The U.S. Global Leadership Coalition held a foreign policy discussion in Tampa Thursday. The panel was made up of Gen. Anthony Zinni, former World Bank president Robert Zoellick and Walmart Foundation President Sylvia Burwell.
Gen. Zinni is the former Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command. He says that our national security doesn't just depend on defense. It depends on supporting foreign development, too.
“I had a friend of mine who’s a prime minister of a country in the Middle East that said to me: ‘You know, the image of an American in this part of the world is a soldier in full combat gear. The image of a Chinese person here is an investor.’ And it caused me to think about who’s exerting greater influence and who will get greater payback,” he said.
The event falls just a few days before the final presidential debate on foreign policy, which will be held on Monday in Boca Raton.