Rubio set to say China cheated its way to superpower status
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Mr Marco Rubio will call for the US to put its 'core national interests above all else once again' as it works to 'create a free world out of chaos'.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Senator Marco Rubio will say China has lied and cheated its way to superpower status at the expense of the US, according to remarks he is set to deliver at his confirmation hearing for secretary of state on Jan 15.
He will call for the US to put its “core national interests above all else once again” as it works to “create a free world out of chaos”, according to the remarks.
“We welcomed the Chinese Communist Party into this global order,” Mr Rubio plans to say. “And they took advantage of all its benefits. But they ignored all its obligations and responsibilities. Instead, they have lied, cheated, hacked and stolen their way to global superpower status, at our expense.”
The comments, in which he also criticised Latin American “despots and narco-terrorists” for driving mass migration and hurting American communities, amount to a summing up of the Florida senator’s world view.
The harsh words for China’s leaders also reflect the senator’s longstanding reputation as a China hawk pledged major new tariffs against China.
Mr Rubio will also say voters chose Trump because they want a strong America that promotes peace abroad and prosperity at home, and that will be the State Department’s core mission if he is confirmed. While the US “will never be indifferent to the suffering of our fellow man” around the world, he said, the administration would ensure every programme it funds will benefit its own country.
“The direction he has given for the conduct of our foreign policy is clear,” Mr Rubio is set to say. “Every dollar we spend, every programme we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?”
Mr Rubio, who has long been a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that is examining his nomination, is expected to face little opposition from either Republicans or Democrats in his confirmation process.
Yet there are also questions about what kind of influence he will wield as the incoming administration’s top US diplomat.
Trump is already being advised by billionaires such as Elon Musk, who has goaded British and German leaders, and appointed a raft of friends and advisers as special envoys to oversee some of Washington’s most important foreign policy priorities – including the Ukraine-Russia war and the Middle East.
Mr Rubio, who made a presidential run and clashed with Trump during the Republican primaries in 2016, said in his remarks that America’s wealth is not “unlimited” and its power is not “infinite” but that “placing our core national interests above all else is not isolationism”.
“What good to our allies is America if it is not strong?” Mr Rubio intends to say. BLOOMBERG
