Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) said Wednesday that multinational corporations such as Apple are hypocritical in their treatment of China and don’t care about national security.
Rubio spoke on "Fox and Friends" to advocate for new regulations preventing Chinese firms from buying up key tech companies. Her argued multinational corporations are the biggest opponents to lawmakers seeking to protect U.S. security interests in China.
"These CEOs of multinational corporations who don't really care in many cases about American national security or where America will be in ten years, they just want access to 1.3 billion customers in China. And they are in favor of anything that allows them access to those customers over the next few years so they can show strong profits and their bonus. And they come back to D.C. and lobby against us and in favor of China," Rubio said.
"Apple goes around the world talking about privacy," Rubio added. "Apple turned the cloud in China over to the Chinese government but in America they won't even help the FBI or law enforcement get into the phone of a criminal to see who the criminal was conspiring with."
The White House released a report last week about China's tech strategy, which involves the theft of technology secrets, but President Donald Trump has reportedly backtracked on whether to use an executive order to restrict Chinese investment. Rubio said he has filed a bill to accomplish these goals, but he said Trump ought to take executive action.
"This president is the only president that's been willing to confront China for what it is, and for too long around here both Republicans and Democrats haven't wanted to do it. And I think this is our last chance to get it right," he said. "We have to have a proper balance with [China]. What they are trying to do is have a high-tech world that they dominate, and the way they will get there is by stealing our stuff or basically by buying up small American companies in key sectors. We can't allow that to continue."
"It’s going to be too late in five years, and then we’re all going to live in the world in which the Chinese dominate the technology that we need to defend ourselves and to fuel an economy," he added.