Secretary of State Marco Rubio Before the Senate Appropriations Foreign Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs on the FY27 Department of State Budget[...]

SECRETARY RUBIO: Look, first of all, thank you for the - first of all, for this opportunity, but also for the constructive way in which we've been engaged both with the committee and with your staff. We know we have more work to do and we look forward to making that work. I think that you've touched upon it, and look, like I said, this is always a work in progress, but our goal was always to align foreign assistance generally with the strategic lever - with the strategic interest of the United States in how we prioritize.

And we can go through some of that today, but I think we're on our way to doing it, whether it's realigning so that more of our assistance is going into Asia and the Western Hemisphere than it has historically in the past; whether it's entering into compacts with individual countries, 32 of them now, that we can strengthen their domestic capacities and their national health systems; whether it's our ability to arrange new agreements with, like, the Global Fund and others - OCHA - to be able to more effectively deliver the donations, the taxpayer dollars of the United States, to these entities. I think all that's been very valuable.

Obviously, there's a process by which money is appropriated in this country and that involves us, like, sharing with you a proposal. Again, this is my experience, having served here for 16 years. I did not expect that you would take up our budget and our proposal and pass it as-is. I know that Congress has an important role to play in making determinations. I take the point that the ranking member has made about the role that Congress plays once it passes that bill and having compliance with those conditions. We'll work through some of that with you today, as well as after that - after our meeting today.

But what I wanted you to understand is - and I think this has been largely misunderstood - the goal of moving these programs, with the exception of the Food for Peace program, which has been moved over to the Agriculture Department because we think their - given their links to America's agricultural sector, they're in a better position to deliver on that. I think the goals we had was to say, what is our foreign policy and our national interest, and then ensure that foreign assistance is a part of that strategy, not a standalone strategy of its own that was not in any way coordinated or related to our broader foreign policy and national interest.

In addition, I always have - even in my time here - and I was a supporter of foreign assistance, but I've always believed the best foreign assistance programs are the ones that end. They end because the country that you're helping no longer needs it. I think one of the examples I always cite is South Korea. South Korea used to be an aid recipient, a massive aid recipient. In fact, at one time, South Korea's economy was smaller than North Korea's. Today, South Korea is not only not a recipient; South Korea is the ninth-largest economy in the world, and they are a donor state.

Now, obviously, not every nation-state has the capability to achieve what they did in that regard, but I think every nation-state has the ability to become more self-sufficient. And frankly, many of them ask for that. Many of them want that; many of them welcome that. I know that in my travels and in my interactions with leaders around the world, they did express concern and frustration that in the past, our foreign aid came either with massive strings attached in the sense of you had to focus on this or that, or it came with -

(Protest utterances.)

SECRETARY RUBIO: All right - and also, because I know that every country doesn't have the capability to do that, but a lot of countries expressed concern that oftentimes we were doing aid in their countries through NGOs without coordinating with a government at all. They had their own priorities. They had their own systems they wanted improved. And we were just doing what we thought they needed, not what they were asking for. So I think that's helped in that regard.

So we can go through all - some of these details today. I'll stop here to save you the time. I know - do you guys have a vote-a-rama tonight, is the rumor? Oh, tomorrow. Oh, well, then I can go all night. (Laughter.) I'm kidding. See, that's the one part of being in the Senate I don't miss - vote-a-ramas. Thank you.

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