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Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, 100 days ago, our Nation was safe and our economy was considered the envy of the world. We had disease surveillance programs that were in place to stop the spread of deadly viruses like Ebola, no matter where they broke out in the world, and the security contracts at detention camps that have been filled with ISIS fighters were still being paid.

And if our Nation was attacked by a foreign enemy or if we were thrown into a global pandemic or even a global economic crisis, our allies had our backs. They had our backs because they knew that in their darkest hour, the United States would stand with them.

Then, unfortunately, the Trump administration took over, and in 100 days, this administration has undone six decades of investments that have made the United States more respected and influential than any other nation.

The administration and the President have raised and lowered and raised and lowered tariffs against some of our closest allies and neighbors, spiking costs for Americans and hurting our manufacturers and the defense industry.

Instead of the promised golden age of America or golden age of prosperity and lower prices, of safety and security, of our enemies bowing to our demands, the resulting chaos has left us weaker and more vulnerable. From global financial markets to New Hampshire supermarkets, consumers and businesses aren't sure what to expect.

They are looking at higher prices, at layoffs, at longer wait times, and at uncertainty, which many businessowners I have talked to tell me it is just as bad as higher tariffs because they don't know what to expect, and they can't plan.

I recently met with a New Hampshire company called New Hampshire Ball Bearings. It is a company that makes bearings for the aerospace industry, and they do a lot of business with our Department of Defense.

They are concerned because once the tariffs were announced, their only domestic steel manufacturer has increased its cost to be equivalent to what out-of-state companies--out-of-country companies are charging.

But worse than that, they said that their lead time for steel that they use for the aerospace industry and for our Department of Defense has gone from 20 weeks to 2\1/2\ years. I mean, think about that. The lead time to get the steel they need to make the ball bearings has gone from 20 weeks--which is a long time in and of itself--but now it is 2\1/2\ years because of the tariffs.

And the administration's attacks against U.S. research and academic institutions, against our international students, have also caused serious damage to our reputation as a global hub for STEM talent, not to mention those students who are graduating from our colleges and universities who we want to attract to stay in the United States because they are the next generation of talent.

The policies of this administration have left us more vulnerable to the spread of deadly diseases like Marburg and Ebola. They have crippled our response to disasters like hurricanes in the Caribbean, as we enter what is expected to be an active hurricane season.

And just today, the Secretary of Defense said he would end the Women, Peace, and Security program at the Department of Defense. Now, he mistakenly said this was a program that was put in place by the Biden administration. That is not true. He didn't even--he wasn't even concerned enough to go back and look at the history.

This is legislation, and it is a law--it is not a rule--it is a law that we passed in 2017 during the first Trump administration. I know because I sponsored it. The House sponsor was our current Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. It had support from our current National Security Adviser, former Congressman Waltz, and it was bipartisan legislation.

It is not some DEI program--some program that is designed to provide women an advantage in the Department of Defense. What it is is a program that gives us a security advantage.

Every combatant commander who has come through my office has highlighted the strategic advantage that this program gives to our U.S. forward deployed forces, and it gives us that advantage because our adversaries don't have this kind of program.

One of the reasons we passed it in the first place is because what we know from the data is that when women are at the table in a negotiation to end conflict, that the negotiations that are agreed to have a better than 30-percent chance of lasting 15 years or longer because women are at the table.

It is an advantage that it gives us because China and Iran and North Korea and Russia don't have that role for women in their military. What Secretary Hegseth's action has done is not only showed his ignorance, but is now putting our military at a disadvantage because of that ignorance.

Now what these kind of actions do is to create opportunities for our adversaries to gain influence. It is not just giving Vladimir Putin the chance to keep stringing along American negotiators, to continue to play President Trump as he is trying to secure a Ukraine peace deal, but across the globe, China is stepping in everywhere the United States is retreating.

After the earthquake in Myanmar, the Chinese Embassy flooded social media with images of Chinese rescue workers responding to crises, instead of the United States because we weren't there at all because the three people we sent to assess the damage to see what we needed to do to help were fired while they were in Myanmar trying to figure out what we can do to help that situation.

So China's image is being bolstered at our expense.

Across Africa and Latin America, Chinese Ambassadors are giving interviews focused on the unreliability of the United States as a partner. They are inviting local officials to all-expense-paid trips to Beijing to discuss further cooperation.

China is now replacing a canceled American program for child nutrition in Cambodia, and Beijing just announced an early childhood project in Rwanda, where the United States recently cut our program.

They are even moving in, picking up the PEPFAR Program that we have walked away from in Africa, after saving millions of lives. These cuts represent a serious strategic error on behalf of the United States because for less than 1 percent, about 1 percent of our annual budget, America has been able to build partnerships around the globe that have reduced the threat of illness and the spread of disease, including here at home, because thanks to these programs around the world, we have nearly eradicated polio, we have cut malaria deaths by half, and we have saved 25 million lives from HIV/AIDS. And these successes strengthen America's reputation on the global stage, they help counter our adversary's influence, and they help us here at home, because it means that diseases like bird flu don't reach America's shores, where they are now. It means that we can track those diseases.

So whether it is through its mismanaged trade war or deliberate weakening of U.S. standing overseas, the administration is facilitating China's global rise. That is why, as the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I am committed to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to preserve the vital programs that we need to keep our country safe.

I am committed to speaking up for American families and small businesses that have been shouldering the burden of higher costs because of President Trump's trade wars.

So I know he is not listening, but I call on President Trump to reverse course, to spend the next 100 days fulfilling the promises that he made during his campaign--promises to make our Nation safer, to make it more secure, to make it more prosperous.

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