Rick ScottVerified account

It’s fitting that we’re here today in the shadow of the United Nations as they prepare to convene the 74th Session of the @UN General Assembly. Freedom-loving countries around the world face a crisis.

China’s goal is to be the dominant world power. China believes that in order for them to be stronger, America & other freedom-loving countries must be weaker. To the Communist regime in Beijing, this is a zero-sum game. China doesn't believe it can prosper unless America fails.

China’s growing influence is ubiquitous. This is, and will continue to be, the greatest challenge we face in the next century. China is not our friend. They, like Russia and Iran, do not believe in personal freedom and they plan to control the world order.

Think about this for a second. Every piece of Huawei tech and infrastructure, every Huawei smartphone, can be a tool in China’s intelligence toolkit. Simply put, countries that do business with Huawei eliminate their citizens’ and their country’s privacy rights.

Huawei is a perfect example of the how the United States has been asleep at the wheel over the last 10 to 20 years in our relationship with China.

We’ve valued quick and cheap over secure and reliable, and now we are going to have to spend the next 10 to 20 years decoupling our reliance on their technology. Thankfully, this Administration is taking a stand against China, and it’s about time.

There’s a couple simple things that I’ve proposed that we can accomplish right now. I filed a bill recently that would require the U.S. Government to stop teaching English in China. Why are U.S. taxpayers funding a program to teach English in China? It makes no sense.

I also filed a bill that would prohibit the federal government from purchasing drones from our adversaries, like China. Federal agencies spend millions of dollars a year on Chinese-made drones and local law enforcement agencies use federal grants to do the same.