Republicans who now control the White House and both chambers of the legislature have an unprecedented chance to set a new course in foreign affairs, says Senator Jesse Helms. He sees an array of foreign policy priorities headed by efforts to promote freedom and democracy around the world and, at the same time, to reduce the size of "America's bloated foreign aid bureaucracy." Helms is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His comments are excerpted from a speech he delivered January 11 to the American Enterprise Institute.

We cannot, and must not, ignore the fact that something has changed in Washington. For the first time in five decades, Republicans control the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. And that means Republicans can have an unprecedented opportunity to set the policy agenda -- especially in the realm of foreign affairs. We must, and we will, seize that opportunity.

One of the first priorities of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this year will be to assist President Bush in implementing his vision of "compassionate conservatism." During the fall campaign, the President outlined a philosophy of empowering private charities and faith-based institutions to help the neediest of Americans. He continued with this pledge: "In every instance where my administration sees a responsibility to help people, we will look first to faith-based institutions, charities and community groups that have shown their ability to save and change lives....We will rally the armies of compassion in our communities to fight a very different war against poverty and hopelessness."

I put it to you: if we can deploy those "armies of compassion" across America, then we can and must deploy them across the world. The time has come to reject what President Bush correctly labels the "failed compassion of towering, distant bureaucracies" and, instead, empower private and faith-based groups who care most about those in need.

I intend to work with the Bush administration to replace the Agency for International Development (USAID) with a new International Development Foundation whose mandate will be to deliver "block grants" to support the work of private relief agencies and faith-based institutions such as Samaritan's Purse, Catholic Relief Services and countless others like them.

We will reduce the size of America's bloated foreign aid bureaucracy -- then take the money saved and use every penny of it to empower these "armies of compassion" to help the world's neediest people.

While we work to improve the ways America helps those in material need, we must also be attentive to another need -- the need for human liberty. Because a foreign policy that does not have freedom at its core is neither compassionate nor conservative.

The 1990s were a decade of enormous democratic advances. In the first years of that decade, we witnessed the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe; and in the final year of the decade, we saw the peaceful transfer of power from long-ruling parties to democratic oppositions in Taiwan and Mexico, and the fall of authoritarian leaders in places like Yugoslavia and Peru.

This progress notwithstanding, the global movement toward rule of law, democracy, civil society and free markets still meets resistance in many quarters. Our challenge in the start of this new millennium -- and the start of this new administration -- must be to consolidate the democratic advances of the last ten years, while increasing the pressure on those who still refuse to accept the principle that sovereign legitimacy comes from the consent of the governed.

A good place to start is our own hemisphere, and specifically just across our own border. I will do everything I can to help President Fox and President Bush set a new course for U.S.-Mexican relations, and I look forward to collaborating with the Bush Administration to help set our relationship with the new Mexican government on the right course.

And while democracy has finally taken root across the border in Mexico, just 90 miles from our shores the hemisphere's last totalitarian dictatorship still sputters on. The Clinton administration never made Castro's removal from power a goal of its foreign policy. Embargo opponents correctly sensed that Clinton administration officials were never really committed to Castro's isolation and removal, and the administration did nothing to dissuade them of that notion. With the Bush election, the opponents of the Cuban embargo are about to run into a brick wall on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. President Bush is a committed supporter of the embargo. What this means is that, with the embargo finally off the table, the new Bush Administration has a golden opportunity to develop a new Cuba policy.

The model for such a new Cuba policy should be the successful polices that the Reagan-Bush Administration used in the 1980s to undermine communism in Poland. In the 1980s, the United States hastened Poland's democratic transformation by isolating the communist regime in Warsaw, while at the same time actively lifting the isolation of the Polish people -- supporting the democratic opposition and cultivating an emerging civil society with financial and other means of support.

I intend to work with the Bush Administration to do for the people of Cuba what the United States did for the people of Poland 20 years ago. And I will make a prediction here today: Before his term is up, President Bush will visit Havana -- to attend the inauguration of the new democratically-elected president of Cuba.

Another place where democracy desperately needs renewed American support is in Taiwan. With the election of President Chen last year, the people of Taiwan presided over the first peaceful transfer of power from a ruling party to its democratic opposition in 5,000 years of Chinese history. This was an incredible achievement Yet President Clinton repeatedly let down our friends in Taiwan, first by going to China and repeating Beijing's fictitious constructions on the future of Taiwan; and then by refusing to meet America's legal obligations to provide for Taiwan's self-defense under the Taiwan Relations Act. This damage must be undone.

Yes, we must engage China. But Beijing also must be made to understand that its avenues to destructive behavior are closed off, and that Taiwan will have the means to defend itself. During the campaign, President Bush gave his enthusiastic endorsement to the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act. And I intend to work with him to enact the TSEA, and to help ensure Taiwan's democracy remains secure from Chinese aggression.

Another place where aggression is being rewarded because of the Clinton Administration's neglect is Iraq. We must have a new Iraq policy, and such a policy must be based on a clear understanding of this salient fact: Nothing will change in Iraq until Saddam Hussein is removed from power. With the passage of the bipartisan Iraq Liberation Act, Congress took the lead in promoting the democratic opposition to Saddam Hussein. (The Clinton Administration failed to implement the act). I look forward to working with President Bush to implement effectively the Iraq Liberation Act help the people of Iraq get rid of Saddam Hussein.

Perhaps the greatest moral challenge we face at the dawn of a new century is to right the wrongs perpetrated in the last century at Yalta, when the West abandoned the nations of Central and Eastern Europe to Stalin and a life of servitude behind the Iron Curtain.

We began the process of righting that wrong in 1998, when the Senate voted to admit Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into the NATO alliance. But the admission of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic has not yet fully erased the scars of Yalta. During the Cold War, I was one of a group of Senators who fought to defend the independence of what came to be known as the "Captive Nations" (the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) -- and who worked to make sure that the United States never recognized their illegal annexation by the Soviet Union.

With the collapse of communism, those nations finally achieved their rightful independence from Russian occupation and domination. Yet Russia still looms menacingly over these countries. I intend to work with the Bush Administration to ensure that the Baltic States are invited to join their neighbors Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic as members of the NATO alliance. This is vital not only for their security, but for ours as well. If we want good relations with Russia, we must show Russia's leaders an open path to good relations, while at the same time closing off their avenues to destructive behavior. That means taking the next step in the process of NATO expansion, by issuing invitations to the Baltic nations when NATO's leaders meet for the next Alliance summit planned for 2002.

Another immediate priority is National Missile Defense. After eight lost years under President Clinton, we have no time to waste in building and deploying a truly national missile defense that is capable of protecting the United States and its allies from ballistic missile attack.

Last year, when President Clinton threatened to negotiate a revised ABM Treaty with Russia that would tie the hands the new Administration, I went to the Senate floor and warned Mr. Clinton that any such agreement would be dead-on-arrival in the U.S. Senate.

I want to make something perfectly clear to our friends in Russia. The United States is no longer bound by the ABM Treaty -- that treaty expired when our treaty partner (the Soviet Union) ceased to exist. Legally speaking, the Bush Administration faces no impediment whatsoever to proceeding with any national missile defense system it chooses to deploy.

President Bush may decide that it is in the United States' diplomatic interests to sit down with the Russians and discuss his plans for missile defense. Personally, I do not think that a new ABM Treaty can be negotiated with Russia that would permit the kind of defenses America needs. But, as Henry Kissinger told the Foreign Relations Committee last year: "I would be open to argument, provided that we do not use the treaty as a constraint on pushing forward on the most effective development of a national and theater missile defense."

With that caveat by Dr. Kissinger, I concur -- President Bush must have, and will have, the freedom to proceed as he sees fit. And I look forward to working with the president to ensure he achieves his goal of a rapid deployment of an effective and truly national missile defense.

Last but not least, there is the issue of the International Criminal Court.

Let me be perfectly clear: All of the issues I have discussed are of immense importance. But if I do nothing else this year, I will make certain that President Clinton's outrageous and unconscionable decision to sign the Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court is reversed and repealed.

The Court claims to hold the power to indict, try and imprison American citizens -- even if the American people refuse to join the Court. This brazen assault on the sovereignty of the American people is without precedent in the annals of international treaty law.

There are two things I will press for with the new Administration. First, the Bush Administration should simply un-sign the Rome Statute. Second, we must enact the American Servicemembers Protection Act. This legislation, which Senator [John] Warner and I introduced last year along with a number of our House and Senate colleagues, is designed to protect U.S. citizens from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

Why is passage of this legislation important? Because by signing this flawed treaty, President Clinton has effectively endorsed the ICC's fraudulent claim of jurisdiction over Americans. We must take action to make clear that, unless and until the United States ratifies the Rome Treaty, we reject any claim of jurisdiction by the ICC over American citizens.

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