Lindsey Graham

We need to appropriate money directly to counter the influence of China, but it will not be in a mandatory spending construct.

Soft power, to me, is just as important as hard power, and many times even more important.

If you want to stop illegal immigration, let us improve the quality life in places where people are coming from.

Taking your eye off the ball can really lead to a lot of money and lives being lost.

The goal is to run this more like a business, we have the former Ambassador to Japan here.

We expect you to up your game, we expect you to make sure that the money being generated for all this activity, some of it actually goes to the people.

I think the private sector, both the philanthropic private sector, and even the for-profit private sector would respond very, very well to this.

I think this is a--USAID, is that right Ms. Caldwell?

The goal here, I guess, is to have the local community feel like the park is an asset.

If you want to do something to bring about better governance, and a semblance of the rule of law in this part of the world, the parks are your best opportunity.

Of all the things the Committee could be focusing on, this is sort of top of our list for a good reason.

The goal, of Chris and myself, is to create a public-private relationship where the private sector sort of leads and puts their money where their mouth is.

If it were up to me, I would have a string of parks, conservation parks all over Africa because it may be the only place a community can reside with some level of peace.

The proposed bipartisan bill, introduced by Senator Coons and Senator Graham, offers all three.

The bottom line is that the bilateral approach needs to be supplemented with something new because it is not working.

If we don't do something, the 345 million can double in the next 4 or 5 years.

What I want to do is create a global food security fund, modeled after the Global Fund, so we can get other countries helping us and helping people who are literally starving.

I want to thank you for your leadership, and I want to thank everyone at USAID,--you are literally doing the Lord's work--and it is national security in another form.

What I want the Committee to understand, and Senator Coons has been a great partner on this, we have a crisis in the world that is really challenging to put your arms around.

What I want is a global food security program that has metrics.

There are 345.2 million people that participate in some food program because of food insecurity.

Would you be willing to entertain a public-private partnership akin to the Global Fund for food security?

The failure to provide specific answers to the majority of inquiries submitted by my office indicates the Department of State lacks a coherent plan of action to process these cases.

Our Afghan allies who fought alongside us now struggle to provide for themselves and their families, remain in hiding, and live in constant fear of being hunted down by the Taliban.

Haven't we now reached a point where, frankly, we have to understand we are entering a period of geopolitical competition bordering on conflict?