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Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I just returned from the Middle East. We have 140 members of our Wyoming Air National Guard, and they are currently serving our Nation, and they are stationed in Djibouti. Wyoming is very proud of these brave men and women who are fighting for our freedom. Visiting them was a reminder of what makes America strong. It is also a reminder of the challenges we continue to face.

There is a confluence of crises all around the world, from El Paso, TX, to Jerusalem, Israel. These terrible crises did not emerge overnight. They are the direct result of the weakness of the current President of the United States.

President Biden has been weak in the defenses of our Nation. It is obvious to me. It is obvious to people around the country. It is obvious to people all around the world. Since he took office, he and the Democrats have taken a wrecking ball to so many different sources of our Nation's strength. They hollowed out America's military power in favor of wokeness. It has impacted and undermined recruitment. They sold out American economic strength. In favor of what? Well, Big Government at home and massive government spending. They traded away America's energy dominance. Why? Well, in favor of Green New Deal fantasies.

It does seem that Democrats apologize for American excellence at every turn. They have worked to make us more dependent upon our enemies.

President Biden's latest energy disaster--he would call it a move; I would call it a disaster--weakens our Nation even further. The administration announced in January that it would freeze permits for liquefied natural gas exports. I view this decision as astonishingly foolish.

Affordable, reliable energy is the foundation of a strong, affordable economy. America's energy revolution created many good-paying jobs all across the country and certainly in my home State of Wyoming. It made us as a nation energy independent--some would go so far as to say energy dominant--and it helped us build the world's largest LNG export industry. It also gave our European allies a secure energy source. This is at the time of Russia's incursion into Ukraine. This is one of the best examples of how American economic strength makes the world safer.

The Republicans want to make Europe less dependent on Russia for energy sources and more connected to the United States. That is not what I see happening with this administration. Both by word and action, Democrats and this President make America and our allies more dependent on our adversaries.

Attacking American energy dominance is a pattern in this administration. It started on day one. Remember, it was day one that, after the President gave a speech right out here at the Capitol Building about how he wanted to bring the Nation together, he went down and took an ax to the Keystone XL Pipeline, and he opened the floodgates at the same time to the crises we are having at our southern border.

The President restricted offshore oil drilling, and he has placed a moratorium on new coal permits on Federal lands--all of these things undermining American energy security. Now comes this blow where he is cutting American natural gas exports. He is denying Americans good jobs, lower prices, and empowering Russia and Iran.

Joe Biden has failed fundamentally what should be the goal of any President, which is to make America stronger, safer, more secure.

President Biden also has a long list of foreign policy failures. Nobody can forget the deadly and disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Taliban terrorists seized $7 billion in weapons. So many Americans were left behind. Thirteen brave soldiers lost their lives, including one from Wyoming, Rylee McCollum from Bondurant, WY. The fall of Kabul was a deadly disaster.

In January of 2022, the President made another damaging misstep. He suggested that a minor incursion by Russia into Ukraine would be met with minimal consequences. Weeks later, we saw Russian tanks head into Kyiv.

Then there is the chaos in the Middle East. In September 2023, the President's National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, made a bold pronouncement. He said:

The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.

Eight days later, Hamas attacked Israel. They killed more than 1,200 Israelis. They took hundreds more hostage, including American citizens. It was the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

The conflicts in the Middle East are devastating, destructive, and destabilizing. They threaten America's interests and America's allies. Yet President Biden works hard to accommodate our enemies. He is a fair-weather friend to our great ally in the Middle East, Israel. We see that in his maximum-concessions policy towards Iran.

Early on, Biden pushed to rejoin Obama's Iran nuclear deal. He was negotiating to lift all sanctions imposed by President Trump.

The Biden administration's lack of sanction enforcement and use of sanction waivers simply funded the Iranian regime. Iran used this flood of cash to bankroll Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other terrorists proxies. In turn, the terror proxies attacked America, attacked our allies, and the attacks have only increased since October 7. Iranian proxies have attacked American servicemembers in the Middle East at least 180 times in the past 4 months. Let me say this again--180 attacks on American servicemembers in the last 4 months. We have lost five American troops because of these attacks.

As the Commander in Chief, President Biden bears full responsibility for the continuity of crises that he has created.

It is no surprise that Americans overwhelmingly believe our country is heading in the wrong direction. America needs to change course. Republicans are the party of American strength. We believe in peace through strength, not dependence on our enemies. Americans deserve a President who is strong and a nation that is safe and a nation that is secure. That is our commitment.

So I will tell you, Mr. President, the day I came back from Djibouti, it was very distressing to see the report in the New York Times. They reported that America and this administration have failed to do what it said it would do in terms of Iran selling oil to China--failed. If it hadn't been for the New York Times reporting, the American people wouldn't know because the administration would never tell them that tanker after tanker has moved 59 million barrels of oil from Iran to China. Every one of those tankers ended up in China, and the cash, worth a minimum $2.8 billion, ended up back in Iran. That is the money Iran has been using to fund these 180 attacks on American servicemembers in the last 4 months.

We know where the money is coming from. Yet Democrats look the other way. The Secretary of Treasury, hapless as she is, came to Congress and testified--inaccurately, possibly misleadingly--that the administration is doing everything they can. Well, they are not. This administration is looking the other way as a hapless and diminished President Biden continues to be outplayed by Iran, and this is evident to the world.

As Joe Biden bungles along, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and communist China continue on the march. We need a strong President to keep us strong and safe and secure.

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