New House Foreign Policy Chair Gets Tough

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, incoming chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is a Cuban-American from Miami who wants sanctions for, not engagement with, adversaries such as North Korea and Iran, the Miami Herald reports.  Ros-Lehtinen’s ascension may signal a tougher tone in Congress on foreign policy matters and more skepticism toward the Obama administration’s State Department.

“Rogue regimes never respond to anything less than hardball,” Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement on Wednesday after her colleagues named her to the post.

She also wants to cut foreign aid and State Department spending, saying, “There is much fat in these budgets.”