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Floor Speech

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Mr. BANKS. Mr. President, last week over the recess, I had the opportunity to visit Taiwan coinciding with the 47th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act. After I left Taiwan, I went to Japan and visited Tokyo, visited with many of our troops and some of our military bases and was briefed there as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

What I got to see last week I believe was President Trump's national security strategy--the new national security strategy--in action. So I wanted to come this afternoon to the floor after returning--I am still a little jet-lagged from my visits overseas, but I wanted to spend a few minutes today talking about what I learned and how President Trump's new national security strategy is already making the United States more secure.

Through his bold actions in Venezuela, Iran, and beyond, President Trump is demonstrating that America is stronger when the President acts unapologetically in defense of our national interests.

When the new National Security Strategy was introduced last September, many so-called foreign policy experts started immediately denouncing it.

Op-eds were written that said that because the security strategy focuses on the Western Hemisphere, that somehow means we are no longer prioritizing our competition with China. That is total hogwash. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I want to stick to the facts today about what the National Security Strategy really means. The new National Security Strategy describes the ``Trump Corollary'' to the Monroe Doctrine. The Trump corollary is about restoring ``American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere'' and about protecting ``our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region.''

As the strategy makes clear, this is not a global retreat but an example of strategic focus. While we tackle the many national security strategies and challenges around the world, we must never lose sight of the issues that arise in our backyard. Securing the Western Hemisphere is necessary to project power to other regions around the world.

We have already seen the many ways that this strategy has played out. Early in his second term, President Trump announced that the Gulf of Mexico would be renamed the ``Gulf of America.''

And, Mr. President, I know that you saw this too. Many people thought this was some kind of a joke. Those same so-called foreign policy elites made fun of President Trump for the name change. They said it was a joke, but, really, there is nothing that is funny about it. Renaming the gulf to the ``Gulf of America'' was a mission statement. It announced that America would dominate the Western Hemisphere once again and that America would lead on its own home turf.

Since then, President Trump has taken action in Panama, Venezuela, and perhaps soon even in Cuba, and America is better, safer, and stronger because of those operations.

President Trump's security strategy isn't something new. Since our Nation's founding 250 years ago, the United States has repeatedly kicked out foreign adversaries from the Western Hemisphere. European powers like the French, the Spanish, the British, and the Russians all tried over time to dominate in the region, but the United States never let that happen.

I think about President Teddy Roosevelt a lot in this era, in this new era--a lot of similarities between him and President Trump. President Teddy Roosevelt was unapologetic about acting in defense of America's interests. From Venezuela, to the Dominican Republic, to Panama, Teddy Roosevelt used military power to make sure that it was only America that ruled in her own backyard, and President Trump is bringing back this tried-and-true strategy.

Several weeks ago on the Senate's Armed Services Committee, we heard from the Under Secretary of War for Policy, Elbridge Colby, who is the key architect of this updated National Security Strategy. I had the chance to ask him some questions about our military actions and our strategy, what all of this means. Secretary Colby agreed that when we clean up our own backyard, we are not retreating from the rest of the world. In fact, securing our hemisphere is absolutely necessary to project power to the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. Imagine what it would be like if we had foreign adversaries in our backyard while we had to mobilize our forces in the event of a crisis. The results could be catastrophic.

The surest way to prevent simultaneous adversary aggression is to have fewer adversaries. In Venezuela, China has already lost one client. In Cuba, they may soon lose another. Even as combat operations continue, President Trump has already degraded substantially Iran's military capacity to act in coordination with other enemies.

By any count, President Trump is making a list of our enemies and neutering or outright eliminating them one by one. The result will be a safer, more secure world, with fewer threats. That allows us to concentrate our military power where it matters most: in the Indo- Pacific.

Here, the National Security Strategy makes another key contribution to deterrence. Rather than focusing simply on the defense of Taiwan, the NSS draws connective tissue across the entire first island chain, interlinking security issues from the Philippines through Taiwan to Japan. As I saw firsthand in the region, this broader view advances U.S. interests while better supporting the needs of our allies and partners who are positioned at the tip of the spear.

President Trump is backing up this strategy with a historic investment in our national defense in the form of a $1.5 trillion defense budget that he has recommended to us in Congress. These investments are already resonating with our friends and allies around the world. In fact, in Taiwan, I spoke with President Lai, who is likewise proposing a defense budget of over a trillion dollars in Taiwanese dollars. As I urged leaders from Taiwan's legislature, I hope Taiwan passes this badly needed increase in short order.

Thanks to President Trump, America's key partnerships in the first island chain have never been stronger. We now have the strategy, the resources, and the will to leverage our military power to back them up. This is a combination that will serve American interests for years to come. I can't think of anything that is more ``America First'' than that.

The National Security Strategy as updated by the Trump administration--Secretary of War Hegseth, Secretary Elbridge Colby, and President Trump himself--is really historic. It is an ``America First'' foreign policy agenda that is already making the United States safer and stronger.

As we near the 250th birthday of this great country--the greatest country in the history of the world--President Trump has positioned our Nation to be the most powerful that it has ever been, and that is something that is really worth celebrating.

What a big difference just a couple of years has made. From historic weakness in the Biden administration--I will never forget the disastrous pullout, the deadly pullout, the shameful moment of what happened in Afghanistan and what the Biden administration did to politicize and weaken our military. What a difference 2 years has made from that to President Trump restoring peace through strength through his actions, through what he has done to restore the military and rebuild the military, and also through this National Security Strategy.

I thank the Presiding Officer for his time with that.

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