In Iowa, Hunter Touts Strong Defense

BAXTER, Iowa (AP) - California Congressman Duncan Hunter, among the least-known Republican presidential candidates, touted border security and national defense during a visit to Iowa.

Hunter, outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, spent Saturday morning pheasant hunting with some veterans and active military members after mixing in some politics at a pancake breakfast.

"I believe in a strong national defense, a strong and enforceable border, a two-way street on trade," said Hunter, who was making his first visit to Iowa since announcing his presidential bid in October.

Iowa, which leads off the presidential nominating season with its precinct caucuses, has already attracted several high-profile politicians expected to run for the White House in 2008.

Hunter will likely compete against better-known Republicans with more money in the bank, including Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has been a frequent visitor to Iowa.

Still, Hunter said he hopes his message resonates among Iowans and looks forward to winning their support.

"This is a state that lends itself to what I would call custom-made campaigns because you can't simply come in and do a lot of media," he said. "It's a person-to-person state, and that's something that I appreciate."

Hunter said he opposes abortion and supports plans approved by Congress to construct a 700-mile fence like the one he pushed to have built between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. He said Tuesday's raid by immigration agents at meatpacking plants in Iowa and five other states shows the need to strengthen border security.

"I think that you have to enforce the law and that includes employer sanctions," he said.

Hunter said he has advised President Bush to try to avoid sending more American troops to Iraq to quell insurgencies. Hunter proposes moving 27 battalions of the Iraqi army from "quiet areas" of the country to violent areas such as Baghdad.

Hunter said it would be a mistake to enlist the help of Iran in stabilizing Iraq. "They do not want America to succeed," he said.

This is a thorough interview with Hunter, worth the read. This snip on immigration and trade.

Earlier this week, I did a phone interview with Congressman Duncan Hunter, a former Chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a former ranger in Vietnam, who is one of the Republican contenders vying for the presidency in 2008. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation.

PS: I can tell you from talking to Hunter that he is VERY PASSIONATE about building a fence on the border and about any and all things related to the military. He also seems to have a pretty good sense of humor.
Duncan Hunter: Well, I think I've learned one thing and that's that fences work and the walls work and separations work and what they basically afford to any nation is the delay of entry. In fact, a number of people who have looked at the border fence, who have now supported me on the border fence in the US, have ...observed the fences in Israel and their effectiveness.

So I think that the fence generally in the Israel fence program has been an effective one from a security standpoint and I think in the US the border fence in the US is no longer an immigration issue primarily; it's a security issue.

You have to know who's coming into this country and what they're bringing with them. The fences, the double fence in San Diego that I led the effort on and funded over the last ten years or so, have been very effective. It's knocked back the smuggling of people and narcotics by more than 90%, stopped all the drive-through drug people, and would be a hindrance to terrorists should they decide to come across a land border between the US and Mexico and to California.

...Speaking of fences -- I think that it's important we build the fence that the Congress just passed and the President just provided for. ...I wrote that bill...It defines the smugglers' corridors. It mandates that the fence be built initially in the smugglers' corridors that is based on the amount of people and narcotics being smuggled. ...I know we've moved from the Israeli fence to the border fence, but you did it. You shouldn't have mentioned fences.

John Hawkins: Well, that was my next question. Since we're there, you are the mover and shaker behind that San Diego border fence and you have a reputation for being very tough on illegal immigration....

Duncan Hunter: And we've got to build this fence. The Democrats have now shown indications that they don't want to build it, but there are two (reasons for) the fence besides enforcement that I think are compelling reasons to build that fence on schedule.

The first piece is that the major part of the fence is to be built between Calexico, California and Douglas, Arizona and that portion, that's 392 miles, that's the area through which most of the people come who have died of dehydration or sunstroke in the desert sun in the summer months.

So one provision that we put in there is that we have to have at least interlocking cameras...before the hot season, so there's a humanitarian dimension to this and that's something that's been missed by many of the liberals.

If you had 400 teenagers drowning at a canal, the first thing you'd do is fence it and when you have 400 people a month expiring in the desert sun, we don't do them any service by keeping that border open. So that first piece...that's got the first priority is across the area to which most of the people travel who die in the summer heat. ...We put a deadline on completing that to get it done before the hot season - at least get the interlocking cameras that will allow the border patrol to respond to entries in such a way that they can save lives of people. So that's a life-saving provision in that particular section of fence.

Then we've got another piece, that's the Laredo piece, John, and, you know, right now Nuevo Laredo is controlled by the druglords. So our provision that we fence on both sides of the city of Laredo will have a salutary effect (there). A law enforcement officer has a fairly short life expectancy after he's announced he's against the druglords. He gets assassinated fairly quickly. Nuevo Laredo has a heavy backpack cocaine trade. That means people carrying cocaine in backpacks leave across the border from Nuevo Laredo and disappear into the Texas brush country. So we (want to get) this Nuevo Laredo section to...help the law-abiding citizens at Nuevo Laredo that do not back the drug trade.

John Hawkins: Now, tell us a little bit about what we could expect from President Duncan Hunter on the illegal immigration issue beyond the fence. What else would we see? What would you want to do?

Duncan Hunter: Well, I think that we've got to do us a two-step program and the first step is to secure the border and the second step then is to...do internal enforcement. You've got 250,000 hard-core criminals - in federal, state, and local penitentiaries and jails. That means you have a large criminal element that's operating within the US committing serious crimes against Americans and their property and once we secure the border, I would make an emphasized effort to ensure that we are to round up criminal aliens and...force their deportation.

In some cases you've got countries which have resisted deportation of, for example, the MS-13 Gangs. ...With those gangs whose countries at this point refuse to take them back, ...I would apply leverage to those countries. If they want to have people legally emigrating into the US, they're going to have to take the gang members back.

(Also), I think the fair thing to have for employers is to have an extension of this pilot program that we have right now ...is a system in which through a phone call...you can receive from the Department of Homeland Security in fairly short order a "yes" or "no" as to whether your employees are legally within the US. (We should) expand that program throughout the country - and I like the idea also of a tamperproof ID card. I think that's kind of an important thing.

John Hawkins: You're a member of the fiscally conservative Republican Study Group, but the Club for Growth blog, among some others, has dinged you a little bit for voting for some bills that a lot of fiscal conservatives might (oppose). So, let me ask you: if you become President, what would you do to erase the deficit and what could fiscal conservatives expect from you?

Duncan Hunter: Well, first, ...I'm a supporter of supply side economics and I think the general proposition that if you leave a few bucks in the pockets of American businesses rather than take it for taxes, ...(then) the tax base is actually increased and revenue is enhanced. I believe that's a valid proposition and I support that and that's been reflected in my voting record for tax cuts. So I think that's the way you supply - you increase the revenues into the federal government and you do that by encouraging growth.

Now there's one thing that I think is very, very important right now, where I diverge, I think, some from the Club For Growth...I'm a Ronald Reagan trader...let me quote you Ronald Reagan on trade. He said, "To make the international trading system work all must abide by the rules." He further said, "When governments assist their exporters in ways that violate international laws, then the playing field is no longer level and there's no longer free trade."

Right now...when we compete with China, China starts with 74 points on the scoreboard before the opening kick-off. They get a 17% rebate...to their exporters; they're exporting to the US. Basically they're allowed to operate tax-free. Then they put in place a 17% penalty on our importers. That creates a 34% disparity in the world's competition. Then they de-value their currency by 40%, through currency manipulation. So they start with 74 points on the scoreboard before the opening kick-off.

That disparity is so great that you now have lots of financial advisers who are walking into the boardrooms of companies throughout America telling their people that even if they have a more efficient labor and production rate than the Chinese in their particular industry, that it makes sense from a tax and tariff standpoint to move their jobs from the US to China. So we have actually...acquiesced to a system that doesn't allow the most efficient trader to win. It allows the subsidized trader to win and the effect of that is that you have businesses which pay high wages throughout this country -- not based on labor rates but based on the way government has set the rules and set the competition in this arena called trade, that are contemplating moving to China.

...Let me give you an example. I was in South Carolina. Nucor Steel in Charleston has 800 workers. They produce as much steel as... a Chinese plant which has 17,000 workers. They beat the Chinese 20 to 1 for labor efficiency and they pay their people an average of $75,000 a year. Labor cost is not a major issue with them because they're so highly efficient and they are so leveraged with technology and yet, they see now China which is expanding its steel production this year by 130 million tons which is more than the total steel production of the US.

That's not fair; that's cheating and that causes aberrations in the trade system and it moves massive amounts of income of what otherwise would be American revenues off-shore. So I don't think you're going to be able to get the US budget deficit under control unless we have a fair trading system. So I believe very strongly in the Reagan position on trade when he said what he said to make the international trading system work, all must abide by the rules. They're not abiding by the rules and it doesn't make a lot of sense to play in a league in which all the other teams have 74 points on the scoreboard before the game begins. If they're really that efficient and really that good and they really want the rules of Adam Smith to work, then they shouldn't need the 74 points before the game starts.

That has to be a part of any attempt to balance the federal budget - and one more point, we in government do lots of things that individuals should do for themselves. I'm a conservative; I believe that the government that governs the least governs the best. There is one area where only the government can make a difference and can control the situation and that's in international trading arenas. Only the government can sign a trade deal; individuals can't sign a trade deal. So, if China insists on a trade deal that gives them 74 points on the scoreboard before the opening kick-off, the workers and management at Nucor Steel can't change that. They have to live within the rules that their government has created so that's one obligation of government which not only should be discharged by government but government is the only entity which can discharge it. So that's a difference that I have with some of my colleagues

John Hawkins: What about CAFTA or NAFTA along those same lines?

Duncan Hunter: Well, with NAFTA, Mexico also has a rebate system for their producers. So if you want to operate tax-free, you go to Mexico. You create products and you ship them back to the US and you get your taxes rebated to you and you ship them back into the US.

So, and incidentally, on NAFTA, I led the debate against NAFTA on the Republican side in '94. The proponents said, "Listen, we have a 3 billion dollar trade surplus with Mexico. It's one of the few countries in the world in which we have a trade surplus," and here are their words, "Let's build on that." We passed NAFTA and the next year we went into a 15 billion dollar trade deficit and we've never come close to coming out of it. So what they predicted didn't happen. They also predicted that we would build a middle class in Mexico that would buy more washing machines and Cadillacs; that never happened. They also predicted that the illegal immigration problem would be solved; that never happened and they also predicted that the problem with massive drug trafficking into the US would be solved; that never happened.

http://rightwingnews.com/interviews/duncanhunter.php

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