Secretary of State Marco Rubio makes no effort to hide his visceral hatred of China. Speaking on May 20 at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the State Department’s budget request for fiscal year 2026, Rubio launched into a vicious tirade against China, while addressing the issue of humanitarian aid.
Despite reforms and budget cuts made in the State Department, he emphasized, the U.S. will continue to provide more humanitarian aid “than the next 10 countries combined, than the entire OECD, and far more than China.” China “doesn’t do humanitarian aid,” he lied outrageously. “China does predatory lending. That’s what the Belt and Road Initiative is. That’s what all of their aid—they have no—zero record of doing humanitarian aid in the world, and frankly, they don’t know how to do it. They have no interest in doing it.”
Contrary to his lies, China has a generous record of contributing humanitarian aid to many countries that have suffered from natural disasters or other catastrophes. The Belt and Road Initiative is a program for economic development, through building of critical infrastructure—roads, bridges, railroads—and economic cooperation and trade. But Rubio could only lie that “what they’re very good at is going into some country, making you a loan, and then holding that debt over your head. And that’s what they continue to do, and by the way, you have to hire a Chinese company to do it.”
