Interview with U.S. Representative Diana DeGette and Representative Billy Long on strengthening international and bipartisan ties through congressional exchange trips

As co-chairs for the Congressional Study Group on Japan, what are your expectations for this trip?

Representative DeGette: We've been doing this trip for a number of years, and every year when we come we find familiar issues but also new issues or changes. It's really important to come every year at least to see how the U.S.-Japan relationship is changing and how international relations impact what we're doing. Also, since we're bringing a bipartisan delegation, we always have different personalities. Finally, one of the great goals of this trip is to introduce Japan to some of our colleagues who have never been here before.
 

Representative Long: I'm one of the most travelled members of Congress because I think it's important that if you're going to make decisions about things around the world, you need to go out and actually see the world. A lot of politicians don't want to travel because of the perception by people back home who don't understand the purpose of these trips. I've taken it upon myself, particularly with Japan, to tell members of Congress that they need to travel. I think that there's a chemistry between the Japanese people and Americans, and it's not something that happens overnight. I always say that I pivoted to Asia before President Obama did – President Obama made a famous "Pivot to Asia" a few years ago – and people asked me "why are you so interested in Japan?" I just know what an important part of the world this is and what an important ally Japan is.

What are the key lessons that you're hoping that members of the delegation who are visiting Japan for the first time will take from this trip?

While this delegation is incredibly bipartisan, if you look at recent history in the U.S. there hasn't been much bipartisanship in government, considering the country just endured the longest government shutdown in history. How do you reassure international partners like Japan that the U.S. will be a reliable ally in spite of the unstable domestic situation?

Representative DeGette: First of all, I think that we have had some real partisan disagreements around domestic policies, but I think just the very fact that we have a bipartisan delegation here despite the turmoil speaks volumes to our international partners. We frequently say – and I think almost everybody in Congress really believes – that partisan politics stop at the border and that when we go abroad, we represent U.S. interests. I think you can see that the U.S. ambassador to Japan has been a very steady influence, whether it was Ambassador Kennedy or now with Ambassador Haggerty.

Representative Long: I think how you reassure partners is to make sure that they understand that our relationship with their country, in this case Japan, is as vital and important to us as it is to Japan, even though you may see squabbles in Washington D.C. amongst parties and inter-party squabbles. I think that countries we visit understand that when we go outside of the U.S., we're going to do what we can for each other.

There are many pressing security concerns in the region as well, including issues with North Korea and China. What do you see as the primary challenges that need to be focused on by the U.S.?*
 

Representative Long: From my perspective, when we were here two years ago when Ambassador Haggerty had just been sworn in, at the time North Korea was firing rockets overhead across Japan. Everyone's goal – the Japanese and the Americans – is to denuclearize North Korea. But guess what, that's not Kim Jong Un's goal, that wasn't his father's goal, and that wasn't his grandfather's goal. We tried to work with Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un, all three of them to virtually no success. At the end of the day, North Korea ended up with nukes and they ended up with ballistic missiles, and they were testing their missiles. President Trump has taken the approach of talking to the guy, and they're meeting again in Hanoi coming up pretty soon. I think that if you keep doing the same thing over and over again and it doesn't work, then maybe you want to think about doing something else. I think that's what this president has done, and there hasn't been a missile fired in over a year now.
 

Representative DeGette: Unfortunately, this is a place where we will disagree. There was recently a report that came out that said that even though President Trump had talked to North Korea and Kim Jong Un had made all of these assurances of actions he was going to take, he's now developing another site. The results are unclear aside from the fact that we don't have missiles sailing over Japan. One issue that we learned today that I hadn't focused on before is the concern of the Japanese that if we enter into some kind of an agreement with North Korea on ICBMs, what will that do to short and mid-range missiles? I think that's an important piece of information and something we should be concerned about in the administration. Because Billy is the Republican co-chair, I'm tasking him with taking that information back to the administration.

*Note: This interview was conducted in February 2019, just prior to the U.S.-North Korea summit meeting in Vietnam and before North Korea resumed missile tests in May 2019.

Related link:
“The importance of strong relationship with Japan” by Representative Long