Secretary of State Marco Rubio is facing concerns about the department’s foreign aid freeze from one of his own close allies: his former staff director on a commission that handles China policy.
Peter Mattis, now the president of The Jamestown Foundation think tank, told senators on Thursday that if he were a senior Chinese government official, he “would be looking to exploit the opportunity” in the Philippines after Rubio’s State Department under Donald Trump halted international aid.
“If I were a senior official in the United Front Work Department, I would be doing everything I can to exploit whatever chaos is there in the U.S.-Philippine relationship,” Mattis said when asked about the freeze by Sen. Brian Schatz during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.