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Next Week: Rubio Staff Hosts Mobile Office Hours 

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) office will host in-person 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 Senator Rubio’s...

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Rubio Applauds Administration’s Forthcoming Action Blocking Federal Retirement Funds From Flowing to Chinese Companies

Apr 30, 2020 | Press Releases

Miami, FL — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) applauded reports that President Trump has directed his Administration to take swift action to prevent the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB) from moving forward with a short-sighted decision to invest billions of dollars from the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) — the retirement assets of federal government employees, including members of the U.S. Armed Forces — in opaque Chinese firms engaged in human rights abuses and a wide range of military-related activities. 
 
“It’s outrageous that five unelected bureaucrats appointed by the previous Administration have ignored bipartisan calls from Congress to reverse this short-sighted decision, and I applaud President Trump for directing his Administration to take swift action preventing this from going forward,” Rubio said. “America’s investors should never be a source of wealth funding the Chinese Communist Party’s rise at the expense of our nation’s future prosperity, and the TSP Board should not force U.S. service members and federal employees to unwittingly undermine the American national security interests that they work hard every day to protect.”
 
Last year, Rubio and Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) led a group of lawmakers in introducing the bipartisan, bicameral Taxpayers and Savers Protection (TSP) Act, which would prevent the FRTIB from steering federal retirement savings to China. Specifically, the FRTIB plans to shift the TSP’s International Fund Index to the MSCI All Country World ex-U.S. Investable Market Index that includes Chinese companies under U.S. sanctions and U.S. export bans.
 
The FRTIB currently plans to begin investing the retirement assets later this year. The move would also place federal savers and their beneficiaries at risk by directing their savings into Chinese firms that fail to live up to the accounting and financial disclosure levels that are standard in developed markets.
 
Timeline of Rubio actions related to the Thrift Savings Account: