International aid is not charity - Rubio

Rubio noted that the US froze foreign aid to review it and make it one that benefits partners, and the mechanism of granting exemptions allows to preserve funding for critically needed projects in the world, reports "European Truth".

He assured that he continues to support foreign aid.

"But foreign aid is not charity. It exists to advance U.S. national interests. Every dollar we spend while I am Secretary of State and while President Trump is in the White House will be a dollar that advances our national interests," the Secretary of State said.

Before the freeze, he said, the Trump administration could not learn anything about some of the programs and USAID refused to tell them anything.

"We won't tell you what the money goes to, who it's for, who has it, what contractor - in some cases it goes through four different contractors before it gets to the recipient. These are not my numbers. These are USAID's numbers," he said.

Rubio said that in some cases USAID had 10-12-13 percent, maybe less, of the money actually reach the recipient and the rest went to overhead and bureaucracy.

"It's not my money. It's taxpayers' money. So, we're not going to turn down international aid. We are going to have international aid that makes sense. We're going to have international aid that works," he assured.

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