Scott Says China is a 'Bully You Do Not Appease'

Tensions between the United States and China continue to boil, and solutions seem out of reach. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) said in an appearance on CNBC's Squawk Box that the difficulty of having dialogue with the Chinese is because "you do not have a real conversation with them," and "when someone is a bully, you do not appease them."

Sen. Scott elaborated on the first point by accusing China of regularly lying and violating trade deals, making them untrustworthy. More to the point, seeking meetings with the Chinese on their home turf while they engage in such dishonesty in addition to manufacturing fentanyl smuggled over the southern border and allowing American businesses to expand in China only comes across as weak, similar to comments made by Representative Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) in July.

"When you watch China, you do not have a real conversation with them. Everything they tell you is a complete lie. They never follow through on anything, whether it is a trade deal or following the rules of the World Trade Organization, or whatever they think, they never follow through. So in that case, there is no trust; you cannot make a deal with them," said Sen. Scott.

Host Joe Kernen said there could be "no easy way out at this point" with multinational corporations having a degree of dependency on China, and the Chinese are precariously close to invading Taiwan. "How would you handle that, Senator, other than in engagement in dialogue?" asked Kernen.

Scott agreed dialogue is necessary, yet "when somebody is a bully, you do not appease them." As a result, not only is China "decoupling from us," much like Rep. Gimenez demanded we do in March, but the United States should "stop supporting investment in China" and "support investment in this country."

"We need to have engagement, but I mean, when somebody is a bully, you do not appease them. It has never worked. I have never seen anybody succeed by appeasing the bully. They are bullies. Xi [Jinping] is a bully. He threatens everybody, he lies, cheats, and steals. That is what he does. So how do you work with somebody like that? I think we have to understand that China is decoupling from us, and if we want to continue to build American jobs, we have to figure out how to buy American products. How do we build American companies? How do we stop supporting investment in China and how do we support investment in this country?" Scott concluded.