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Washington, D.C. – Today House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) joined Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and members of the Task Force on National Security at the Council on Foreign Relations to unveil House Republicans’ blueprint to keep America safe and advance our national interests abroad.

The agenda document – part of the House GOP’s A Better Way initiative – outlines dozens of ideas to address four main goals:

  • Defeat the Terrorists. We must make it our top national security priority to prevail in the war against radical Islamic extremism.
  • Protect the Homeland. We must keep terrorists out of America, secure our borders, and stop cyber-attacks.
  • Tackle New Threats. We must make sure our country is ready to tackle the threats of our time and beyond.
  • Defend Freedom. We must restore American influence, advance free enterprise, and expand the community of free nations.

In a panel discussion, Chairman Royce addressed the threats we face from ISIS and dangerous regimes and outlined steps the U.S. should take to counter them.  Video is available HERE, and several excerpts are included below.

Stop Appeasing Iran:

“We needed a tilt toward the people in Iran… Instead, the administration made the decision to engage with the ayatollah… And in so doing, empowered, enabled that revolutionary regime in many ways.  And subsequently [the White House] has bought into this idea now that they can’t offend the Iranian regime. And we’ve seen this in a whole slew of decision making. You know, giving them access to the dollar – the attempt to do that – the heavy water subsidy and so forth.”

Use America’s Economic Leverage to Counter a Nuclear North Korea:

“[O]ne thing we’ve tried in the past that has worked… was the sanctions on Banco Delta Asia… [T]hat’s the one point in time when things were really desperate in North Korea…Now, I passed legislation in December, it was signed by the president, that set up a sanctions effort on North Korea to do exactly what we did the … What we have to do is stick with that policy.”

Promote Prosperity Through Free Markets and Trade Agreements That Create U.S. Jobs:

“Beijing has got an initiative underway for trade agreements all across Asia to sort of supplant U.S. influence throughout that region. And those trade deals… are based on a concept of trade—free trade—but with no standards. No rules. What the United States needs is free trade agreements with high standards. With rules that protect intellectual property. And we discuss this in this document. This is what is in the interest of U.S. jobs, but it’s also in the interest of U.S. national security.”

Restore American Leadership on the World Stage:

“Our relationship with Russia is partly a policy failure of this administration going back to the restart with Russia. When you think about it, at that time the administration made the decision to pull out of Eastern Europe the very antimissile defense system—intercept system—that we were to deploy in Poland and in the Czech Republic in case there was ever a launch from Iran towards Europe or towards the United States. In exchange for doing that, Putin sensed weakness. And on and on it went, with our red line in Syria, and then into Ukraine. Weakness, and no push back. So, I think that we see what the takeaway was, not just for the Russians.

“Why aren’t we broadcasting into Russia in the same way that Russia uses RT television? Why don’t we have an effective policy today? Reform the BBG. I have legislation to do that that we put in the NDAA bill with [Chairman Thornberry’s] help.”

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