Transcripts For CSPAN National Security Adviser Robert OBrien On Security Challenges 20240712

Watch book tv this weekend on cspan two. Now, Robert Obrien talks about u. S. Relations with china and russia, crating more business relationships in africa and cybersecurity threats. Institutet the hudson for little more than one hour. Morning. Welcome to the hudson institute. Privileged to and be hosting this great event in conversation with the Robert Obrien assistance to the president on National Security affairs, otherwise known as the National Security advisor. I want to welcome all of you here who are able to join us and our audience watching on livestream. Welcome toy special our very special cspan audience who be following this event on cspan2 today. We are delighted to have you here if only virtually, and delighted to have everyone who has been able to participate. This will be one of the most interesting events we have done here at hudson, particularly that we are less than one week and some the election of these issues we are talking about today, questions about what america will do and where it will go from your these issues will be decided very soon so what happens here will help us to understand what takes place regardless of who it is who will be sitting in the world in the oval office. Want to say a few words about our distinguished guest. Robert obrien graduated from the university of california berkeley. From there, he founded a law and between 19961998, officer with legal the United Nations compensation commercial and served in a number of clinical positions for the bush, obama and Trump Administrations and was a civilian observer for the council on international ill policy. Bush namedeorge w. Him as the u. S. Alternate representative to the 60th session of the United States nations General Assembly and he was cochairman of the department of states Publicprivate Partnership for Justice Reform in afghanistan, is he also served on that position during obamas first term. 10 2019 President Trump appointed ambassador obrien especial president ial on , and onestage affairs year later he was given title of ambassador. The investor took the office of the 28th United States National Security advisor on september 18 2019, so he has been in that position for just a little bit more than one year. Today, he serves as a Senior Advisor on international affairs, chairs the National Security council and overseas the National Security staff. Ambassador brian has also done his share of writing and i do want to recommend to you his book published in 2019. Prescientany ways a collection of essays that many that many innges america were ignoring but have now very much come home to roost. I particularly like section three, which has the title of to rule the waves. It is well worth reading and a good reminder that our guest today is someone with a real vision about National Security and where americas place in the world is and where it should and that is why we are delighted and privileged to have him here today. [applause] it is a pleasure to be with you. We are socially distanced enough and i take this mask up. Sometimes i think i cough because the mask is on. Adopters ofarly masks, still came down with covid the summer and i was fortunate to get through it. I have got this book, to rule the waves. The chapter was named by the editor. I dont want to get a letter from your counsel. But he is a great writer and great story and and Great American so thank you for that generous introduction. Thank you john walters for hosting today. Bring you greetings from the 45th president of the United States donald trump. Four years ago he was elected and he had a very different view of how peace and prosperity in the world could be achieved and how the American People be served by the president President Trump had no higher priority than putting the needs, safety of the american first and thats where the term America First comes from. That nationales has been obtained on a piece the strength loss for so the president deals with the world as it is. We deal with dictators and regimes as they are not as we hope that. Got turn a blind eye to their conduct expecting them to change we do the hard work of strengthening their alliances and he has been criticized for that but we think that his thatns have demonstrated we will no longer be party treaties where our sovereignty is not affected but we also think that its better for other countries in the world as well. As he said to the United Nations, the president puts America First also believes other countries put their own interests first and thats how it should be. World, our approach has led to demonstrable results that have made the American People safer. For example early on in the administration, there was caliphate the size of Great Britain spanning across iraq and syria. That caliphate is now destroyed. Isis, the man who kept a slave the man who ultimately killed her, he was removed from the battlefield and justice was brought him almost one year ago today. The leaders of al qaeda, theft and human been removed. Over 50 american hostages and detainees around the world have been brought home. Replaced by the and it hased usmca created and strengthened the most profitable the United States and our partners trade zone in the entire world. Year theh of this coast guard and navy have run antidrug in the eastern pacific and over 4 billion in cocaine and marijuana and deny those revenues to the traffickers. 4. 7 billion. Working together with the leaders of el salvador, President Trump has reduced undocumented immigration by 85 . We are working very closely with the hemispheres largest democracy, purcell. Ands just there this week we signed deals that will be great for brazil and the United States and our manufacturing base. The president also confirmed major ally status of the so. Millions in loans throughout the western hemisphere under an initiative we call growth the american. We are strengthening our neighbors and increasing prosperity here at home and our neighborhood. The Pressure Campaign has brought irans economy to its knees and cut off over 150 billion in section really the iranians were using not to help their own people but to spread this court and war across the. Iddle east front, heden sharing encouraged our nato allies to spend 400 billion dollars in additional defense spending 32024. 2024. Ough that makes the world safer and that pledge of increased spending was also accompanied by burden sharing and other places. Troopsre 6100 coalition most of them in nato. So for the first time we have more of our partners bearing the burden of the work afghanistan and say things happening in iraq. After years of piquant of defense sequestration, we had gotten to the point we had the point we had the smallest military since 1940. Need to rebuild our Nuclear Deterrent. Spent over the last few years, all of it has been addressed. The progress is impressive. We elevated u. S. Cyber command crated the joint Artificial Intelligence center and established space command. The first new branch of the u. S. Armed forces since 1947 and it has captured the imagination of our young men and women who serve in their lining up in droves joint space force. We are ensuring a Strong Defense will protect our homeland against actors and adam mosseri straights states that threaten us. Modernizing our Nuclear Deterrent remains a foundation moment of our National Security. We deployed a low yield warhead and numerous Extension Programs on our existing nuclear stockpile. Capabilitiese test remain viable and funded the nsa to appropriately meet the necessary infrastructure operations. Making sure that we actually have safe, secure and ultimately Deadly Nuclear weapons and ensures the fact we never have to use the. We have also funded longrange , theoff missiles groundbased strategic deterrence. Every aspect of our Nuclear Enterprise is under modernization and maintains a credible deterrent for years to come. Finally, we are developing new in hypersonic weapons, directed energy, Artificial Intelligence and others that will ensure american superiority against any for. Under President Trumps leadership, we have spent more on Defense Research that we have at 70 years and that is what is required to stay ahead of our enters is critical and emerging technologies and to lead the way when it comes to new developments, manufacturing and manufacturing. As we built these next capabilities, it is essential to protect our Critical Technology from adversary theft. We cannot spend billions only to have them copied or compromised by the time theyre actually fielded. Theyll be waged just in the air but in space and cyberspace, dramatically increasing the. Omplexity and speed of warfare we are building one that will deter our adversaries by the pair to fight today and in the future. President trump knows the world needs a strong respected and wen to achieve these know President Trump believes weakness is provocative. In the region, the cooperation of allies has never been we are working with Australia New Zealand philippines and thailand. Our relation with india has never been better we are working on issues to counter maritime security, freedoms of navigation in the south and east tennessee. In afghanistan, we peace warement after 19 years of and at the start of the negotiations last month we asked put the Afghan People on a path towards lasting. Thats lasting peace. President trump has committed to american troops they would like him to come home soon as conditions permit, tweeting he would like them home by christmas and whether we get the home by christmas shortly thereafter american troops are coming home. We have not lost american to combat death in afghanistan during this year since february. Last month President Trump achieved a truly historic Peace Agreement for the emirates, bahrain and israel and represents the most important step towards peace in years is fortunate to be on the flight from the airport and it was a moving and Emotional Experience as we passed to saudi airspace and the captain announced that this was the first time an israeli plan has been invited over saudi arabia, and what we got to abu dhabi, the amorites literally it out the red carpet. It was in some ways like being at a Family Reunion for cousins who had not been speaking together and had not seen each other for years. Israelcently, sudan and made peace and was recently war between sudan and israel. In just over a month and a half we have had three countries normalize relations. This is dream many of us thought might never happen and is the president stated recently there thisore countries to come development was spurred by President Trumps leadership. He did something that was unusual for politicians, he created Political Capital in israel by moving our embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. Something many president ial candidates have problems to do the past never actually done. He recognized the Golan Heights jcpoa. About a disastrous it is not just those contract conflicts for the middle east is just approached to the balkans with similar determination. Last month, serbia and kosovo took a huge step forward in normalizing economic relations this is something europe had been working on for 20 years srough President Trump determination and insistence we were able to have a major breakthrough. Americas days of leading from behind strategic patients are over. His bold leadership style has proven key as we build consensus against china. He was the first major leader to recognize that was only a matter of time for china would liberalize was wrong and we have watched them become warm mercantilist, authoritarian emitted marxism and leninism. They have to become more like us. The free world is standing up to chinese aggression in all of its forms. Present trump refused to except the status quo on the trip trip bedroom imposed tariffs to compensate for their forced technology transfers, intellectual property theft massive subsidies and other mercantilist tactics. They brought the the president brought the prc did five january we signed the phase one trade deal that prohibits china from forcing u. S. Companies to transfer the technology, opens Chinese Markets to ten civilians of those to the u. S. Agricultural sales and Financial Services firms and partial addresses chinese currency manipulation and so far china seems to be abiding by the deal. The covid19 pandemic has limited the impact and our enthusiasm for the trade deal but the exercise shows it was only by stand up to the prc that the United States could achieve a real improvement in the trade sphere. The Top Administration is working to prevent companies the answer the Chinese Communist party, intelligence apparatus and secret apparatus such as huawei and zte from stealing americas personal and private data. InterNational Security secrets. The administration has impose restrictions on use semiconducting compass from exporting their highest technology to huawei, cte and others. The doj is investigating and prosecuting chinas economic espionage aggressively. Fbi director wray stated every ten hours the open up a new investigation into chinas economic espionage. The administration is limited the Peoples Liberation army Student Visa Program to support our intellectual property and weapons with that information. For a time we believe there were more Chinese Military officers people Liberation Army officers in america studying for advanced degrees in the stem very then American Military officers and the recovery in through phony claims to be student when the fact there were chinas military officers here to take our innovation, ingenuity, creativity for free to take a back to china so they could both strengthen the National Defense and offense is given those against the United States but also to improve their Industrial Base visavis the u. S. Without doing the right thing. The president strengthen our authority to restrict Foreign Investment the threat u. S. National security and tightened export control of all. Our democratic partners are taking similar action against china. Sweden removed chinas confucius institutes from its universities. The u. K. , the czech republic, estonia, bulgaria, slovenia, taiwan, romania, and sweden have committed to using trusted providers for their 5g networks. Administration did not, that allows space for them to engage in peace negotiations with israel. What is amazing, i think this is going to be a warm piece. Its not going to be a cold peace like we had with israel and egypt in the past where there wasnt a lot of interaction, not a lot of tourism. We are already seeing a dramatic increase in tourism between the uae and israel. We are seeing Economic Opportunities that are staggering. Israel is a startup nation. Its a hightech nation, a rival of silicon valley. The uae has tremendous banking and finance. Marrying up israel he attack and entrepreneurship the Financial Center in dubai and abu dhabi is going to be something that creates huge opportunities for young people in the middle east, young israelis, young arabs. Other countries are going to see it and want to be part of what is happening. So far, its going well. It didnt come from nowhere. This was something that was fostered and created by President Trump taking a different approach to peace in the middle east. Wisdom isnventional you had to solve the palestinian problem first, and you couldnt until you solved the palestinian problem. You never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Piece out a great opening plan for the israelis and palestinians, and the palestinians ignored it. Other countries said, this is a good deal. The palestinians should come to the table and negotiate and get a better deal, but if they are not going to come to the table, we arent going to continue to deny our young people opportunities in business and commerce and tourism. We are going to make peace with israel. The president laid the foundations getting out of the jcpoa, standing up to iran was a big part of that. Secure, the saudis felt under the American Security pledges. Israel felt secure, and we followed through on our plans. Recognized the sovereignty of the Golan Heights. In that unique set of circumstances, we had peace breaking out. Yourt filibuster question. Kosovo, which is a muslim majority country, and the balkans, kosovo recognized israel, normalized relationships with israel, and announced it is going to put its First Embassy in jerusalem. Three arabbeen muslim majority countries and a european muslim majority country that have all recognized israel in the last two months. It is astounding. The other big area where the Trump Administration and trump himself has brought a major seachange. Is with regards to china. Than ever, americans realize that china represents a real, not just an economic petitor, but a serious jew geopolitical threat, as well as being a serious human rights violator, intellectual property thief on a global scale, not to mention their responsibility for covering up and spreading disinformation about the covid outbreak. All of these things add up to a change with regard to china, a need for a new approach to china in dealing with and confronting that competition. One of those areas i have been deal is inut a great the hightech deal is in the hightech sector and the struggle with 5g advanced wireless technology, and one of the things ive noticed in the time you have been the National Security advisor is that there has been a change in the way in which chinas stalking horse, huawei, has been able to spread its network and agreements with other countries to build the networks, which have huge National Security concerns. In theam sensing is that struggle over 5g that maybe we have turned the tide a bit, and we are going to see much more of a consolidation of resistance against chinas effort to dominate the future of the digital age. You hit it on the head, arthur. With the internet of things and telecommunications moving into the 21st century, 5g is critical. That is the backbone of all the things are going to operate on. They willdemocracies, have access to every bit of personal data, every text, every medical record, every financial transaction, every email, every interaction you have with your home, whether it is your dishwasher, refrigerator, power system, security system. The amount of personal private data that the chinese will have access to through the backdoors built into huawei is unlimited. They will have that not just on every person in china they will have it every person in the world. That is something we have to be very concerned about. There was a time where it wouldnt have mattered. You have to follow these germany, the stasi had these warehouses full of files. Trying to get the information and make it valuable was very hard to do. With ai, with machine learning, cloud storage, all of that data on each of us becomes accessible to the chinese if they get access to it. They have put it together for their own people, social Credit Scores. Every chinese person has the equivalent of a credit score and we have to get a mortgage. They have a social credit whether they can blithe five plane ticket for travel overseas or go to university, live in a certain area, all of that depends on how high their social credit score is. It is something theyve done internally, but they want to do that externally. The Washington Post had an article that compiled profiles of influential americans and germanys and hundreds of thousands, millions of people around the world, compiling profiles on all of us. Dont be mistaken, they will have a social Credit Scores for every one of the world. If you think, im american, it doesnt matter, think of the general manager of the Houston Rockets, who made the mistake of criticizing the chinese over the way they were handling protesters in hong kong, people trying to protect democracy in hong kong. You saw he was basically canceled and how the Houston Rockets were canceled and the ebasead a twto had to d themselves before the ccp to get their games broadcast again in china. A year to this the rockets are going to be on tv again in china. Problem. Eal i feel like for the past year ive been on unpaid spokesman for nokia and ericsson. [laughter] not even american companies. You are 100 right, arthur, they have realized the threat not only to National Security but the personal private data of their citizens as posed by china and huawei, which reports to the ccp directly. They are coming along and realizing it is not safe to have the chinese backbone internetworks. I think what you are seeing is a realignment geopolitically. There was a time when most of us grew up, a lot of younger people and thishen the ussr, movement, the group of 72 countries, and they kind of floated between the two. That has changed. Now we have a group of authoritarian, totalitarian countries russia, iran, china, maybe others moving in that direction, and you also have a group of democracies the United States, eastern and western europe, the eu, the u. K. , india, brazil, indonesia, malaysia. What we will start having is a divided level between democracies, countries that share our values and believe in rights of authoritarian countries that are offering a different approach to the world, which is a pseudodemocracy but a party or strongman where people dont have the rule of law and basic human rights and the ability to petition their government for the redress of grievances. I think you will see a new led byg of democracies countries like brazil and india and the United States and others, and then a group of authoritarian countries. I think you will also see some of that divide with respect to who picks huawei and who doesnt. The other point is with regard to china and all the data floating through 5g from all of that data, no matter how in oculus may seem to us, like tiktok no matter how innocuous it may seem to us, like tiktok him it is all grist to the artificial learning mills that helps to feed the larger strategic plan. This is not just a competing business plan. This is a different strategic plan. That raises the question genesyre doing it with as well. They are offering free genetic testing to countries around the world to get gene maps of countries all over the globe. Not only does it help pharmaceutical companies and give them an advantage, but it also gives them a tremendous, for morneau fairies purposes, for more nefarious purposes, tremendous database that is something were looking at that is very concerning. This raises the larger in ourn, which is, competition with china, are we now in a new cold war . Is it a new cold war . Is it different from the one with the soviet union . I think it is going to be different. What the president has said time and again and what i have said time and again is we want great relations with china. The Chinese People are wonderful people. Hundreds of thousands of them study. Many americans of chinese descent. China has traditionally been an american ally. We fought together in world war ii we want a great relationship with china. The problem we have it is not even the Chinese Communist party. It is the Chinese Communist partys efforts to spread their tentacles not just across china, across the world, and to control us the way they control their own people, and steal our intellectual property. Christopher wray, the director of the fbi, says that chinese theft of intellectual property is the greatest wealth transfer in human history. It was no analog to it anywhere in history. There is no and the to anywhere in history. China is a great country with hardworking people and smart people and credibly capable people incredibly capable people. Do your own inventions, do your own innovations. Create your own technology. Dont steal it from us. That sounds horrible under any system. Mr. Obrien dont steal the hard work of the American People, folks in europe, africa, whatever technology is developed. Take it back to china. Dont pay for it and use it to create competing projects and subsidize those projects back to the country from where you stole the technology and for the folks out of business who developed the technology to begin with. Twicee getting clobbered if you are an inventor. You get your inventions with no license fee and no your inventions stolen with no license fee and no competition and your market is undercut and either you or your license fee is put out of business. Great countries dont build themselves on safetheft. When you think that American Businesses are more and more realizing this . China isnt going to produce which youopen market, can compete on an even playing field. D inre going to be loote order to bolster your domestic chinese competitors. Mr. Obrien standing up to the chinese are deciding not to do business in china. If i could sell everybody a hamburger once a week, that is a lot of hamburgers to sell at mcdonalds. It seems like a great business opportunity. But you realize it is not a great business opportunity, opening all the stores, you teach them the skills, franchise network, that sort of thing. That is the idea of folks it has been too big of a market not to be involved with. The president and his administration have stood up for American Businesses, and i think American Business appreciates an American Workers appreciate because we are seeing many fracturing to this country that people said would never happen, past. S a thing of the that there was just no way we could compete with the chinese, and what weve shown is the americans are every bit as competitive as the chinese are. For those of you in the audience watching livestream or on cspan, if you would like to submit a question to the ambassador, you can go to our website. The email address is events hudson. Org we look forward to any questions we get in that regard. Let me ask you about two areas where critics of the Trump Administration have pointed to his weaknesses and problems. One is north korea. There was a lot of expectation after President Trumps meeting with kim jongun that maybe we were going to ca real breakthrough. There were pledges made by kim about denuclearizing or starting the process. We seem to have stalled out. It doesnt seem to be going anywhere. What is your view on what is going to happen next with north korea . Obrien we had a difficult situation in north korea that spanned many administrations. It goes back to the Clinton Administration when the North Koreans made a breakout attempt to get Nuclear Weapons and the means to deliver them. It wasnt just the Nuclear Weapons that were difficult. The warheads were dangerous, but the fact they could potentially deliver them against south korea, u. S. Bases in the region, and ultimately the continental u. S. , so this has been a problem that has bedeviled american foreignpolicy professionals and National Security professionals for almost 30 years. When the president took office, president obama told him the number one National Security threat you have is north korea. There were a number of people who thought we were going to go to war with north korea, that there was no other option, and the president did two things. He put on a maximum Pressure Campaign. As much as we talked about sanctioning north korea in the past, maximum pressure had not been put on north korea. The president put into place a maximum pressure sanctions regime and encouraged china to respect the sanctions regime, and that put pressure on north korea. He put American Military assets in the region, and it was a peace through strength approach showing that we have aircraft carriers operating in the yellow sea. If you take action against our allies, south korea, japan, we have the means to finish the fight if we end up in a fight, and there was some very strong rhetoric on both sides. You can remember the rocket man. Was deridednt, that by the Foreign Policy establishment. It brought the North Koreans to the table for the first time. Does withent, as he all foreign leaders, he was very cordial with him. Thats one of the things about diplomacy. I think Henry Kissinger said diplomacy is saying the nastiest things in the nicest possible way. He took a hard line, but he did it in a friendly manner. Ou have to denuclearize that was something that chairman kim agreed to at singapore. Way, and weong believe and the president believes in trust but verify. Unfortunately, we have had a tough time since singapore in making progress on the denuclearize asian of the korean peninsula. Thee are concerns that if kim family gives up their Nuclear Weapons, it could be the end of their regime. Aen you are asking counterpart in a negotiation to do something that could result in their demise, thats a very difficult negotiation to have. What the president tried to paint for chairman kim and the north Korean People is an alternative vision, like what we are talking about in the middle east, that the Nuclear Weapons arent going to bring you prosperity. They arent even going to bring you prosperity or security. The potential for north korea is limitless. Look at south korea and the amazing economy it has, theres no reason the North Koreans, the verypeople, hardworking, little money and very little trade, it goes to the fact they are smart and hardworking and creative. If they channeled that into a real economy, north korea could be rich. It could be prosperous, and chairman kim could bc could be seen a somebody who brought prosperity. The results of the various , just like singapore reagan walked away at reykjavik, we have not had a test of a longrange international longrange Ballistic Missile since singapore. We havent had a nuclear test since singapore. Both of those outcomes would have been viewed as wildly successful under past administrations. There would be nobel prizes all around. This would be a great outcome. Instead, the standard the president is held to is, he didnt get rid of Nuclear Weapons in north korea. Chairman kim did not live up to his promise to denuclearize. George w, president obama, it didnt happen under any of them, and the president is being held to this standard even though he accomplish more with north korea deterrence,ns, stopping the longrange Ballistic Missile test, hes not being given credit for that, but its not surprising. Could you imagine any other president whos achieved what the president has achieved, nobel prize nominations would be flooded his way. Not complaining, and i think we live in a very polarized political world, but i think when historians and arthur about this writing administration, they are going to look at some of these accomplishments with a more distanced view and say, this was an incredible time. Arthur with a wider lens and more objective lens. I colleague has a question. Rebecca. Rebecca can you talk about the importance of President Trumps decision to pull out of the inf treaty and how we are exploiting that to produce these kinds of weapon systems in the indo Pacific Theater to deter china . Where are we with the russians on new start . I know weve made some progress and new that the russians indicated they are interested in some kind of deal. Can you give us any insight. brien we entered into a treaty with the russians that limited our ability to produce and deploy weapon systems, missiles that would travel in the intermediate range, a range miles ornautical kilometers. I could be off by a few miles or kilometers. We stuck to that. Unfortunately, the russians didnt. They continued to test and deploy. The chinese used the fact that we werent building these to build thousands of missiles aimed at our people in the our navyfic to keep away from our allies in the region and out of the sphere of influence china would like to you, but they did that, as know, taking advantage of the byt that we were constrained a treaty with russia. The president decided, we cant compromise our National Security with regards to our inf treaty in the Indo Pacific Region or in europe where russians are violating the treaty. The president decided we arent going to be part of treaties any longer where we abide by treaties, and the other side doesnt. Still a consensus among some Foreign Policy elites that it is still good to abide by it because it shows our commitment to armscontrol. Its almost mindboggling, but people will tell you that with a straight face. Instead, we got out of the inf treaty. We are developing Ballistic Missile Delivery Systems that will keep our navy safe, are air men, our soldiers who are deployed out in the indo pacific wet will deter china, and will deploy the same missiles if to deter theeurope russian federation. Again, it is classic peace through strength. We think by deploying these weapons not only will we determine attack, but it will put us in the posture to have real armscontrol in the future, just like we deployed the cruise missiles in the 1980s to europe to get the soviets to come to the table and agree to the precursor, the zero option, the precursor to the inf treaty. Again, we arent going to be parties to treaties where we abide by them and the other side doesnt going forward, and thats a message everyone in the world should understand, and number two, we are going to put americas defense first. Tot that does with respect new start is it sets a new baseline and reorient the russians and chinese. They are stiff arming any attempts to do armscontrol. We want to get a good deal with the russians. The new start treaty is not a great deal. It was a treaty President Trump would have never negotiated. While it limits u. S. And Russian Strategic Delivery Systems and warheads, which is good, there is no limit to other missile , and ther warheads russians maintain a massive advantage in Nuclear Missiles over the u. S. Outside of the strategic category. If you are in paris and get blown up by a nuclear warhead, you arent going to say, im glad that was just a tactical nuke as opposed to a strategic nuke. I feel much better about that nuclear blast. Attempting to do now is show resolve. Weve made an offer to the russians, and i think there has been progress on this front. I met with my counterpart general patrick chef. I had a very businesslike meeting with him. Startested we extend new for a year, and at the same time, both parties agree to cap their weapons production during that year, and see if that gives us time to negotiate a really terrific armscontrol deal with the russians. I think we are getting close. We have to work on a verification procedure for that timeframe, but if we can get through the verification issues, i think we will get to a deal. We think it is in their interest. We think it is in our interest. We would like to get a deal. We will see how that plays out. Arthur weve only got a couple minutes left. Should we talk a couple minutes about africa . Ive got to have an online question, which is about the spread of islamic extremism in various places of west africa, particularly nigeria, isis and al qaeda, but africa figures into that geopolitical competition with china. China has been working to establish a neocolonial regime in african countries in order to extract resources and wealth from those countries. Where is the Trump Administration, where are you strong u. S. Africa relationship, both for dealing with the islamic terrorist issue but also counterbalancing what china is doing. Amb. Obrien i am very bullish on africa. Its got a massive population. Its a young population. You have Tremendous Energy coming from africa. Youve got a lot of entrepreneurs in africa across the whole continent. I think its an exciting place to do business, and in many ways, africa is going to be the future, just based on the age and youth of the population. We are taking a different approach than the chinese. We are encouraging American Businesses to be in africa. We are guaranteeing loans at the acxiom bank. I had the privilege of announcing recently a Pandemic Response program. We are going to build a center of excellence in cape town, south africa to expand respond to global pandemics. We are going to redirect money to africa, hundreds of millions of dollars, and we are paring the center we are going to build with historically back black colleges and universities with med schools. We are going to pair those med schools with the center in south africa and take u. S. Expertise from these great universities, give their students a great to work abroad, and i think we are going to have a tremendous impact. On pep far0 billion and antiviral treatments and aids treatments in africa. It we have labs all over africa. We have wonderful friends in africa, but we dont get the same publicity that the chinese do when they go in and buy a port or take over an enterprise in africa. We are working with the private sector. Are trying to develop more trade and investment, and we think there is a strong opportunity and africa. Niger andme time in mali as the hostage envoy. Hostagean american jeffrey would key, and other hostages are being held by an offshoot of al qaeda. We are working closely with the french. They have about 5000 troops. We have about 900 troops supporting them with unique intelligence capabilities we have. We are working hand in glove with the french. A south korean , andcan and to hostages two french marines were sadly killed in that raid, and i was able to meet with their unit and thank them on behalf of the president and the american our hostage inng addition to the other nationalities they recovered. There is an isis element in that region, but its going to be a tough fight. The africans are going to have to fight this fight themselves. We are going to be there to support them, but you also have islamic terrorism and extremism along the coast of east africa. Antanzania, we are seeing outbreak of isis activity. We are going to have to come together with our friends and allies. This is an area of burden sharing where we think our european allies can come to the fight in a big way, and we can support them. A u. S. T just be response. It will have to be african, european response, supported by the u. S. We are bullish on africa. We think we are doing it in the right way, unlike the chinese who are coming in, seeking to dominate countries. Arthur enormous debt. Amb. Obrien they bribe corrupt leaders. That money goes to europe. Its never seen by the people in that country. The chinese then build a boondoggle, a sports stadium, using chinese workers, not local workers, not improving the skill set of the indigenous people, and its built by a chinese stateowned enterprise. The money stays in china. They pay chinese workers, and the country is settled with a shoddy Infrastructure Project that starts falling apart, and theyve got a huge debt with massive interest payments. Weve had it several african countries come to us and say, will you please pay off our chinese debt . Unfortunately, we cant do that. The american taxpayer cannot bail these guys out. Countriesrican realize what has happened to them. In some places, it is the colonialism there. This isnt the old type of western development where you give aid or give grants. The chinese collateralize their loans with railroads and ports, and they come in and collect. They take the collateral. Its a nasty business. Arthur mr. Ambassador, our time is up. Thank you so much. Hugely instructive and a very interesting discussion. I hope you will come again. Amb. Obrien i hope so. Everyonehank you to here and tower audiences Live Streaming and at cspan. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] incumbent senator david perdue and democratic candidate jon ossoff participate in a debate this evening, live coverage beginning at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. With six days left until election day, on november 3 when Voters Decide who will control congress and occupy the white house next year, stick with cspan. 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