San Francisco Frontiers - Rubio brushes aside aid uproar

But Rubio, on a Latin America tour, also said he was issuing waivers which would allow for "immediate" and "life-saving" aid to continue after President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day suspension on taking office.

"I don't know how much more clear we can be than that," he told reporters in Costa Rica.

"I would say if some organization is receiving funds from the United States and does not know how to apply a waiver, then I have real questions about the competence of that organization, or I wonder whether they're deliberately sabotaging it for purposes of making a political point," said Rubio, a former Republican senator who long voted for foreign assistance.

A day earlier, Rubio said he had been made acting head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as Trump looks at integrating it under the State Department.

Non-governmental organizations say they have heard multiple cases of aid groups that have struggled to operate, mostly smaller, local organizations that did not have reserves.

Others fear long-term damage in areas that go far beyond food supplies, such as education and long-term relief work.

Some schools have shuttered in Uganda, where USAID was backing a universal education program, and demining work has been disrupted in Cambodia, among other cases.

In Geneva, Jens Laerke, a spokesman for United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA, said that the Trump administration was creating a "state of confusion."

- 'Not charity' -

Elon Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur who advises Trump, has vowed to kill USAID, saying it is run by "radical lunatics."

USAID managed more than $40 billion in the 2023 fiscal year. The United States has long been the world's top donor, with previous leaders seeing it as a key tool in increasing US influence.

Rubio, who as a senator was largely supportive of foreign assistance, said his goal was not to end aid but to narrow it to where it advances "the national interest."

"I have long supported foreign aid. I continue to support foreign aid. But foreign aid is not charity," Rubio said.

Rubio announced that he was issuing new waivers to ensure the flow of assistance to Costa Rica, a major US partner on issues including migration and drug-trafficking.

US assistance includes biometric work to stop smugglers, which Rubio pointed out as an example of concrete American help that benefits its own interests.

"Under President Trump, we have a foreign policy in which we are strong in providing support to our allies," Rubio said as he met Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves.

- Pushing on China -

The top US diplomat, on his third stop in his first trip, is a longtime China hawk who is also looking to push back on Beijing's influence in the region.

Costa Rica in 2007 switched recognition to China from Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing -- a turning point as other Latin American countries followed suit.

But US officials also see hope in the example of Costa Rica, whose relations with China have turned rockier in recent years.

Chaves in 2023 effectively forbade Chinese tech titan Huawei from bidding for the nation's 5G network due to Beijing's refusal to sign an international agreement on cybercrime.

"When you confront companies that are not secure, they're backed by governments like the government of China that likes to threaten, that likes to sabotage, that likes to use economic coercion to punish you," Rubio said.

Costa Rica has been "very firm, and I think they deserve a lot of support in confronting that," Rubio said.

Rubio later flew to Guatemala, the most populous nation that still recognizes Taiwan.

Q.Nelson--SFF