Leaders say global presence remains important for U.S. success at Mitchell event

Yahoo

23-04-2025

Apr. 22—MITCHELL — A worldwide view from a South Dakota perspective was the topic of discussion during a lunch forum on Tuesday involving U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, a former four-star U.S. Army general and the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.
USGLC hosted its annual Heartland Summit at the Highland Conference Center in Mitchell, with more than 200 invited dignitaries and local officials on hand to hear from Rounds and a panel on how America's role in the world directly impacts the security and economic success of South Dakota families, farmers and business owners.
"The world is a better place when America leads," Rounds said. "History proves it. ... For decades, American leadership has led to global stability and made the world a safer place to live. We cannot take our position for granted. We must continue to lead. Our adversaries are watching our every move."
Rounds, the junior Republican senator, was lauded by USGLC leadership during the event for his effectiveness in the Senate. USGLC CEO Liz Schrayer noted Rounds is one of the few elected legislative leaders in Washington who serves on the separate committees for Armed Services, Appropriations and Intelligence.
Rounds said the adversaries — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — are looking to target the U.S. critical infrastructure. He also wants to see Congress pass legislation to bar adversarial countries from buying up U.S. farmland and ag businesses near military sites. He said those adversaries are working together and challenging the U.S. in five domains: air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.
He spoke highly of using artificial intelligence and making sure that its development is rooted in American standards, not exported by adversaries for evil. He also wants AI to accelerate the pace of American science itself, sponsoring legislation for a national initiative to make U.S. scientific research 10 times faster by 2030.
"We need to leverage AI to do what used to take decades in a matter of months to do now, accelerating drug discovery, optimizing energy systems, and advancing biotech breakthroughs," he said. "This is how we make certain America remains the world's innovation engine."
The event included a nearly hour-long panel with Rounds, Schrayer, Retired Army Gen. Laura J. Richardson, who was commander of U.S. Southern Command from 2021 to 2024, and South Dakota Corn Executive Director DaNita Murray.
It was impossible to have a discussion on foreign investment, development and diplomacy without considering President Donald Trump's second administration and what it has done since he took office in January. Trump's policies have cut American foreign aid around the globe, while the tariff threat continues to raise concerns about foreign markets for South Dakota. Rounds said he was concerned about the impact of tariffs for marketing products in the U.S. South Dakota had $5.4 billion in agricultural exports in 2022, according to the USGLC, with Canada and Mexico accounting for a large share of that.
"I'm a believer, like Ronald Reagan used to say, tariffs in a short period of time can be used to right a wrong. It can be used to tell another country, 'You're not treating us fairly, so let's get this thing fixed.' I think that's what President Trump is really trying to do right now," Rounds said. "But I think that's what he's really trying to do is to get the fair deals back again. But for us, we've got to have the opportunity to move that product along."
Rounds said Trump is sensitive to "whenever the markets really start to move south on him." He said the U.S. has not benefitted from inconsistent State Department policies for how the U.S. will treat foreign countries.
Richardson has 40 years of military experience and led contingency planning, operations and security cooperation for Central and South America and the Caribbean in her Southern Command leadership role. She noted how much the U.S. has been hurt by not having ambassadors in countries such as Chile, Colombia and Brazil.
"There's no excuse for that. And there's plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the aisle," she said. "We've got to be on the field. We can't be in the locker room taking a break. We've got to be in there making a difference. And we don't have to outspend China and outcompete China. Just us being there makes a difference in the world."
Richardson is now co-chair of the USGLC's National Security Advisory Council. She said in terms of aid and funding that's been cut, she's in favor of review but the U.S. cannot retreat.
"I want to make sure that it's going to exactly what we say that it's going to, and it's making a difference. ... That's what you've got to show," Richardson said. "But I firmly believe that this bubble that we create and the friendships that we create and the trust that we build, it matters, and it matters in the world."
Murray said the United States' impact abroad through "soft power," as she called it, is something that can be hard to quantify and is irreplaceable to show the U.S. does good in the world.
"There's something extremely powerful, like you mentioned the United States flag, on the side of bags of commodities that are given to other countries," Murray said. "You know, sometimes those bags say a gift from the people of the United States, which means not just farmers, but taxpayers in general, that have nothing to do with agriculture. And I think that's a really powerful statement from our society here in the U.S. and well beyond, so part of the risk of kind of ignoring that need worldwide is that soft power goes away."
The event was also a chance to have two former South Dakota governors in the same room on Tuesday. Rounds' successor, Gov. Dennis Daugaard, is co-chairman of the South Dakota state advisory committee of USGLC. The coalition markets itself as the organization of "strange bedfellows," a bipartisan national group that seeks to define and strengthen America's role in worldwide governmental, economic and diplomatic affairs.
"It's my great honor to welcome you all for a critical and timely discussion of the global threats and opportunities that face us in South Dakota and really across the nation, including communities just like Mitchell, all across the state and nation," Daugaard said as part of the event's opening remarks.
Schrayer said the idea for the Heartland Summit came after the discussions of how America can win by engaging in the world saw many similarities across the Midwest. Tuesday's event was the fifth annual edition and was held in South Dakota for the first time, although satellite events are held frequently throughout the year and the Midwest region.