WILMINGTON, Del. – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today joined WILM Radio in Delaware to discuss foreign policy. 

“American engagement in the Middle East is risky and uncertain, and what I think we need next out of the administration and Congress is for the administration to work with us, to define a strategy for our counter-ISIS campaign in Iraq and Syria, for our confrontation with North Korea, and for our confrontation with Assad, and get approval from Congress,” said Senator Coons.

Full audio available here. 

Excerpts from the interview:

Senator Coons on his day in Delaware: A busy day in Delaware today. I'm on my way to visit the PBF Refinery; later today I'll be visiting a rapidly expanding biopharma company here in Wilmington. Yesterday, I was visiting with a great group of University of Delaware students who are part of the first ever Delaware Innovation Fellows class, and I talked with a whole class of Padua Academy students. It was an interesting day. I'd like if I could start with just one thing. The Congressional Delegation is going to have another one of our job fairs. This one is down at the beach; it's at the Atlantic Sands Hotel. It's going to be Thursday, April 13, and it's going to run from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and we have more than 38 employers who are hiring for 500 jobs. These are seasonal, part-time, and full-time. Anybody who's listening who is looking for work this summer, or who is looking for work permanently and is willing to go and work in Sussex, I think these are some great opportunities. Some of the jobs are throughout the state, either with state or federal agencies, or with companies in Kent or Sussex. We also have three different organizations that will be there to help folks how to interview, how to write your resume, how to get the job you're looking for. I appreciate the chance to share with folks that we're doing another on of our Congressional Delegation free job fairs on Thursday, April 13.

Senator Coons on his quote from yesterday, "if you're going into a big fight, bring some big friends": Well, as a guy who is vertically challenged, you know, I always think that way because we've got an aircraft carrier strike task force steaming towards North Korea; President Trump launched a cruise missile strike against Syria, and in both cases, the countries that we're entering into a conflict with--Syria and North Korea--have very powerful allies in Russia and in China. And my comment there that was I think on a CNN interview was simply to say that, in the course of the campaign, now-President Trump said a couple of things that suggested that NATO and Japan and South Korea were not vital allies and that they should pay up. If we're heading into confrontations with Russia and China, I think it's more important than ever that we embrace our allies and engage them in the road towards these potential very real confrontations with two other significant adversaries.  

More on foreign policy: I am concerned. I just heard from my wife this morning, a family friend has been deployed to Syria. We have hundreds of Americans, men and women, in the armed forces on the ground in Syria, in the fight against ISIS. We've got thousands in Iraq and, of course, we have close to 10,000 still serving in Afghanistan. These are dangerous and uncertain situations. To rephrase something that was said often about the Obama administration, we tried all three different approaches over the years. In Iraq, President Bush championed an invasion where we invaded, knocked over a dictator, occupied the country, and it was a mess. In Libya, under President Obama, we didn't invade, but we knocked over a dictator, and it was a mess. And in Syria, we did neither, we neither invaded nor attacked, and it was a mess. So, frankly, that is just a reminder that American engagement in the Middle East is risky and uncertain, and what I think we need next out of the administration and Congress is for the administration to work with us, to define a strategy for our counter-ISIS campaign in Iraq and Syria, for our confrontation with North Korea, and for our confrontation with Assad, and get approval from Congress. Congress needs to do its job, we need to step up and declare war against ISIS. Something that I urged us to do when President Obama was stepping up our military campaign against ISIS. I just want to make sure that I've been clear, that's a consistent position for me. 

Senator Coons on the problem with declaring war against ISIS: I don't think there is a problem. I think Congress needs to step forward and do that. The larger challenge is that we couldn't come to agreement on the Foreign Relations Committee. While Obama was president, many Republicans had questions of sort of his wisdom and leadership, and there were many Democrats who didn't want to authorize any new conflicts. We were able to get a group of four to six of us to agree, but we weren't sure we had the votes to get it out of Committee. And ultimately, Chairman Corker persuaded many of us that it would be worse for the men and women of our armed forces to have the Senate fail to authorize the ongoing conflict. Now, we have a new president, a new situation. I think we should take another run at it. And I frankly am going to be pushing my Democratic colleagues to step forward and make it clear under what circumstances they're going to support the war against ISIS that we're already in, has already been underway for more than two years.

Senator Coons on Nikki Haley: I'll tell you, I was impressed with her speech at the UN Security Council right after the chemical gas attack. It was forceful, it was engaging, and I'm encouraged. So, I'll tell you that in my personal meeting with her, I came away convinced that she had very little subject matter knowledge about global affairs, but she had real experience as a governor and was engaging and clearly she is someone who is learning quickly on the job. I'll give her B on the job, and that's an upgrade from what I thought after our initial meeting. And, honestly, I am hopeful that she's going to be a strong UN Ambassador and a strong part of the team, because we need strong representation at the UN, we need a strong diplomatic team. This is exactly the wrong time for us to slash the budget that supports our diplomats. Tillerson's meeting in Russia today with probably Lavrov and Putin and Nikki Haley keeps representing us at the UN, they both need support to do their jobs well.

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