That because we know Energy Security is essential to National Security. Nord stream 2 threatens european Energy Security, increases russian monopoly over the region. To me this pipeline is a russian trap. Strongly support your recent announcement aimed at stopping this dangerous pipeline. Congress is quickly working to provide the administration with additional tools to prevent nord stream 2 from ever being completed. Both the senate and house passed their own versions of the Defense Authorization act. Could you talk about the administrations commitment to opposing the nord stream 2 pipeline and applying sanctions against those companies aiding in the completion of this russian trap . The ironny is this administration is accused of not being tough on russia. This pipeline created enormous leverage for russia not only against germany and broader europe but ukraine as well. And so we set about in good sport on capitol hill and we got legislation that was appropriate to and now have delayed this project significantly. We need further tools. Were prepared to use those tools provided to us and weve also used our diplomatic capabilities to make clear to countries we want europe to have a secure, stable, diverse set of energy opportunities. And our department of energy has worked along side of us to do that, and our enr department are working to make sure europe has real secure, stable, safe Energy Sources that cannot be turned off in the event that russia decides they want to do so. We think nord stream 2 is dangerous in that effect. Well do everything we can to make sure that pipeline doesnt threaten europe. Id like to move now to the iranian arms embargo. The International Arms embargo is stet to expire this year. Were having to persuade the International Committee of the importance of having iran the leading state national of terror from purchasing weapons. Itll arm terrorists and proxy groups across the region. Weve seen more weapons will likely flow. Despite the terrible consequences many experts believe that any extension of the iranian arms embargo would be vetoed by russia, by china. What would they want it to expire, and is the Chinese Communist party really willing to betray Global Security in order to be irans arms dealer . I hope not but i suspect so. Were working with our e3 counter parts as well. We will submit the u. N. Security Council Resolution in the near future where we will offer to extend this. This was one of the central failings of the jcpoa was to have only a fiveyear ban on the iranian capacity to purchase Weapons Systems to build out air Defense Systems to protect a Nuclear Program should they continue down that path but also to sell weapons around the world and become again as they were before one of the Worlds Largest arms dealers. Were going to do everything we can. We believe we have the capacity to do this at the United Nations. We hope the u. N. Counsel will conclude extending this arms embargo is the right thing. In the event they dont were going to use every tool we have on our fingerprints. We think it decreases stability in the middle east. We think that would threaten israel. Onto religious freedom Sam Brownback for religious freedom recently wrote humanity is why religious freedom will always win out against government and nonstate actors seeking to suppress and control it. We have authoritarian regimes continuing to restrict religious freedoms and the rights of individuals. Can you discuss efforts of the administration youve taken to promote International Religious freed freedoms . We have raised the priority of International Religious freedom inside the state department. I think thats happened under President Trump and Vice President pence. Thats happened all across the administration. Weve used our diplomatic tools to encourage it, we work with religious leaders in many countries to provide them with security. The work were doing in Northern Iraq today is an example, but theres still lots of challenges. Whats happening in nigeria to christians today, muslims in western china. Your point people of all faiths is under attack in too many places. The state department has an Important Role to increase the capacity for people to exercise their rights of religious freedom, and we werent able to do it this year because of the virus but we brought people from all across the world. The Worlds Largest human rights gatherings in all of history were held at the state department twice around the central idea people need to be able to exercise this important right just to have their own faith. And earlier today, going to move onto china, i think you called Chinese Communist party the central threat of our times. We had your deputy here a couple of weeks ago, had a chance to talk about the issues related to china. To me theyre working to expand their military capabilities to advance their global ambitions. They want to dominate globally. In the last few months weve seen them increase military aggression whether its near taiwan, the south china sea, japan. What theyve been doing in hong kong, what theyve been doing at home. Can you talk about the recent confrontations by china and what that taught us about chinas military ambitions as well as their capabilities . Because when we go to secure briefings we ask lots about their capabilities. Not just what they might do but what they can do. I think these actions and when you say recent the last 24, 36 months i think the actions are entirely consistent with what they have been signaling to the world for decades. You might even argue since 1989. But certainly since general secretary xi came to power. Its a desire to expand their power, their reach. They talk about this. They talk about bringing socialism with chinese characteristics to the world and whether you identify some but claimed theyve now made for real estate the incursion that took place in india. These are indicative of chinese intentions and theyre probing the world to see if were going to stand up to their threats and their bullying, and im more confident than i was even a year ago that the world is prepared to do that. Theres a lot more work to do and we need to be serious about it. Senator murphy. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Good morning, mr. Secretary. Let me say at the outset im very grateful for your proposal to double the budget of the Engagement Center. This is center to counteract propaganda outside the United States established through legislation written by myself and senator portman. And im glad youve recognized the importance and good work of that center. Though we have spent a lot of time in this hearing talking about many of our concern regarding our adversaries desire to use propaganda not outside of the United States but in fact inside of the United States to influence the 2020 election. And so i want to begin by asking you a question about that. Russia in particular has sought to weave together stories about u. S. Persons and ukrainian persons over the course of the past year in order to both try to sow chaos and dissent in the United States but also to try to screw with ukrainian politics as well. Its kind of a double whammy for the russians. And you can see those efforts ramping up as we head into the 2020 election. Probably the most active foreign individual pushing narratives about the United States in ukraine is a ukrainian legislator by the name of andre derkoch who magically came into secret possession of audio recordings. Hes maintained a Government Relations council here and i would expect hes going to be a pretty active presence in u. S. Politics from here to the election. So just a simple question on behalf of my constituents and many of my colleagues as well. Should we view him as a credible source of information . Ill answer your question but let me just say real quick because i think thats important. Thank you for the compliment. The other thing im worried about with asking for a doubling of the money is to make sure we can deploy it in a way weve been pretty successful as its grown but when you expand something 100 year on year i have a team making sure we dont misuse those resources. I will say this, were taking seriously the threats that russia will try to engage in disinformation campaigns, that there may be oligarchs who try to engage in this, foreign actors not just russian. We were pretty successful with this in the 2018 election. I say we, not the state department alone. But all the United States government. Im confident we will be in this one as well. Why wouldnt you be willing to opine on a specific individual if you had information to suggest that the source was not credible . It seems if that is in fact the function of the u. S. Government. If it has information to that would suggest maligned influence to let congress and the American People know. Yeah. So when its appropriate i will. When theres still work ongoing and theres still unsettled intelligence around these things im going to try to be just a little bit more careful, senator. Let be turn to china for a moment. China is clearly seeking to use the United States failure to control covid as a means to leapfrog us in our traditional leadership position when it comes to Global Health. Senator romney referred to this earlier. I think weve given two big gifts to the chinese since the beginning of this outbreak. The first was the president s just remarkable fawning over chinas earlier response to the virus 47 different times. He commended china for their response and their transparency. But i think china also is pretty happy with our withdrawal from the w. H. O. And i understand that you believe as i understand it that our withdrawal from w. H. O. Is a lever to try to seek internal change, and i would disagree. But it also seems to allow for china to step in and occupy that vacuum. So as you step back and try to articulate this sort of broad strategy to counteract chinas growing influence on the world how does withdrawal from the w. H. O. Counteract the growing influence of china . Thats a good question. These are close calls sometimes. We left the human rights council, the same argument was made better to fight from within than try to reform from outside. I think there are reasonable arguments that could be made on either side. The decision the president made, and i conquer with this decision went through multiple rounds of reforms at the World Health Organization and our team in geneva fought for years. And there was no capacity to make that a science based organization and not a political one. And there comes a point where youre spending half a billion dollars on u. S. Taxpayer money year on year that goes to benefit the political actors in the Health Organization and we made the decision we were more likely to achieve the Global HealthSecurity Issues that the United States cares about deeply if we did not participate any further in the World Health Organization. Im not at all convinced it will be china that benefits from that. Im convinced the world will benefit. Weve seen it other places. Whether the United States leads, and we will absolutely lead good things can happen in the International Health realm. I would dispute your characterization of the w. H. O. It is an international body. Theres no way there wont be some level of politics affecting the decision of a body made up of adversaries will go through, but it is a science based organization and one indispensable to our continuation of our efforts to prevent the next disease. And i shudder our ability to stop the next covid if were not backing w. H. O. Again back to senator romney emphasis line of questions about the capabilities we should be developing with our allies to counteract china. I dont think its sustainable for this administration or any other administration to try to go around the world bullying and shaming our friends and sort of have friends into not doing business with china. Well, youve got to have an answer for the things that china is offering. And on the Technology Front we dont have a great answer for 5g. And we may not have a great answer for whatever china is going to put out there on ai or battery technology. Isnt this essential, not just to same other countries into forsaking technology but actually to work with our allies to develop our own alternatives . 1,000 . Absolutely, senator murphy. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator portman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Appreciate your having the opportunity to let us talk to the secretary of state today. This has been very helpful, very informative. I would say with regard to china and developing technologies with our allies we have a lot to do right here in the United States to get our own house in order. Were pretty good at pointing fingers at china and its usually appropriate but we also arent doing much here to protect ourselves. And i want to thank you because you have provided some great help from your career professionals with regard to our efforts to push back against china taking our technology. And in particular china has these programs. You mentioned youve been doing it for a while. Youve been doing it for two decades where they come over here and find Promising Research and researchers and systematically target them and take that research up in china. And it is economic, health care, its everything. And over the last couple of years weve worked hard on this with an investigation, a report and now legislation called the securing American Innovation act. But with regard to the state department piece of this your career people have come and testified before us, said they need more tools in order to stop folks who they know are coming here to deal with export control technology, coming over here to actually steal our stuff and take it back to china. But they are unable to stop those people from coming in despite affiliations with the peoples army, affiliations with the Chinese Communist party and in many cases a history of taking research. So we worked with one of your pearson fellows. You told me about the pearson fellowship and i took advantage of it. For the last year mark has been working with us, done a terrific job and weve put together legislation thats wellbalanced that says hey, we we want research. We dont want to have this u. S. Taxpayer funded research being stolen. So i thank you for that. I would ask you do you agree these new visa authorities are helpful to protect Taxpayer Research and intellectual property from our adversaries in china . They absolutely are. And we need an expanded tool set to make sure we get this right. Were making progress. Our teams are working alongside fbi are working hard on this set of issues. We all need to be candid when we go back to our home states. We need to be candid whats taking place in some of these higher institutions of learning all across america and be thoughtful how we respond to this influence and theft operation thats being conducted. Thats absolutely right. There are five different provisions in the legislation. One relates directly to our universities and research institutions. To their credit a number of them worked with us and we work with them. Senator and i have taken this but there are universities and associations pushing back hard. And frankly, i think theyre naive and arent willing to faceup to the threat thats out there. And its a National Security threat. Im glad over the last couple of weeks that we have had opportunity to confirm some good nominees from the department of state and im concerned about the backlog where you really had a tough time building up the department. And theres more to go. One i want to ask you about, though, in particular is ukraine. Back in 2014 we went over to ukraine right over the revolution and in those six years intervening a lot has happened in ukraine. A lot of bad has happened, too. And we see right now once again were at a tipping point. The ceasefire is not holding. I understand theres been about a hundred violations of it recently. Ukraine made a decision six years ago to turn to us in the west and yet we still have a situation where theyre not getting the support they need. Two questions for you. How important is it to get Lieutenant General dayton confirmed as the ambassador in ukraine, number one. I think hes highly qualified. Im really pleased with that nomination. And number two, do you agree with what we just did in the national Defense Authorization bill which was to have a record amount of lethal aid going to ukraine. Weve gone from roughly 50 million to 120 million in that legislation. Do you support that legislation . I do. The administration does support the increase in lethal aid. Its important to get a confirmed ambassador in that position. If i might just add this, too, were still thinking it was a real loss when ambassador volcker departed. The work he was doing w