The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is a standing committee of the United States Senate. It is charged with leading foreign-policy legislation and debate in the Senate. The Foreign Relations Committee is generally responsible for overseeing (but not administering) and funding foreign aid programs as well as funding arms sales and training for national allies. The committee is also responsible for holding confirmation hearings for high-level positions in the Department of State. The committee has considered, debated, and reported important treaties and legislation, ranging from the Alaska purchase in 1867 to the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. It also holds jurisdiction over all diplomatic nominations. [1] Along with the Finance and Judiciary committees, the Foreign Relations Committee is one of the oldest in the Senate, going back to the initial creation of committees in 1816. Its sister committee in the House of Representatives is the Committee on Foreign Affairs (renamed from International Relations by the 110th Congress in January 2007).
Between 1887–1907, Alabama Democrat John Tyler Morgan played a leading role on the committee. Morgan called for a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through Nicaragua, enlarging the merchant marine and the Navy, and acquiring Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Cuba. He expected Latin American and Asian markets would become a new export market for Alabama's cotton, coal, iron, and timber. The canal would make trade with the Pacific much more feasible, and an enlarged military would protect that new trade. By 1905, most of his dreams had become reality, with the canal passing through Panama instead of Nicaragua. [2]
During World War II, the committee took the lead in rejecting traditional isolationism and designing a new internationalist foreign policy based on the assumption that the United Nations would be a much more effective force than the old discredited League of Nations. Of special concern was the insistence that Congress play a central role in postwar foreign policy, as opposed to its ignorance of the main decisions made during the war. [3] Republican senator Arthur Vandenberg played the central role. In 1943, a confidential analysis of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was made by British scholar Isaiah Berlin for the Foreign Office. [4] [5]
In 1966, as tensions over the Vietnam War escalated, the committee set up hearings on possible relations with Communist China. Witnesses, especially academic specialists on East Asia, suggested to the American public that it was time to adopt a new policy of containment without isolation. The hearings Indicated that American public opinion toward China had moved away from hostility and toward cooperation. The hearings had a long-term impact when Richard Nixon became president, discarded containment, and began a policy of détente with China. [6] The problem remained of how to deal simultaneously with the Chinese government on Taiwan after formal recognition was accorded to the Beijing government. The committee drafted the Taiwan Relations Act (US, 1979) which enabled the United States both to maintain friendly relations with Taiwan and to develop fresh relations with China. [7]
In response to conservative criticism that the state department lacked hardliners, President Ronald Reagan in 1981 nominated Ernest W. Lefever as Assistant Secretary of State. Lefever performed poorly at his confirmation hearings and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations rejected his nomination by vote of 4-13, prompting Lefever to withdraw his name. [8] Elliot Abrams filled the position.
Republican senator Jesse Helms, a staunch conservative, was committee chairman in the late 1990s. He pushed for reform of the UN by blocking payment of U.S. membership dues. [9]
Majority | Minority |
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Majority | Minority |
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Subcommittees | Chair | Ranking Member |
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Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism | Jim Risch (R-ID) | Tim Kaine (D-VA) |
Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues | Marco Rubio (R-FL) | Ben Cardin (D-MD) since February 6, 2018 Bob Menendez (D-NJ) until February 6, 2018 |
Europe and Regional Security Cooperation | Ron Johnson (R-WI) | Chris Murphy (D-CT) |
Africa and Global Health Policy | Jeff Flake (R-AZ) | Cory Booker (D-NJ) |
East Asia, The Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy | Cory Gardner (R-CO) | Ed Markey (D-MA) |
Multilateral International Development, Multilateral Institutions, and International Economic, Energy and Environmental Policy | Todd Young (R-IN) | Jeff Merkley (D-OR) |
State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development | Johnny Isakson (R-GA) | Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) |
Majority | Minority |
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Sources: 2015 Congressional Record, Vol. 161, Page S297 –297, 661–662
Subcommittee | Chair | Ranking Member |
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Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism | Jim Risch (R-Idaho) | Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) |
Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women's Issues | Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) | Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) |
Europe and Regional Security Cooperation | Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) | Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) |
Africa and Global Health Policy | Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) | Ed Markey (D-Mass.) |
State Department and USAID Management, International Operations and Bilateral International Development | Rand Paul (R-Ky.) | Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) |
East Asia, The Pacific and International Cybersecurity Policy | Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) | Ben Cardin (D-Md.) |
International Development, Multilateral Institutions and International Economic, Energy and Environmental Policy | John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) | Tom Udall (D-N.M.) |
Majority | Minority |
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Sources: 2013 Congressional Record, Vol. 159, Page S297 –297, 661–662
Subcommittee | Chair | Ranking Member |
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International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Women's Issues | Barbara Boxer (D-CA) | Rand Paul (R-KY) |
East Asian and Pacific Affairs | Ben Cardin (D-MD) | Marco Rubio (R-FL) |
African Affairs | Chris Coons (D-DE) | Jeff Flake (R-AZ) |
Western Hemisphere and Global Narcotics Affairs | Tom Udall (D-NM) | John McCain (R-AZ) |
European Affairs | Chris Murphy (D-CT) | Ron Johnson (R-WI) |
Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs | Tim Kaine (D-VA) | Jim Risch (R-ID) |
International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs and International Environmental Protection, and Peace Corps | Tim Kaine (D-VA), until 2013 Ed Markey (D-MA), from 2013 | John Barrasso (R-WY) |
The Taiwan Relations Act is an act of the United States Congress. Since the recognition of the People's Republic of China, the Act has defined the officially substantial but non-diplomatic relations between the people of the United States and the people of Taiwan.
Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. was an American journalist, media executive, and politician. A leader in the conservative movement, he served as a senator from North Carolina from 1973 to 2003. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001 he had a major voice in foreign policy. Helms helped organize and fund the conservative resurgence in the 1970s, focusing on Ronald Reagan's quest for the White House as well as helping many local and regional candidates.
James William Fulbright was a United States Senator representing Arkansas from January 1945 until his resignation in December 1974. Fulbright is the longest serving chairman in the history of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A Southern Democrat and a staunch multilateralist, he supported the creation of the United Nations and was a signatory to the Southern Manifesto. Fulbright also opposed McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee and later became known for his opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War. His efforts to establish an international exchange program eventually resulted in the creation of a fellowship program which bears his name, the Fulbright Program.
Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Michigan from 1928 to 1951. A member of the Republican Party, he participated in the creation of the United Nations. He is best known for leading the Republican Party from a foreign policy of isolationism to one of internationalism, and supporting the Cold War, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO. He served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate from 1947 to 1949.
The Six Assurances are six key foreign policy principles of the United States regarding United States–Taiwan relations. They were passed as unilateral U.S. clarifications to the Third Communiqué between the United States and the People's Republic of China in 1982. They were intended to reassure both Taiwan and the United States Congress that the US would continue to support Taiwan even if it had earlier cut formal diplomatic relations.
The Nye Committee, officially known as the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, was a United States Senate committee, chaired by U.S. Senator Gerald Nye (R-ND). The committee investigated the financial and banking interests that underlay the United States' involvement in World War I and the operations and profits of the industrial and commercial firms supplying munitions to the Allies and to the United States. It was a significant factor in public and political support for American neutrality in the early stages of World War II.
James Henderson Blount was an American statesman, soldier and congressman from Georgia. He opposed the annexation of Hawaii in 1893 in his investigation into the alleged American involvement in the political revolution in the Kingdom of Hawai'i. Blount was a prominent spokesman for white supremacy and strongly opposed adding a new non-white element to the American population.
In the United States the Vandenberg Resolution was passed in June 1948. It was proposed by and named for Senator Arthur Vandenberg.
Arthur Capper was an American politician from Kansas. He was the 20th Governor of Kansas from 1915 to 1919 and a United States Senator from 1919 to 1949. He also owned a radio station, and was the publisher of a newspaper, the Topeka Daily Capital.
Walter Franklin George was an American politician from the state of Georgia. He was a longtime Democratic United States Senator and was President pro tempore of the United States Senate from 1955 to 1957.
Thomas Terry "Tom" Connally was an American politician, who represented Texas in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, as a member of the Democratic Party. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1917 to 1929, and in the U.S. Senate from 1929 to 1953.
The conservative coalition was an unofficial Congressional coalition founded in 1937, which brought together the conservative wing of the Republican Party and the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. According to James T. Patterson: "By and large the congressional conservatives agreed in opposing the spread of federal power and bureaucracy, in denouncing deficit spending, in criticizing industrial labor unions, and in excoriating most welfare programs. They sought to 'conserve' an America which they believed to have existed before 1933."
The Marshall Mission was a failed diplomatic mission undertaken by United States Army General George C. Marshall to China in an attempt to negotiate between the Communist Party of China and the Nationalists (Kuomintang) to create a unified Chinese government.
The presidency of Harry S. Truman began on April 12, 1945, when Harry S. Truman became President of the United States upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ended on January 20, 1953. He had been Vice President of the United States for only 82 days when he succeeded to the presidency. A Democrat from Missouri, he ran for and won a full four–year term in the 1948 election. Although exempted from the newly-ratified Twenty-second Amendment, Truman did not run again in the 1952 election and was succeeded in office by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.
James P. Lucier is an author and a former staff member of the United States Senate.
Ernest Warren Lefever was a Republican American political theorist and foreign affairs expert who founded the Ethics and Public Policy Center in 1976 and was nominated for a State Department post by President Ronald Reagan, but withdrew after his nomination was rejected by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, which, along with the United States House of Representatives—the lower chamber—constitutes the legislature of the United States. The Senate chamber is located in the north wing of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
On 11 April 1951, U.S. President Harry S. Truman relieved General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of his commands after MacArthur made public statements which contradicted the administration's policies. MacArthur was a popular hero of World War II who was then commander of United Nations Command forces fighting in the Korean War, and his relief remains a controversial topic in the field of civil–military relations.
The Taiwan Travel Act is an Act of the United States Congress. Passed on February 28, 2018, it was signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 16, 2018. As a follow-up to the Taiwan Relations Act, the bill allows high-level officials of the United States to visit Taiwan and vice versa.
The foreign policy of the Harry S. Truman administration was the foreign policy of the United States from April 12, 1945 to January 20, 1953, when Harry S. Truman served as the President of the United States. The Truman administration's foreign policy primarily addressed the end of World War II, the aftermath of that war, and the beginning of the Cold War. Truman's presidency was a turning point in foreign affairs, as the United States engaged in an internationalist foreign policy and renounced isolationism.
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