Senator Jim Webb (D-Virginia) spoke on the campus of Piedmont Virginia Community College on January 20. Prior to delivering remarks to an audience of about 160 in the V. Earl Dickinson Building’s auditorium, he met with students who are financing their educations through the resources of the new GI Bill that Webb had proposed on his first day in Congress.
After his short address and discussion with the audience, Webb moved backstage to reply to questions from local news media.
Korea free trade agreement
The first question posed to Webb was from the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner. Noting that Webb had mentioned the importance of U.S. security interests in Asia, did he believe that the ratification and implementation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement would enhance those interests?
“I do,” said Webb.
“I’ve been working very hard over many years, even before I came to the Senate, to invigorate our relations with Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand,” he added.
The relationships the United States has with “those countries, I think, are the key to our assisting the stability of the region,” he explained.
“The Korea free trade agreement fits into that formula,” Webb added. “It’s an incredibly important signal to the region that we are going to continue that depth of involvement with Korea.”
Webb has taken an additional initiative he said, “to encourage Korea and Japan to work more closely together with us in terms of security arrangements.”
‘We need to move forward’
Queried about whether the Korea free trade agreement would face any hurdles in the 112th Congress, Webb replied he has been “a strong proponent on the Democratic side. I visited Korea in May. I met with all their top leaders, including the President. I came back with a letter to President Obama,” which was signed by “eight or nine Democratic Senators saying we need to move forward on this.”
Webb noted that he has been working with other senators who have had reservations about the trade agreement – he mentioned Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown as an example – “to emphasize how important this is economically and strategically.”
Drawing down troops overseas
Radio news reporter Chris Callahan of WINA followed up with a question about how the United States could reduce the number of military troops it has stationed overseas, with a reference to how there have been U.S. troops in Korea since June 1950.
“We had BRAC here,” Webb replied, using the acronym for the Defense Base Closing and Realignment Commission, which makes recommendations for closing domestic military facilities. “I’ve actually proposed that we examine the basing system outside the country, to see where we could potentially draw down those forces.”
With respect to Korea, he added, “this is kind of interesting, because in 1974 -- believe it or not -- I worked as a military analyst out in the Pacific and made recommendations in terms of how we could reorient our basing system. One of the recommendations I made was moving troops from Okinawa down to Guam, which they are now, after all these years, preparing to do.”
The Korea situation requires examination “in terms of overall regional stability. If we were to start withdrawing troops out of Korea right now, given the situation in North Korea and the situation with the military activity that you’ve seen China involved in over the last year, it would be the wrong signal.”
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