Rep. Mast on Foreign Aid Package: EU Is Looking at America as a Bank Except We Are Borrowing Maybe 3%, and We Are Giving It Away

EXCERPT:

MAST: "I was not a big supporter of this bill for a couple reasons. Let's start with it as banking model. Essentially, EU, Europe, is looking at America as a bank, except we are borrowing at maybe 3%, we are giving it away, not even lending it out, we are giving it away zero percent. We have to pay bill on it later in the day. And probably the most upsetting part about this to most Republicans was this: We are being told it is urgent, they don’t have another week, they don’t have another month, we have to get this done immediately. Well, if you look at what Europe is doing, their commitment has been less. We’ve given about $113 billion, they have given less than $100 billion, and those are just commitments by Europe, they haven’t even allocated all that. Right now, they're looking for us to infuse $60 billion from the United States of America immediately, while Europe’s commitment right now is $50 billion over the course of the next three years. That doesn’t sound like urgent, and it is in their backyard. And that's one of the big things that upsets us. When you look at the TikTok portion of it, I just tell people this: We’re not looking to ban TikTok, we're looking to go out there and say, 'Listen, if you are owned by a Chines company that is actively trying to engage in espionage against the American people, then we will ask that you divest from China. We're not going to allow that act of espionage against the American people. That's the basic level of good governance."