Source: United States Senator for Delaware Christopher Coons
WASHINGTON – Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) delivered remarks tonight at the Notre Dame symposium titled Insight & Outlook on National and Global Affairs. In his remarks, Senator Coons made the case for building momentum and support for a global emergency funding package with robust funding to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and for global food aid. He also discussed bipartisanship in foreign policy, the importance of defending democracy around the world, and the conflict in Ukraine.
Said Senator Coons, “We are as divided as we’ve been in my adult lifetime. The last two presidential elections, the last four Supreme Court confirmations, the ways in which we are having difficulty hearing and respecting each other, it makes the daily work of crafting and passing legislation harder than ever. I’m having a particularly tough time today because we just tried unsuccessfully to pass a COVID supplemental that would provide funding for the rest of the world. I made the argument until I was blue in the face to colleagues that we have millions of lifesaving vaccines that are going to expire. We have a unique opportunity to show dozens of countries that are relying today on Chinese or Russian vaccines that are ineffective against Omicron, and that frankly, it’s in our own selfish interest. Because if we don’t vaccinate some of the 2 billion unvaccinated people around the world, the next variant will come back to us. We may be done with this pandemic, but it’s not done with us. And I have some good friends and colleagues who have been working with me on that. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina… Senator Romney of Utah, Senator Portman of Ohio. But the challenge was we couldn’t in the end count to ten in the other party to get that bill done.”
He continued, “We need to be braver about what we bring to the world. Both in free speech, in civil discourse, and in the future that we can offer of prosperity and freedom. But we’re at a moment where because of some events in our own country’s recent past, the rest of the world isn’t completely confident that’s where we’re heading…I’m here to tell you that every one of you is needed and welcome in finding that path forward where we can respect each other, honor each other, and fight for democracy by stilling some of the voices in our country of division and insisting that in a moment where the whole world literally is watching, we can work together.”
He concluded, “We need a comparable, concise advocacy from the current Pentagon leadership about why it matters to fund things seemingly disconnected from national security like vaccinations or therapeutics. Right now, Ukraine, which is the breadbasket for two dozen other countries, is being ravaged by Russian aggression. A consequence of [this invasion of] the greatest source of wheat and sunflower oil for countries like Pakistan and Sudan, Yemen, and Egypt, is going to be food riots and instability. It doesn’t seem like it’s a hard defense investment to spend more on food aid or on diplomacy or on development. And there are lots of Americans who have questions about whether our development investments are well spent. I am every bit as concerned about making sure that our development dollars are spent well as you are, but they are a tiny fraction of our total federal spending, less than 1%.”
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