A STAIN ON OUR NATION'S HONOR

On 2025-03-03, Representative Bill Foster (D-IL-11) delivered a floor speech titled "A STAIN ON OUR NATION'S HONOR" in the House. The speech addressed foreign policy and also covered Ukraine, labor policy.

A STAIN ON OUR NATION'S HONOR

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 40 (Monday, March 3, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 40 (Monday, March 3, 2025)] [House] [Page H940] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] A STAIN ON OUR NATION'S HONOR (Mr. FOSTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Speaker, at the time of Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine held the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. According to the Arms Control Association, this included approximately 1,900 strategic warheads, 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and 34 strategic bombers, an arsenal large enough to annihilate every person on Earth. By 1996, Ukraine had voluntarily given up that nuclear arsenal in exchange for written guarantees of territorial integrity, signed by America, Russia, England, and Europe. These were guarantees that were reconfirmed by Russia under Vladimir Putin in 2009. When JD Vance and Donald Trump stabbed Ukraine in the back in the Oval Office last Friday by ignorantly repudiating those security agreements and by failing to defend one of only two nations that has ever voluntarily given up its nuclear weapons, it forever raised the risk of an uncontrolled nuclear arms race and a nuclear holocaust. It put a stain on our Nation's honor that will take generations to remove. ____________________