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...
President Biden’s Misguided Policy toward the Houthis Hurts Americans U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) June 27, 2024 National Review …Two weeks into his presidency, President Biden removed the Houthis from the foreign terrorist organization list…. [He] also ended...
According to reports, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has identified more than 400 illegal migrants who came across U.S. borders as part of an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has been warning about this...
Last summer, corals in the Florida Reef Tract came under severe heat stress and experienced coral bleaching. Anomalous ocean temperatures may cause similar impacts this summer. The federal government has the authority to respond under emergency provisions of the Coral...
Each year, the U.S. Department of State releases its Trafficking in Persons Report. This report assesses countries in their efforts to counter human trafficking and identifies the most successful strategies for reducing the widespread evil of modern day slavery. U.S....
June 24, 2024 marks the 3rd anniversary of the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Florida. U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rick Scott (R-FL) introduced a resolution recognizing the fallen victims and the bravery of the first responders. “Today, we honor...
My Coronavirus Plan: Combating America’s supply chain risk and dependence on China for pharmaceuticals
By U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)
February 27, 2020
Medium
Across the world, news of the coronavirus outbreak is dominating headlines, and with good reason – the pandemic’s apparently high transmissibility rates and lethal danger it poses make it an exceptionally grave threat. The fact that China, ground zero for the virus and home to an overwhelming majority of ongoing cases, refuses to be transparent with its data adds to the seriousness of the situation.
As I wrote recently in an op-ed, the Chinese Communist Party is not a responsible global power, and the party’s blatant mishandling of the coronavirus has clearly revealed that.
Unfortunately, this was predictable.
Last year, I noted in Modern Healthcare that when it comes to the threat China poses to the U.S. healthcare industry, we cannot afford to be complacent.
And a report I released last February detailed critical vulnerabilities in America’s medical supply chain, warning, “the U.S. runs the risk of losing important components of its medical supply chain to China’s government-backed industry.”
At the time, those seemed like abstract concerns, but we now know they are real. Americans unable to buy medical masks and who see headlines about potential shortages of critical, irreplaceable drugs will be familiar.
The coronavirus outbreak makes clear how dependent our nation is on China for industrial capacity, especially in critical areas of our economy.
Health and Human Services Secretary Azar publicly acknowledged this on Tuesday when he confirmed to me that the coronavirus outbreak is “a wake-up call that perhaps we are overly dependent on a supply chain so heavily concentrated in one place in the world.”
That’s why I am planning to introduce legislation to curb America’s dependence on China that will: