Sen. Portman: ‘The U.S. Needs to Continue to Play a Key Role in Asia’

RUSH EXCERPT: 
CUOMO: "The first thing that happened, once you withdraw, you’re out. China immediately stepped in to fill the vacuum. Do you think it’s a coincidence the next thing they did was make a comment about the south China sea and said the United States is not a party to this matter, which sounds more like a trade term than a geopolitical military operative term. Do you see that they filled the void and the mistake has been made?"
PORTMAN: 'They’ve been filling whatever voids that they can find and during the Obama Administration, as we’ve talked about before, we did withdraw in terms of our American presence around the world to the point that both Russia, China and other actors have stepped in. And what’s happens in the south China sea is an example. The other countries in the region are very nervous about that. I think the United States needs to continue to play a key role in Asia. There’s been discussion about bilateral trade agreements with some of these individual countries like Japan, which is, by far, the biggest economy involved in the TPP. I understand they are interested if that. That could be very helpful. Sometimes our bilateral agreements tend to be better than our multi-laterals but you can really reduce the barriers to trade further when you have an agreement just between two parties. So I’m hopeful we will not pull back from that region and, in fact restore America’s leadership."