Susan Rice in Council on Foreign Relations
On Foreign Policy:
Worked to bring allies together to address challenges
Q: What is the Obama foreign policy legacy?RICE: I think we effectively leveraged our alliances and partnerships to address key concerns. Whether it was working to negotiate the Paris Climate Agreement, or the Iran nuclear agreement, or the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the coalition to fight ISIS, or to fight the Ebola epidemic. We effectively brought allies and partners together to address those complex challenges and did so even as we had to confront many of them simultaneously.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
On Free Trade:
Deal with challenge from China in lockstep with allies
I think that we face a significant and urgent challenge from China, particularly in the economic realm and with respect to technology. China is poised, through its capacity and its policies, to be a major economic threat. I think we're dealing with it
almost altogether wrong. To me, for the United States to be maximally effective in pressing our economic agenda with China, we ought to be doing it in lockstep with our allies and partners--the Europeans, others in Asia, Canada.
China is becoming more and more aggressive and assertive in this whole realm in trying to shut down anything that they don't like with respect to speech and democratization, human rights. They are being extremely extraterritorial about it.
And they are going to punish people. My view is that the companies that are going to succeed--if they are American-based companies or originally American companies--are the ones that aren't going to take that crap, that aren't going to be intimidated.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
On Health Care:
Ebola crisis: would have resigned if Obama closed the border
This was in 2014, when we were wrestling with the Ebola epidemic. Lawmakers here were freaking out and demanding the closure of the border. One of the proposals on the table wasy to restrict the ability of anybody who had traveled to the three affected
countries to come to the United States. It would have meant that all legitimate travel from that region would have been cut off, which would have been the economic death knell for the countries of
West Africa, plus it would have grossly stigmatized West Africans here in the United States. I said to myself at that moment, if he were to make the wrong decision, this would be a point where I would have to part company.
He did not make the wrong decision. As usual, he applied reason and science and resisted the political pressure. But it was for me a brief white-knuckle moment.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Learned if you're knocked down, how to get back up
I'm the descendent of slaves from South Carolina on the one hand, and of immigrants from Jamaica who moved to Portland, Maine on the other hand. Both sides of my family prioritized education, and prioritized service, and worked to bring each subsequent
generation a little bit higher. I learned a fair bit from my experiences being part of that family. If they've been knocked down, as I have on a couple of occasions, then to know how to get back up.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Give your honest and best advice to whom you're serving
You shouldn't be serving if you're not willing to give your honest and best advice. You probably shouldn't be serving if he or she doesn't want your honest and best advice. I've been privileged to serve secretaries of state in the younger part of my
career and presidents who I think genuinely wanted and expected the best unvarnished advice from their advisors. At the end of the day they'd take their own counsel, make their own decision, and in my experience own their decisions.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
On War & Peace:
Fell short in Libya by failing to be engaged in aftermath
Where we fell short in Libya is that the United States working with NATO, working with Arab countries, working with the U.N., did not have sufficient focus and sustained involvement in the follow up in trying to see if we could enable the--or support
the Libyans in building a unitary country. It had never been anything but a one-man show. It didn't have the institutions of state. My critique of what we did on Libya is that we failed to be as engaged as we could have been in the aftermath.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
On War & Peace:
Humanitarian crisis: sometimes intervene, sometimes not
What do you do in a humanitarian crisis? Humanitarian purposes can range from combating disease to intervening to try to topple a dictator or proximate threats to civilians. I think the answer in that case is each circumstance is different. Even though
I'd like to be able to think that we have the capacity to act in a manner consistent with our values and principles and save human lives where we can, my conclusion is sometimes we can, at an acceptable risk and cost, and sometimes we can't.
Source: Council on Foreign Relations on 2020 Veepstakes
Nov 14, 2019
Page last updated: Mar 16, 2022