Mexican tomato exporters are conducting unfair trade practices and dumping tomatoes into the U.S. market, despite the 2019 Tomato Suspension Agreement. This is forcing American tomato farmers out of business and destroying the domestic tomato industry. U.S....
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) office will host in-person and virtual Mobile Office Hours next week to assist constituents with federal casework issues in their respective local communities. These office hours offer constituents who do not live close to one of...
El senador estadounidense Marco Rubio (R-FL) habló con Nio Encendio de Maxima 92.5 de Tampa Bay, sobre cómo la inflación ha impactado a las familias, sobre las olas de migración ilegal, sobre el juicio político de Biden vs. el de Trump, sobre el canje de prisioneros...
This year alone, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has encountered an estimated 40,000 Chinese nationals along the U.S. northern and southern border. The Biden Administration has left the border wide open, allowing potential spies from the Chinese Communist...
Gotion, Inc., a Chinese company and U.S. subsidiary of Guoxuan High-Tech, announced a lithium battery plant in Illinois that is expected to open next year. This CCP-tied battery company is expected to benefit from green-energy tax breaks under the Democrats’ Inflation...
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined National Public Radio’s All Things Considered to discuss his plan to expand the child tax credit for working families. See below for the full transcript and listen to the edited interview here. On the connection between the child...
Coronavirus: More Proof China is Unfit for Global Role
By U.S. Senator Marco Rubio
February 19, 2020
Real Clear Politics
The Chinese Communist Party has no interest in becoming a responsible global power. If that was not clear from its flagrant industrial espionage or its imprisonment of a million Uyghur Muslims, then the party’s blatant mishandling of the Wuhan coronavirus should alleviate any doubt.
In December, the Community Chinese Party’s (CCP) propaganda machine reportedly tried to tamp down initial concerns raised by medical professionals in Wuhan. It accused Li Wenliang, the doctor who initially tried to inform colleagues about the coronavirus originating in Wuhan and its ability to spread from person to person, of “inciting panic” and “spreading rumors” – until he himself tragically contracted the virus and died.
The CCP also withheld live virus samples from the international medical community for weeks, despite urgent pleas. Many suspect that the CCP continues to downplay the spread of the coronavirus by underreporting infections and deaths, especially given the shortages of test kits and the communications blackout in central China.
It gets worse.
Beijing pressured its fellow BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) nations to issue supportive public statements, and it has bullied others not to take preventive measures. It even objected to the World Health Organization sharing information with Taiwan, which is home to one of the busiest airports in Asia – all this just to try to save face.
…
But it is clear that Beijing’s authoritarian tendencies are incompatible with responsible global leadership and the values cherished by those who love freedom.
In the case of coronavirus, a democratic and open political system would not just have identified the outbreak earlier; it would have also done its due diligence and shared accurate information to both its own public and the global community in a timely manner.
…
America’s near-term challenge is facing down the extraordinary risk that the coronavirus poses internationally. Its high rate of transmissibility is even more concerning because of the many unknown factors about the disease’s origins and lethality. Beijing recently reported 15,000 new cases, bringing the total number of those infected worldwide to more than 70,000.
In the longer term, the United States must confront the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party. Amid this crisis, we have seen the leverage the CCP is willing to exploit over other countries, but many of our political, corporate, and cultural elites are far too comfortable with the status quo despite its long-term threat to American safety, security, and prosperity.
…
Beijing understands the economic risk it faces – both because of the Wuhan coronavirus itself but also international backlash – and its foreign ministry is now demanding that foreign countries re-normalize business with it. Ominously, the CCP warns that by declining to restore trade ties, other nations risk damaging their own economies because of the vast extent of economic integration.
For American businesses, it is a morbid reminder of why authoritarianism and market economics don’t mix in the long run.