Sen. John McCain John Sidney McCainKelly's lead widens to 10 points in Arizona Senate race: poll COVID response shows a way forward on private gun sale checks Trump pulls into must-win Arizona trailing in polls MORE (R-Ariz.) is pushing back against Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, warning it is "dangerous" to look at foreign policy as "simply transactional."

In an op-ed published Monday, McCain explained why the country must support human rights.

McCain referenced a recent address in which Tillerson talked about the fact that conditioning the United States' foreign policy too much on values forms barriers to advancing the country's national interests.

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"In some circumstances, if you condition our national security efforts on someone adopting our values, we probably can’t achieve our national security goals or our national security interests," Tillerson said during the address.

"If we condition too heavily that others must adopt this value that we've come to over a long history of our own, it really creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests."

McCain directly criticized that section of Tillerson's address.

"With those words, Secretary Tillerson sent a message to oppressed people everywhere: Don’t look to the United States for hope," McCain wrote in the op-ed.

"Our values make us sympathetic to your plight, and, when it’s convenient, we might officially express that sympathy. But we make policy to serve our interests, which are not related to our values. So, if you happen to be in the way of our forging relationships with your oppressors that could serve our security and economic interests, good luck to you. You’re on your own."

McCain said in the real world, the "demand for human rights and dignity, the longing for liberty and justice and opportunity, the hatred of oppression and corruption and cruelty is reality."