Washington, DC – Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, delivered the following opening remarks, as prepared, at a full committee posture hearing for the State Department's Bureau of Political Affairs for fiscal year 2026. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Allison Hooker testified on behalf of the Trump administration at this hearing.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under Secretary Hooker, thank you for being here today. You’ve been given quite the job.

Last week, your colleague Michael Rigas told the Committee that the regional bureaus and U.S. diplomatic posts that you oversee would somehow fill all the gaps left by this administration’s haphazard and short-sighted reorganization of the State Department and its unlawful dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

It would make sense, if this were a reorganization in name only. If the goal were to empower the regional bureaus, we’d expect them to be staffed up and properly resourced.

But that’s not what’s happening.

Instead, Secretary Rubio fired 1,300 civil and foreign service officers across the Department—squandering expertise which American tax dollars paid for and talent your bureaus now need. And rather than fund your work, this administration clawed back—with the help of my colleagues across the aisle--$8 billion in Congressionally appropriated funds.

Add that on top of your paltry budget request for next year, you’re staring at an 85% hole in the State Department’s wallet.

The Department keeps repeating the talking point about having 1,500 domestic office units. But that’s not the real issue. The question isn’t whether we have too many offices, it’s whether we have the right capabilities. In the limited briefings we’ve received, no one has demonstrated that you do.

We shouldn’t confuse complexity with inefficiency. America’s diplomatic apparatus is specialized, and it needs to be. Many of these domestic operations are essential. They provide critical support to our missions overseas.

Madam Under Secretary, you said in your confirmation hearing in April, “the United States requires a ‘modern diplomatic corps that is ready to meet the challenges of a complex world.” But you’ve been set up to fail.

This administration is asking you to do much more with much less. It’s like being sent into a warzone with a water gun.

You’re expected to promote human rights without a Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

You’re expected to prevent conflict, without a Conflict and Stabilization Operations bureau.

You’re expected to investigate war crimes without the Office of Global Criminal Justice.

And that’s just the beginning.

But this is more than a logistical challenge. It’s a values problem.

This administration has openly declared its hostility to the values that center our foreign policy and give us influence and credibility around the world. Instead of defending democracy, President Trump and MAGA Republicans cheer its erosion in Hungary. Instead of standing for the rule of law, they strike lucrative crypto deals in the Gulf. And instead of condemning coup attempts, they cozy up to those who lead them in places like Brazil.

And U.S. leadership is in retreat: the President is pulling the United States from multilateral organizations and handing our empty chair to China, with UNESCO being the latest example. Our allies are issuing travel warnings not to come to the United States after seeing the administration’s assault on international students and arbitrary roundups of people they think look suspicious. And Americans’ household incomes and the dollar are both dropping as the President wages a nonsensical and self-defeating trade war with the world.

Our adversaries are watching all this and celebrating. They see a United States’ that is disarming itself strategically, diplomatically, and morally. President Trump’s petty, chaotic leadership—after yet another Oval Office meeting with a foreign leader turned into tabloid fodder—is signaling to the world that U.S. foreign policy is not driven by values or national interests, but by a quid pro-quo regime in service to one would-be-king.

Now is not the time to gut our diplomacy. Now is the time to strengthen it. But the Trump administration has no process, vision, or strategy to compete and win on the global stage. And it certainly won’t achieve our strategic foreign policy goals on a shoestring budget with a hollowed-out staff.

The administration’s best explanation for all this? A slogan—America First—that will only leave America last. Madam Under Secretary, I hope you will be able to provide more than just slogans today.

Thank you, I yield back my time