Corker to Students: “We Want a Stable World”

by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

A stable world translates into “good paying jobs in Tennessee,” Senator Bob Corker said, addressing the community on April 9 in a lecture sponsored by the Babson Center for Global Commerce. Corker spoke to a full house, with Gailor Auditorium packed to capacity and others viewing his talk via closed circuit TV.

“Terrorism pales in comparison to other international issues our nation is dealing with,” Corker said.

Corker was recently elected chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He talked briefly about Russia’s efforts to suppress the westernization of the Ukraine, China’s strategy for expanding its territorial waters, and human trafficking, but he devoted his remarks primarily to deterring Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Opinions differed widely about the April 2 “verbal political agreement with Iran,” Corker said. Iran expects the economic sanctions imposed to pressure them into compliance to be lifted, but the details of the agreement have yet to be laid out. Iran has three nuclear facilities, two capable of producing weapons grade nuclear material. 

“We don’t know,” what’s going on at these facilities, Corker said, and “We don’t know if Iran is trustworthy.”

Corker will advance bipartisan legislation requiring the final agreement be made public; giving Congress authority to approve the agreement, with sanctions remaining in place if approval is denied; and requiring the president to certify Iran is in compliance every 90 days.

The goal of the agreement , he said, was to increase the “breakout time,” the time it will take Iran to develop nuclear weapons, from three months, where it stands now, to a year, in the hope that over the ten-year span of the agreement, the political climate improves.

“We’re the richest nation in the world,” Corker said, “with only 4.5 percent of the world’s population, but with 22 percent of its GDP.” “We want a stable world,” he said, in order to maintain that economic advantage.

Asked what the federal government was doing to strengthen the economic stability of rural communities by supporting the growth of small businesses, Corker said there were “too many regulatory burdens on small businesses,” and he wanted to see that change. “The pendulum needs to swing more back toward the center.”

Responding to concerns about human trafficking in Tennessee, particularly prostitution, Corker said a bill sponsored by U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) will “tweak existing laws” to enable the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) to utilize surveillance to address the problem. Men and women are advertised for sale on the internet, Corker said, but existing laws hamper the TBI’s ability to deal with the issue. 

Corker’s “End Modern Slavery Initiative” focuses on slavery and human trafficking outside U.S. borders. Corker became passionate about ending slavery and human trafficking after talking with 20 young women from the Philippines who had been forced into sexual servitude.