00:00It is, it's really unfortunate, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations
00:03Committee and the lead Democrat on the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, I've
00:07never had to do peacekeeping visits to Ottawa before, and I've had to do like
00:11two in the last year and a half, and it is unfortunate. And look, I mean, I'm
00:17going to be blunt, I think this is not completely a two-way street, although
00:21it's now kind of devolved into it, the decision of the United States under this
00:25administration to launch a trade war against Canada, with full knowledge that
00:28there's never been a one-sided trade war, that if you launch, then there's going
00:31to be a response, has taken a relationship that has just been so important, so
00:38stable, so critical to our economy, much less the defense issues we're talking
00:43about today, and the fact that that relationship is now in such a bad place
00:49is a real tragedy, and it's unrealistic to expect that you can treat an ally badly
00:54in one domain on the economy, but expect, but hey, you know, we really need to work
00:59cooperatively in terms of our defense. That's just not human nature, and I see
01:04this problem all over the globe. I was in Germany about a year plus ago to talk to
01:10Germany and other European allies about Ukraine, and about, hey, what more can we
01:15do? Do you have any new ideas? How can we work together? And I got kind of a tough
01:19lecture from my German parliamentarians and others that I met with, like, yeah, I
01:25know you want to talk about Ukraine, but here's what we want to talk about. We
01:30just elected a chancellor who will be probably the most pro-American
01:33chancellor, pro-transatlantic chancellor for quite a while. Really, and we've been
01:38doing a lot in Ukraine, and we want to do more. We want to do more with you, but we
01:42elected a chancellor with a mandate to jumpstart a German economy that's been in
01:46the doldrum since 2019. And right now, the principal obstacle to our chancellor, our
01:53pro-American chancellor, meeting our economic objective and his own mandate
01:58from the public is the United States and the tariff policies. So, you know, we need
02:03to look at these things not in silos. We need to look at them comprehensively, and I
02:08really worry that using Golden Dome as an example, and for those in the room that
02:14don't know, the Canadians call it Continental Shield, but it's the same idea. But to
02:20expect them to do what you say they need to do or what the president would want
02:24them to do in this current environment is just completely unrealistic, and so I
02:28hope we align our defense priorities, you know, with our economic actions and
02:34rhetoric. Let me ask a second question, because I think Senator Fisher asked this
02:38before I came in, so I apologize if I'm repeating. In an unclassified way, recognizing
02:49that we're here, and so there's some things that you can't say, what are choke
02:53points in our supply chain or areas where we should be focusing on as a
02:59committee to try to, you know, accelerate capabilities and production to achieve the
03:05objective that the president has set out. Okay. Can I try that? Yeah, please. Yeah, please, Mr. Marger.
03:10The, it is basically the interceptors that we are using to a large extent.
03:16Overseas is the biggest one. Solid rocket motors, some of the components there. So we're
03:23in this situation where, depending on what the Golden Dome office decides to
03:27deploy, they're likely to rely on systems that exist today, but those
03:31interceptors are also being depleted abroad and bringing those, you know, trying to boost
03:35production and solve that problem. I'd say it's the first and foremost, and I
03:39haven't done a detailed analysis, but that's a real obvious one. And even before
03:43Dr. Carco answers, even that kind of depends too, or could be helped by
03:49productive relationships with allies, because it's not just the U.S. that can
03:53produce solid rocket motors. I mean, others can as well if they produce them to our
03:57standard. That could help us have a capacity to enable us, you know, to meet
04:01whatever the appropriate scope of this is.
04:04Right.
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