On the recordFebruary 7, 2022
Mr. Speaker, while the Biden administration, the media, and many in Congress beat the drums of war for Ukraine, there is a far more significant threat to our Nation accelerating rapidly close to home. Argentina, a critical nation and economy in the Americas, has just lashed itself to the Chinese Communist Party by signing on to the One Belt, One Road Initiative. The cost to China was $23.7 billion, a mere fraction of a rounding error when compared to the trillions of dollars our country has spent trying to build democracies out of sand and blood in the Middle East. China buying influence and infrastructure in Argentina to collaborate on space and nuclear energy is a direct challenge to the Monroe Doctrine, and far more significant to American security than our latest NATO flirtation in the plains of Eastern Europe. China is a rising power. Russia is a declining power. Let us sharpen our focus so that we do not join them in that eventual fate. ____________________





