Mitt Romney

I think we need to understand that what we are dealing with now--the nature of the denuclearization challenge right now is not nonproliferation.

We need to consider something to deter further missile testing and we do not have anything that is doing that right now.

At the same time, North Korea has become, at least in my view, more belligerent and more malevolent in the last year or two.

I believe our strategic interests and national security revolve around, if you will, China, Russia, authoritarian States versus ourselves.

Spending money around the world to alleviate things that we wish would go away, but we are never going to get there, would only make sense, in my view, if it has a strategic significance for us.

We think we can solve the problems of health, of food, of energy, the list goes on and on.

We cannot raise the economy of Latin America to a level that people do not want to come here.

This policy is a failure and has to change.

We need to start building this in steps.

I think that is the fundamental problem with our approach today is that we still continue to hold on to this notion that we can--that we have time.

I think we need to understand that what we are dealing with now--the nature of the denuclearization challenge right now is not nonproliferation.

We need to consider something to deter further missile testing and we do not have anything that is doing that right now.

It seems to be that we have gone from pillar to post, guardrail to guardrail, from being aggressive and oppositional at one hand to writing love letters on the other.

I would underscore the significance of the years--70 years--as an anniversary of the Korean War.

I recognize--we all do--that the South Korean War--the Korean War was, rather, at the outset of the Cold War.

It is hard to imagine a place which is more technologically advanced than South Korea.

At the same time, North Korea has become, at least in my view, more belligerent and more malevolent in the last year or two.

I believe our strategic interests and national security revolve around, if you will, China, Russia, authoritarian States versus ourselves.

Spending money around the world to alleviate things that we wish would go away, but we are never going to get there, would only make sense, in my view, if it has a strategic significance for us.

We think we can solve the problems of health, of food, of energy, the list goes on and on.

The DFC effort not to say, just how can we alleviate poverty around the world, and how--because that is a task monumentally beyond our financial capacity, to instead say which things are specifically in the interest, the national security…

We cannot raise the economy of Latin America to a level that people do not want to come here.

I think that is the reason why we have not been able to do it is that our perspective on trying to counter their action has kind of inhibited us.

I think we need to understand that what we are dealing with now--the nature of the denuclearization challenge right now is not nonproliferation.

I think we need to be more--we need to take these lessons to heart and actually start to pull that process apart instead of looking for the big deal, at the end of the road kind of agreements.