South and Central Asia Subcommittee Chairman Huizenga Delivers Opening Remarks at Full Committee Hearing on Advancing National Security through Public Diplomacy
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Foreign Affairs South and Central Asia Subcommittee Chairman Bill Huizenga delivered opening remarks at a full committee hearing titled "Advancing National Security through Public Diplomacy".
-Remarks-
Public diplomacy is a critical national security tool with real impact. When done right, it convinces countries and their people to partner with, invest in, and defend the United States. When done wrongly, it turns people against us, undermines our values, and wastes taxpayer dollars.
We are in a competition to win the hearts and minds of people around the world. The Chinese Communist Party spends billions of dollars every year on propaganda, censorship and the export of digital authoritarianism. This is a coordinated global campaign to erode American influence and to convince the world that authoritarianism is the future. The CCP is wrong, and it must resort to lies and censorship to achieve its goals.
America has the truth on its side. Our values of freedom, liberty, and free markets have secured more individual rights than any other governmental system ever devised and has lifted billions of people around the globe out of poverty.
Public diplomacy is how we share that story. Successful public diplomacy persuades nations and people with a clear and simple truth. Partnering with the United States of America is the best path to prosperity and security for your people. Partner with America and not the CCP. Unfortunately, the Biden administration approach to public diplomacy left America with a damaged image, in my opinion. Instead of telling the truth about America, they wasted taxpayer money on radical ideological projects and a censorship industrial complex that violated our core values.
The Biden State Department spent $25,000 on a transgender opera in Columbia, $150,000 to build the capacity of inter-sex leaders in India, $20,000 for a drag show in Ecuador, $72,000 for queering the map of Slovakia, whatever that means. And the list goes on. And to people in Washington, that may not sound like a whole lot of money. Go ask the average American taxpayer how much $25,000 or how much $150,000 is to them. I assure you that we do not win the hearts and minds in Michigan or the global south, or anywhere else, by wasting taxpayer dollars on drag shows for kids. The Biden administration, through the global engagement center, spent roughly $50 million a year of taxpayer dollars, which, I might add, a lot of that is borrowed, facilitating global censorship, including, we now know, of Americans.
It wasn't just wasteful, it was strategically devastating. It destroyed bipartisan consensus, discouraged countries from wanting to partner with us, and aligned our tactics with the repressive regimes that are supposed to be who we are confronting. That era is over. This committee has come together in a bipartisan manner to fix it. Through last year's State authorization effort and the NDAA, we authorized in law two out of three key public diplomacy officials. We mandated nonpolitical exchanges. We required a real strategy to counter lies from China and other adversaries with the truth. We stood up for internet freedom, which has been under attack around the globe. We supported President Trump's goal of hosting the 2035 World Expo in America, and we elevated the role of sports diplomacy. As our gold medal winning olympic teams recently proved, excellence in sports can capture the imagination and the admiration of the world. As a Representative of Michigan, I'm proud to learn that our great state produced both game winning goal scorers, by the way, be that Megan Keller from Farmington Hills and Jack Hughes from Canton.
And as we look to the future, America will be able to showcase all of the things that make our country great by hosting the upcoming FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Olympics in LA. None of this would have been possible without President Trump's decisive leadership and prioritization of this issue. But the job is not finished.
The critical remaining piece of public diplomacy is enhancing the bureau of global public affairs into a true strategic communications hub to combat foreign lies by promoting the truth. This is how we proactively counter CCP propaganda around the globe. Defend the free flow of information and creatively use technology to overcome information barriers to reach people. The bipartisan foundation is here. It's critical that we get this last remaining piece through.
Under Secretary Rogers, thank you for your efforts in realigning public diplomacy with its congressional mandate and for arranging bipartisan briefings on all of the public diplomacy requests, and Chairman Mast's State Department authorization letter to Secretary Rubio, including the new partnership between community colleges and the State Department. Your engagement with this committee is appreciated, and I look forward to your insight and recommendations.
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