Transcripts For CSPAN3 U.N. Ambassador Says U.S. Voice Remai

Visitors like otto warmbier. It is no surprise that north korea is determined to deploy ballistic weapons technology. The United Nations has passed good Security Council resolutions on north korea, spurred by u. S. Legislation that we passed in this committee. U. N. Peace keeping has played a Critical Role over the years in advancing u. S. Interests and should be prioritized in accordance with u. S. Law. The recent deaths of peace keepers in south sudan and in mali remind us of the dangers they face. But Peace Keeping would find more support if failing missions, some decades old were closed and the horrendous sexual abuses tackled head on. This committee has pushed to improve the u. N. s transparency and accountability, advancing protections of whistle blowers and bringing u. N. Peace keepers that are sexual predators to the bar of justice. Ambassador haley we look forward to how we can support you working to improve transparency and accountability. This committee looks forward to assist in your difficult tasks ahead. I now turn to the Ranking Member for his opening remarks. Thank you, mr. Chairman and madam ambassador. Welcome to the Foreign Affairs committee. Ive watched you in the short months that youve been ambassador. I hope youre enjoying my hometown of new york, best place in the world. Ive watched you with admiration in terms of how youve been conducting yourself. As i said to you in the room before we started, we pride ourselves on this committee of being the most Bipartisan Committee in the congress. The chairman and i have worked very hard to do that. When there are disagreements, there are disagreements. But we all share the same goal. Of course the United States is the worlds biggest super power. We believe that we have a lot to offer the world and want to continue to work with all the countries of the world. I was disappointed in the budget. I said this to secretary tillerson as well. It cuts our support for key Peace Keeping efforts in the United Nations by nearly 40 . Peace keeping missions help people who have been driven from their homes by atrocities in south sudan. Missions are scheduled to close soon because theyve been so effective in building stability and security. We are traditionally invested a little more than the minimum required in Peace Keeping. Thats what i think an ind indispensable power should do. These initiatives help prevent cry cease. They do it for eight times less than it would cost to send an american soldier. The administrations also seeking to completely eliminate american support for the Disaster Relief coordination for the u. N. Women, for the u. N. Population fund, for unicef. 100 reduction, i think that needs to be changed. The u. N. Has its problems, no one disputes that. We talked a little while about some of them. I personally think the way israel is blamed and bullied by u. N. Members is terrible. As i told you before, the socalled Human Rights Council has the worst human rights abusers on that council. It is the epitome of gall to think they can sit and look at anybody in judgment of anybody given the fact that they have the most abysmal human rights records in the world. It almost makes it a little bit like alice in wonder land. I do think American Leadership is urgently needed to help shape Security Council resolutions. Walking away from our commitments isnt the right way to effect the reform that we would like to see. Were willing to cede the ground to whomever steps into our place. I cant imagine a more harmful course. If we want our values and priert priorities to be the priorities of other countries, withdrawing from the multilateral consideration is a grave mistake. Im glad that congress will have the last word on the budget issues. I remain deeply concerned about the number of other areas where American Foreign policy is going off course and how that affected their ability to work with other governments through the u. N. Let me say as i told you before i look forward to working with you. You have approached this job with a zest and verve thats been very refreshing. Welcome. I look forward to your testimony and look forward to your tenure as u. N. Ambassador. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Ingel. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Its a pleasure for me to introduce my friend, Ambassador Nikki Haley to my colleagues. A South Carolina native, Ambassador Haley graduated from my alma mater, the 2016 National Football champion. Im shame less. In 2004 she became the first indianamerican to hold South Carolina Public Office when she won a seat in the South Carolina state house where i served with her for six years. In 2010 she was elected the first female as well as the first minority governor of South Carolina. Ambassador haley brought invest and jobs from all over the world. South carolina now holds more than 1200 operations of International Firm which is employ more than 131,000. A lot of this invest was directly tied to governor hal haleys efforts. On november 22nd, 2016, the president elect picked her to become the United States ambassador to the united nati nations. Welcome to congress and we look forward to your testimony. I yield back. Welcome, ambassador. Without objection, the ambassadors full prepared statements will be made a part of the record. I would ask you if you could summarize your remarks. Thank you very much. To my friend jeff, go tigers and thank you for that introduction. Chairman royce, Ranking Member ingel and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss advancing u. S. Interests at the United Nations. Five months and three days ago i was sworn in as u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations. I came into this position at a time when Many Americans felt a deep sense of betrayal at the u. N. In the wake of the passage of resolution 2334. At my confirmation hearing i made the following promise. If i am privileged to be the u. S. Ambassador, i will never sit passively while americans interests and friends are run down at the u. N. Five months later i can say that i havent been quiet on the issues important to the United States and i can say this. I have kept my promise. Our friends and our rivals know that america has once again found its voice at the United Nations. The International Community is now very clear about what the u. S. Is for and what the u. S. Is against. It wasnt long after my confirmation that my promise was put to the test. In early april the Syrian Regime dropped chemical weapons on syrian children. We forced the Security Council to hold an open emergency session, which some Member States didnt want. We drew a red line. If the u. N. Would not act collectively, the United States would act alone. And we did. We brought new accountability to the north korean regime. When north korea continued its illegal missile tests we brought all the nations of the Security Council together including china and russia to impose new sanctions. Even as we focus on north Koreas Nuclear and missile threat, we also continue to highlight the barbaric Human Rights Violations the regime is committing. Otto warmbiers death brought home to americans the brutality that North Koreans have known for decades. The same clear voice weve used to take on our adversaries, weve also used to support americas values and americas friends. Thanks to u. S. Leadership, human rights are at the forefront of the u. N. Agenda. For the First Time Ever during the u. S. Presidency of the Security Council, we convened a meeting dedicated solely to the protection of human rights and their relationship to conflict. We made the case that Human Rights Violations and conflict are directly related. History has played out. When governments dont respect the rights and voices of the people, conflict will soon follow. Weve also called out the council for legitimizing human rights violators at the embassy pension of their victims. We forced the withdrawal of a false and biassed report and weve steered the Security Councils monthly debate away from targeting israel and toward the true threats in the region such as iran and hamas. Were reviewing every one of the Peace Keeping missions with an eye toward ensuring that we have clear and achievable mandates. Were also working to ensure that troops are ready, professional and committed to the safety of civilians on the ground. Troops in the u. S. Peace keeping mission in the democratic republican of the congo have long faced charges of sexual abuse and other serious must conduct. We inserted clear instructions into the missions most recent mandate to enforce performance standards for troops. There is no place in any u. N. Peace keeping mission for predatory and abusive troops. Our Peace Keeping reforms are aimed at producing more Effective Missions for vulnerable citizens. We will hold governments accountable to their responsibility to protect their own citizens while also cutting down waste and inefficiency. Weve adapted the mission in haiti to save at least 150 million for the year. We will continue our Reform Efforts when we take up the Peace Keeping Mission Renewal this month in darfur, sudan. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to highlight our efforts to reassert u. S. Leadership at the United Nations. Its hard to believe its only been five months since i moved my family to new york to begin this exciting and challenging new chapter. Ill look forward to more progress in the months ahead and i welcome your questions. Thank you. Let me start with this point. This week the white house issued a firm statement, a warning to syria after it was picked up that assad his regime was preparing potentially for another chemical weapons attack. You amplified that message yourself. Have we seen assads regime take any steps in response to that warning . Well, i can tell you that due to the president s actions, we did not see an incident. What we did see before was all of the same activity that we had seen prior for the april 4th chemical weapons attack. So i think that by the president calling out assad, i think by us continuing to remind iran and russia that while they choose to back assad, that this was something we were not going to put up with. I would like to think that the president saved many innocent men, women and children. Let me ask you a question on the u. N. Security Council Resolutions that were passed with respect to north korea. Were a few years away from north korea having an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile capability that can reach the u. S. And we have this question about enforcement. We have a second bill in addition to the sanctions bill which i and mr. Engel passed formerly and it was signed into law. We have a second bill to try to close any additional loopholes. Specifically what were trying to do is to stop the use of forced labor by north korea where theyll have workers sent to the middle east and other countries. Instead of the workers being paid, the money goes right back into the bank account of the north korean regime and is used on its Nuclear Weapons program. Were trying to cut off the currency that comes out of beijing that subsidized the regime even with the sanctions that the Security Council has p passed. Can you tell us if we had enforcement, what would be the impact on north koreas regime and their ability to move forward with this Nuclear Weapons program . The more pressure we put on north korea, the better. You are dealing with a paranoid leader who thinks we are trying to assassinate him, who thinks we are trying to do regime change, who keeps his public in the dark only hearing what he wants them to hear. What we need to remember is that he is building a Nuclear Program and you are more optimistic saying it is multiple years before an icbm comes forward. I think its going to happen sooner because they are on target to do that. And they continue to use their people for those violations. I would welcome any sort of pressure that you could put forward to slow down that process of nuclear development. I think this is so critical. Secretary mattis has said that north korea is the number one threat from his standpoint. I think key also is to get the senate to take action now. And i would suggest immediately. That bill has been over there for some time. I also wanted to ask you about the Human Rights Commission and how your efforts to sort of change this system to competitive voting rather than regional rotation in order to make sure that the Human Rights Council ditches some of its old procedures and ditches the antiisrael focus. I mean, we had 70 resolutions against israel and very few to touch on iran or other human rights abusers around the planet. How is that going . You sat down with many europeans when you traveled over there to make this pitch to those governments. Can you give us an update on that . Yes. And i can give you an example that will bring it very close to home. We have seen terrible things happening in venezuela. And we continue to be very very concerned. So we brought up an emergency session in the Security Council for venezuela. My colleagues were not appreciative of that because they said it wasnt a peace and security issue and it needed to be heard at the Human Rights Council. The problem is the Human Rights Council never heard anything or condemned venezuela because venezuela sittins on the counci along with cuba and saudi arabia and china. I didnt want to send a statement from new york. I thought it was important that i went in person. I explained to them this cant be a place bad actors go to to protect themselves and point fingers at others. Many of them agreed that it discredited the Human Rights Council. I do think we were heard and i do hope theres a change. Thank you. My time is expired. I go to mr. Elliot engel of new york. I want to piggy back on the question about the Human Rights Commission. First of all, let me say i heard your speech and i thought it was a very fine speech. What so aggravates me about the u. N. Human Rights Council is that they have a nerve as i said before to try to sit in judgment of anybody else. People should be investigating them for the worst human rights abuses. And they do it to their own people as well. The u. N. Human Rights Council has targeted israel ever since its creation. They have agenda item 7. Its a permanent agenda item targeting israel. Its the only country specific agenda item at the council. Obviously its ridiculous and unfair. The membership of the council is an embarrassment to the u. N. Some of the members engage in the worst abuses. With all the problems of the council, i do recognize that because of u. S. Leadership, the council has begun to shift its scrutiny to some of the worlds worst human rights violators. U. S. Participation has improved the councils treatment of israel to some degree and shifted the focus to Human Rights Violations in north korea, iran and syria. At the same time, the 20062009 u. S. Boycott of the council did nothing to prevent the council from continuing to cause damage. So i have a couple of questions about this. What steps do you propose taking to remove agenda item seven from the councils agenda and reform criteria for membership of the council. I abhor conferring legitimacy on any entity which discriminates against israel or is to one sided. I worry if the u. S. Withdrew from the Council Things could actually get worse. What would be the impact of u. S. Priorities including protection of israel if the u. S. Were to withdraw from the u. N. Human Rights Council. Thank you. That is my dilemma which is are we better off being on the Human Rights Council with all of these bad actors where its very hard to give the council any credit, or do we do our own human rights fights outside the council. Thats what remains to be seen. The