Buttigieg: 'The U.S. shouldn't be too proud to learn from other countries'

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joined Yahoo News' Julia Munslow to discuss the Biden administration's infrastructure plan. During the discussion, Buttigieg said that in order to stay competitive with allies and other countries, the U.S. should seek to learn from programs that have already worked abroad.

Video Transcript

JULIA MUNSLOW: Are there any other countries that you're looking to as examples of places that are getting this right when it comes to green initiatives, when it comes to equity and infrastructure?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Yeah, different countries have different excellences on trains, for example. Japan is famously very good at fast trains. So is Spain. People don't know about that as much in China, which is important, I think, from a competitiveness perspective to make sure we're not falling behind what our allies and our competitors are doing. Because they're providing remarkable levels of service, and I think US citizens ought to have high expectations for what we have here in the US.

If you look at areas, like bike commuting, we were talking earlier about getting around on two wheels. Look at what they're doing in Amsterdam, in Copenhagen. If you look at safety, Oslo had almost zero fatalities in a city of more than a half million people. So we've got to learn from them. A lot of countries that are creative in terms of how you pay for these things, so no one country is perfect.

But what we know is that the US shouldn't be too proud to learn from other countries, especially now that we're out of the top 10. We're actually ranked 13th right now for transportation infrastructure, and maybe it's just my competitiveness. I always want to see US number one, and that's part of why we've got these investments. Because it's pushing Congress to do it.

JULIA MUNSLOW: Right, so specifically, you mentioned China in the competitiveness factor. And we've seen, as the Biden administration continues to promote its infrastructure plan, that its positioned China as a threat to the US. But at the same time, over the past few months, we've seen the reported rise in anti-Asian sentiment and attacks on Asian-Americans. Is it a mistake to use anti-China rhetoric to push this plan?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: I think the point is that we need to be keeping up with all of our competitors, whether it's a strategic competitor, like China, or whether it's our allies in Europe. We should be doing the best. Now, look, we've got some real, and very serious, and very meaningful differences than China on human rights, on democracy. And I think we can be very serious about that and trade issues that come up, and at the same time, make it absolutely crystal clear that anti-Asian hate, anti-Asian racism has absolutely no place in America, that any American.

But certainly, any Asian-American should have no reason to question their belonging based on who they are, or where they come from, or how they look, or whether they've been here for generations, or whether there's a different language spoken at home. Everybody belongs in this country, and hate has no home here. And that is something that we can and must be absolutely crystal clear about, no matter what's going on with international relations with China or any other country.