral stake in the world? SEN. ORRIN HATCH:  Yes, it was a moral, it was a moral interest, and you're looking at a Senator who helped to devise the National Endowment for Democracy, who actually worked with the AFL-CIO in helping to get books and money and pencils and mimeograph machines to the Solidarity when it was just starting in the late '70s.  And I have to say we do have an obligation, a moral obligation to help people, but we cannot be the complete sustinence of the whole world.  We just don't have those kind of assets, nor should we saddle the American people with more taxes to do it.  I think though that we do have to be careful of our vital interests, and if we don't do that we're going to reap the whirlwind. COKIE ROBERTS:  Mr. Forbes, you have--we're about to finish this segment and you have the first question in the next segment so let me turn to Sen. McCain who's desperate. SEN. JOHN McCAIN:  In the world there's a direct correlation between poverty in those countries and the institutions of democracy.  Where democracy grows, economies improve.  The United States of America is a beacon--hope and freedom and liberty for every nation in the world wherever there are oppressed people.  Wherever there's poverty, wherever there's inequity, wherever there is injustice.  The people of those countries look to the United States of America.  We can help in a broad variety of ways--including programs such as the Peace Corps.  And as president of the United States, I want to inspire young Americans to commit themselves to causes greater than their self interest.  Wherever there's a hungry child there's a great cause; wherever there's people killing each other for ethnic or tribal reasons there's a great cause.  And that's really what being president of the United States is all about. COKIE ROBERTS:  We're now moving on to the next segment-- GARY BAUER:  Can I just make one point.  There's nothing moral about taking a truck driver in Manchester, New Hampshire who's working 18 hours a day to put food on his table, and take his money and send it to the Soviet Union to subsidize some thugs. COKIE ROBERTS:  Now we are moving on; now we are moving on segment.  No.  Which is-- ALAN KEYES: You made a point a minute ago about banks, like there's a distinction between banks and taxpayers.  Excuse me.  We have farmers sitting in Iowa, where we have to appropriate billions of dollars to try to help them get through hard times.  Why?  Because that capital isn't being made available to them through the banking system-- COKIE ROBERTS:  Mr. Keyes we need to move on-- ALAN KEYES:  --so I don't think the distinction is clear.  Our banks should be giving preference to... [end of Second Segment transcript] >> Education and Social Issues

Copyright 1999  Eric M. Appleman/Democracy in Action.