The Foreign Service Journal, March 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2019 23 a young Peace Corps Volunteer and told of returning to that same village as the USAID Administrator years later. “Everything I know about development can be traced back to that village and the hunger, the desperation, and hope that I saw in the eyes of those kids,” Green said. He closed by thanking the dedicated men and women of USAID, who “day in and day out are advancing American leadership.” Polls Find Consensus on Foreign Policy Priorities R ecent polling b y the Huffington Post reveals that Am ericans are becom- ing less isolationist and have a greater preference for American involvement in overseas affairs. Recent polling from the Pew Research Center shows bipartisan consensus around two foreign policy priorities. By contrast with a poll HuffPost-YouGov conducted in 2016, the group’s December 2018 survey found that public opinion increasingly supports free trade, immigra- tion and a more active foreign policy. According to the survey results, the share of the American public that believes the country should pay less attention to overseas issues has decreased from 49 to 39 percent. The share of those who are not satis- fied with free trade agreements declined from 29 percent to 21 percent. And the proportion of Americans who feel the nation’s traditional values and customs are under threat by newcomers fell from 48 percent in 2016 to 36 percent in 2018. Another recent poll, conducted by the Pew Research Center last November, showed that while partisan differences have grown significantly on a wide range of foreign policy issues, Democrats and Republicans concur on two priorities: protecting the United States from security threats such as terrorist attacks and weapons of mass destruction, and pro- tecting the jobs of American workers. About seven in 10 respondents to the Pew survey said that taking measures to protect the United States from terrorist attacks should be a top priority for the country. Sixty-one percent of Democratic respondents and 84 percent of Republic respondents felt this way. Similarly, 71 percent of respondents stated that protecting the jobs of Ameri- cans should be a foreign policy priority, with 65 percent of Democratic respon- dents and 81 percent of Republican respondents agreeing. n This edition of Talking Points was com- piled by Donna Gorman, Dmitry Filipoff and Shawn Dorman. While we were sleeping in the last decade and a half, China had a remarkable rise in capabilities that are stunning. A lot of that was achieved … by stealing information fromour companies, by inserting Chinese in certain of our labs, bringing back technological stolen properties which China engaged. …Everything fromautomobilemanufacturers to sophisticated soft- ware, as well as R&D for military. …Rule of law and international norms and fairness in trade and engagements is not the Chinesemodel. —Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence, Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on China and Russia, Jan. 29. Contemporary Quote