Secretary of State Marco Rubio is defending major cuts in the foreign affairs budget while testifying before the Senate committee, which once served as a member.

"The United States is back," he said in a statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. However, the committee's ranking Democrats warn that budget cuts and demolition of the United States International Development Agency (USAID) mean that the United States is ceding China.

"As Elon Musk drives to the USAID with a chainsaw and you propose a 83% reduction in foreign plans, China proposes to increase its diplomatic budget by 8.4%," New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said in a prepared speech. "As we reduce our diplomatic workforce and discuss the action to close the U.S. embassy, ​​China has more diplomatic missions than any other country on the planet."

Since Rubio's confirmation hearing in January, he appeared in front of colleagues as a senator and the Trump administration has demolished the U.S. Agency for International Development. Rubio now defends a $28.5 billion diplomatic budget, about half of it in recent years. He is reorganizing and reducing the size of the State Council and is considering closing some foreign missions.

Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee supported the changes he made. Jim Risch, chairman of the Republican Party in Idaho, said at a hearing last month that he had been “crying” to reform at the USAID and that Risch hopes to “cannot survive.” He supports the idea of ​​folding the rest of it to the State Council.

The reforms could have been done in a more thoughtful bipartisan way, said Sen. Brian Schatz, Democratic Hawaii.

Rubio was “not until four months ago to become an internationalist, a man who believes in the United States, especially through foreign aid to bend his power. However, he is now in charge of the escapism of the entire enterprise.” Schats called on him to approve the Secretary of State’s previous version of Rubio to “reappear, relist yourself and save the enterprise.”