Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., on Sunday slammed China on its handling of the coronavirus outbreak, charging the world’s second largest economy was primarily interested in in “protecting their global image.”
In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Rubio said China failed every test of transparency and information-sharing.
“The way you deal with a global pandemic is become transparent… because researchers around the world can start working on the bases about and developing treatments and vaccines, they didn't do that,” he said.
“You share best practices and infection numbers and statistics. The reason why you do that, so researchers all over the world and other governments can take steps and measures to adjust to that. They didn't do that.”
“They are more interested in protecting their global image than they are in containing this. That's really the fundamental challenge,” he declared.
According to Rubio, the crisis will translate into shortages in the United States.
“Bottom line is, I think we are going to have some shortages,” he said. “I hope we are in a position to manage here in terms of knowing what they are but long-term, the question is, should we rely as a nation on something as important as medicine, should we rely so heavily on a single foreign country particularly want who appears to be prone to these sorts of outbreaks that are disruptive?”
“It’s not about punishing China,” he said. “It's about protecting the United States. I think that's what we need to buy into because one of the critical mistakes made in the last 20 years is the belief that capitalism changed China when in fact, China changed capitalism.”
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