Ted Yoho

I look forward to talking about these issues, and trade, as the questioning begins.

Do you feel the business model that we are working with our foreign aid as small as it is, but more importantly with the relationships we are developing with like-minded democracies, is enough to offset that?

Do you find that more effective than just foreign aid through USA--through some other form versus, you know, just giving money out and doling it out like we have done in the past in other countries?

I appreciate you bringing that up because it is so important, because we see how China has invested...

The horrific human rights abuses committed by Kim Jong-Un are an integral part of his power structure.

We must reauthorize the North Korean Human Rights Act to continue supporting human rights in North Korea.

This legislation will update U.S. law on Taiwan's participation in the WHO to improve our strategy to promote Taiwan's place in the world health.

I am looking forward to sending this along to the full committee with the fixes made by Ranking Member Sherman's substitute amendment so we can get this important policy right.

I am proud to support this amendment as well as the underlying text.

The erosion of the one country, two systems policy threatens to destroy what makes Hong Kong unique and vibrant, so I commend the ranking member for introducing this legislation.

I think we are all in agreement that the expansion and the aggression of what we see with China in the South China Sea...

East Asia and the Pacific represents the opportunities and challenges of this century like no other part of the world.

We focus on aid not trade--I mean trade not aid, so that we can wean countries off.

If we create a vacuum we know the rules of nature--nature abhors a vacuum--it will be filled by somebody.

We need to pay attention to... trade practices that are not conducive to open trade and honest trade.

I came up here, I was one of the guys that wanted to get rid of foreign aid.

But to cut the budget to State to save money in the hopes of strengthening our presence and growing strategies...

Yet, here we are 20 years and we see it is not true.

The importance of East Asia to U.S. interests is beyond doubt.

I suggest that that is a dangerous and shortsighted approach to budgeting.

Access to the U.S. market should be dependent upon fair and balanced trade.

I am not willing to enter another conflict. I don't want to.

I think this is something, it is like anything else in life, if you have got a problem, if you ignore it it is not going to go away, it will get worse, and it is going to be worse to deal with and more expensive and more costly.

When it comes to countering China's growing influence, what programs do you believe give us the most bang for our buck in terms of empowering our partners in the region to defend their territorial claims against China's growing aggression?

I think that is a lesson to be learned. That is one of the ways that we are going to have to make these changes so that we can get a hold of our spending so that we are not forced in really draconian cuts that would be much worse than this…