SECRETARY RUBIO:
All right, let’s do it. I don’t have a statement. Let’s just do it.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, thank you for taking questions. Diplomacy depends on
predictability, reliability, trust. Markets are crashing around the world for
the second day in a row. The consensus is that the President’s tariffs were much
higher than expected, and based on economic formulas that people do not
understand. What is your reaction, and what is the impact on Europeans? You want
them to spend more on defense --
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes.
QUESTION: -- which they are agreeing to finally, but how can they do that when
their economies are crashing, and they are now --
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, their -- no, no, no, no, no -- no, their economies are not
crashing. The markets are --
QUESTION: But they are.
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, their economies are not crashing. Their markets are
reacting to a dramatic change in the global order in terms of trade. And so,
what happens is pretty straightforward. If you’re a company and you make a bunch
of your products in China, and all of a sudden shareholders or people that play
the stock market realize that it’s going to cost a lot more to produce in China,
your stock is going to go down. But ultimately, the markets -- as long as they
know what the rules are going to be moving forward -- and as long as that’s set
and you can, you can sustain where you’re going to be, the markets will adjust.
Businesses around the world, including in trade and global trade, they just need
to know what the rules are. Once they know what the rules are, they will adjust
to those rules.
So, I don’t think it’s fair to say economies are crashing. Markets are crashing
because markets are based on the stock value of companies who today are embedded
in modes of production that are bad for the United States. We have to be a
country that -- we’re the largest consumer market in the world, and yet the only
thing we export is services, and we need to stop that. We need to get back to a
time when we’re a country that can make things, and to do that we have to reset
the global order of trade.
QUESTION: Yeah, but -- sir, there’s a long [inaudible]. And the other part of my
question --
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the worst thing is to leave it the way it is forever. I
mean, this is -- just can’t continue. We can’t continue to be a country that
doesn’t make things. We have to be able to make things to provide jobs for
Americans. We -- that’s it; it’s that simple. China is an example. I mean, it’s
outrageous. I mean, they don’t consume anything. All they do is export and flood
and distort markets, in addition to all the tariffs and barriers they put in
place. So, the President rightly has concluded that the current status of global
trade is bad for America and good for a bunch of other people, and he’s going to
reset it. And he’s absolutely right to do it.
QUESTION: But -- let me ask you about also the predictability of relationships
with allies. The prime minister of Greenland -- excuse me -- the prime minister
of Denmark, which at this point, owns Greenland -- so Denmark, a NATO Ally, is
saying that it’s unacceptable, that one country cannot annex another country.
And --
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, no one’s annexed anything. It’s going to be up to
Greenlanders. The Vice President made that clear. He’s going to respect the
self-determination of Greenlanders. So, at some point -- the Greenlanders have
made clear that they want to be independent of Denmark.
QUESTION: President --
SECRETARY RUBIO: So that’s -- Greenland -- Denmark should focus on the fact that
the Greenlanders don’t want to be a part of Denmark. That’s what they should
focus on. We didn’t give them that idea; they’ve been talking about that for a
long time. Whenever they make that decision, they’ll make that decision, and
then the -- what we’re not going to do is let China come in now and say, offer
them a bunch of money and become dependent on China.
QUESTION: The President said he would not rule out using military force against
Denmark, a NATO Ally, to take --
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, he said he would not rule out -- no, no, no -- he said he
would not rule out -- he said I’m not going to rule out anything if Greenland is
encroached upon by a foreign power like a China or Russia or anybody else. But
it doesn’t matter because Greenlanders are going to make a decision. They’re the
ones that want to get away from Denmark. They’re the ones that want to be
independent, not us. We didn’t come up with that idea; they did. And if they
make that decision, then the United States would stand ready, potentially, to
step in and say, okay, we can create a partnership with you. We’re not at that
stage. But that’s what the Vice President made clear last week in his visit
there. His statement was abundantly clear. He said we will respect the
self-determination of the people of Greenland -- people of Greenland -- and
they’re the ones that want to leave Denmark. That wasn’t our idea.
MODERATOR: All right, well, second question here, Missy from Washington Post.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, I’d like to ask you about the Russia-Ukraine
negotiations. Can you give us the -- your -- tell us about the American
assessment of the conditions that Russia put forward following the -- regarding
the Black Sea ceasefire talks? And also, the British and French foreign
ministers said this morning that Putin was dragging his feet. Do you agree with
that, that --
SECRETARY RUBIO: Maybe -- I mean, he might be. We don’t know yet. We’re going to
find out fairly soon. I mean, look, we are -- here’s what the President wanted
to do. He wants to end this war and he wanted to test it very early in his
administration. Is it possible to end this war on terms that are acceptable,
obviously, to both sides? Because you can’t end a war unless both sides agree.
And that’s what we’re in the process of finding out. We will know soon enough --
in a matter of weeks, not months -- whether Russia is serious about peace or
not. I hope they are. It would be good for the world if that war ended, but
obviously we have to test that proposition.
So we’re working through that process. We had a visitor -- Mr. Kirill was
here[1] this week. I had a chance to sit down with him. He met with others.
He’ll take some messages back. And the message is: The United States needs to
know whether you’re serious or not about peace. Ultimately, Putin will have to
make that decision; the Russian Federation will have to make that decision. I
think the Ukrainians have shown a willingness to enter, for example, into a
complete ceasefire to create space for negotiation. At some point here fairly
soon -- not six months from now -- the Russians and Putin will have to make a
decision about whether they’re serious for peace or not, and I hope they are
serious. It would be good for the world if that war ended.
QUESTION: And what is -- what is your assessment of the Russian conditions that
were put forward? And also, Dmitriev said, following his talks with Mr. Witkoff
yesterday, that the U.S. and Russia might resume direct flights as maybe a
confidence building measure. Do you support that? So, the --
SECRETARY RUBIO: I haven’t heard anything about direct flights.
QUESTION: Okay. What about --
SECRETARY RUBIO: I can tell you -- but I don’t know who’s going to fly on it,
because all these people are sanctioned. But I would just tell you that -- the
thing I would point to you is this. I’m not -- we’re going to wait and see. The
Russians know our position in terms of wanting to end the war, and we will know
from their answers very soon whether they are serious about proceeding with real
peace or whether it’s a delay tactic. If it’s a delay tactic, the President’s
not interested in that. If this is dragging things out, President Trump’s not
going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations about negotiations. We will
know soon enough whether or not Russia is serious about peace. If they are, that
will be great. Then we can move towards peace. If they’re not, then we’ll have
to re-evaluate where we stand and what we do moving forward about it, but we’ll
be in no different a position than we are today or we were when he took office.
He wanted to know early in his administration: is peace possible? We’re testing
to see if the Russians are interested in peace. Their actions -- not their
words, their actions -- will determine whether they’re serious or not, and we
intend to find that out sooner rather than later.
QUESTION: And what about their conditions?
MODERATOR: All right. And let’s -- Daphne --
SECRETARY RUBIO: Which conditions?
QUESTION: They put forward additional conditions after you guys had the Black
Sea ceasefire.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah. So again, I mean, this is part of the back-and-forth of
these sorts of things. I had phone calls with foreign leaders, and then I read
the readout, and it’s like, oh, we said -- no, you never -- [inaudible] they
said something to me they never said. I guess that’s part of the game in this
place or whatever. But look, I don’t -- bottom line is, to me, at the end of the
day, what’s going to matter here is whether we’re going to move towards peace or
not.
If peace is real, we will know soon enough. If they’re not interested in peace,
we will know soon enough, and we’ll make decisions on the basis -- I hope they
are real. There are some promising signs; there are some troubling signs. It’s
not going to be easy. No one ever said this would be easy, but we’re going to
find out sooner rather than later. And let’s just say I’m hopeful, I remain
hopeful, I need to be hopeful that peace is possible and that the Russians are
serious about peace. We want them to be serious about peace, and hopefully they
are, but we’ll know sooner rather than later.
MODERATOR: All right, Daphne, Reuters.
QUESTION: Hi, sorry, I’m back here.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Your last name’s Reuters?
QUESTION: [Inaudible.]
SECRETARY RUBIO: That’s pretty cool, isn’t it? Go ahead.
QUESTION: On the 5 percent defense spending target, have you received pushback
to this idea while you’ve been here this week? And you mentioned yesterday up to
5 percent -- was your language -- what do you mean by up to 5 percent?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I said up to a path -- getting up to 5 percent at some
point. I’m not saying overnight, but to get to that point, we think that’s what
NATO Allies need to be spending for NATO to face the threats that itself has
identified and articulated. Here’s the good news. The good news is everyone
generally, with a couple exceptions, are spending more on defense today than
they were three, four or five years ago. That’s positive. That trend needs to
continue. So, the trend lines are good but they need to continue.
But this is not about spending, okay? This is not about money necessarily. This
is about capability. In order for NATO to be stronger, it needs partners that
are stronger, okay. The United States commits a lot to NATO and continues to. We
are as involved in NATO today as we have ever been, and we intend to continue to
be, but it has to be a real Alliance, and that means that our Alliance partners
have to increase their own capabilities.
So, hopefully two things have led to that. The first is the war in Ukraine, I
think, has woken up a lot of people on this continent about real threats and
real war. And the other is, I think, the pressure and the statements of
President Trump that have been pretty consistent about increasing their
spending. So, this whole trajectory of more defense spending began, I believe,
back in 2017, 2018 under President Trump’s first term. We want that trend to
continue, and we’re hoping when the leaders meet in The Hague, that there’ll be
further and firmer commitments in that direction.
I think it’s beneficial to the Alliance. The stronger our partners in NATO are,
the more capable our partners in NATO are, the stronger NATO is, and everybody
should be in favor of that.
QUESTION: And sorry, just to follow up. So, will you try and get the official
target as 5 percent rather than 2 percent? And will the U.S. commit to 5
percent?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Sure. We’re heading there now. I mean, we’re going to have to
spend more on national security, because we have a global footprint, and that’s
the point that I think has been made and missed in a lot of places, okay. The
United States has Indo-Pacific alliance obligations as well that we’ve made. We
are currently involved in opening up the Red Sea so that global shipping for
everyone, including our European partners, can become possible again. We’re
engaged in counter-drug and counter-gang interdictions in the Western
Hemisphere. There’s obviously all sorts of issues going on in different parts of
the world, including we’re concerned about a resurgence of terrorist cells,
whether it’s in Africa or in the Middle East.
So, the U.S. has these global obligations, and we have China that’s undergoing
the largest, most expansive peacetime military expansion in history. So, we need
to confront all of these things, and we’re engaged in all of those things. So,
we’re going to have to increase defense spending in our country. I think our
commitment to NATO isn’t just 3-and-something percent spending of GDP. It’s
sustained over an extraordinary period of time, and that continues.
So, look, I think our partners know they need to do more, they’ve all indicated
they want to do more, they’ve begun to do more, and that trend needs to
continue.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary --
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you mentioned that you met with Kirill Dmitriev as
well. In order to stop them from dragging their feet and dragging this on, is
there anything that you said -- perhaps not threats, but is there anything that
you said you wanted to see concretely from the Russian side in order to --
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes, peace. We want to see peace.
QUESTION: But specifics in terms of getting to this ceasefire first and then the
negotiation --
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah. I mean, peace means you stop shooting at each other. I
mean, it’s as simplistic as that. Now, obviously, look, there’s all kinds of
conditions for a final peace, and you have to work with both sides. And I’ve
said from the beginning the only way a war ends in a negotiated settlement -- if
it’s not an unconditional surrender, then it is both sides make concessions.
We’re not going to prejudge what those concessions are because those concessions
will depend on what Ukraine will accept, and Russia will accept. But we have to
make concrete steps towards peace.
What we’re not interested in -- and I’m not accusing them of this; I’m just
telling you -- what we’re not interested in is negotiations about negotiations,
that we’re not going to continue this forever. So, none of it was threatening. I
think it was more an explanation of: This is our timeline, and at some point it
will be clear whether you want peace or you don’t want peace. And that time is
coming; it’s pretty short.
At the same time, as we now have seen, members of Congress have begun to file
bills to increase sanctions. So, there is going to be growing pressure from
Capitol Hill to impose sanctions that we’re not going to be able to stop if, in
fact, we’re not making progress towards peace. All these factors have been
explained in the nicest way possible. Hopefully he’ll take that message back to
Moscow and it’ll make clear that we need to begin to see real progress, or we’ll
have to conclude that they’re not interested in peace. But let’s hope they are,
because I think it would be better for everyone if they are interested --
QUESTION: Are more talks planned?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we need to hear an answer to this. I mean, your -- talks
are only -- we’re going to have talks as long as talks are about something. They
can’t be talks about talks. At the end -- I think initially it was important to
talk because we hadn’t talked to them in a long time, but now we’ve reached the
stage where we need to make progress. And if we’re not making progress towards
peace, then we have a set of factors that we have to take into account. But
hopefully we are going to make progress towards peace. I remain optimistic that
we can. It’ll be hard, it’ll be difficult, but I’m optimistic that we can.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, the Myanmar earthquake. I mean, normally, in these kind
of events, you would have up to 200 Americans with sniffer dogs, special
equipment, experts in their field saving lives on the ground. This has not
happened because of the dismantling of USAID --
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, that and the fact that it’s run by a military junta that
doesn’t like us, so it’s hard for us to move around in that country.
QUESTION: But -- but aid suppliers say it’s -- these events are always
non-political. They went into Syria, for example, in the Türkiye-Syria
earthquake. So, they can [inaudible] --
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we’re not the government of the world. No, we will
provide humanitarian assistance just like everybody else does, and we will do it
the best we can. But we also have other needs we have to balance that against.
We’re not walking away from humanitarian assistance. But again, I go back --
there’s a lot of other rich countries in the world. They should all be pitching
in. We’re going to do our part. We already have people there; we’ll have more
people there. We’ll help as much as we can. It’s not the easiest place to work,
okay? They have a military junta that doesn’t like us, doesn’t necessarily allow
us to operate in that country the way we wanted to. That would have impeded our
response no matter what.
That said, we are willing to continue to help in the humanitarian crisis. Other
countries need to do so as well. China is a very rich country; India is a rich
country. There are a lot of other countries in the world, and everyone should
pitch in. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that the United States needs to
continue to share the burden -- 60, 70 percent -- of humanitarian aid around the
world. We will be in the business of humanitarian aid, but we have other
priorities as well that are national interest priorities of the United States,
and we’re going to align all those to be properly balanced.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary --
QUESTION: [inaudible] of your soft power? I mean, all of the experts in this
have said the reason is not because the politics of Myanmar, but it’s because of
the dismantling of USAID. You simply couldn’t deploy --
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I don’t listen -- these -- so-called experts.
QUESTION: But you simply [inaudible].
SECRETARY RUBIO: Those are not real experts. These are so-called experts.
QUESTION: There was [inaudible] --
SECRETARY RUBIO: These are people that are part of that NGO industrial complex
--
QUESTION: Well, they’re [inaudible] --
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, no, these are people that make millions and hundreds of
millions of dollars in these NGOs all over the world that stand up and they get
flooded with U.S. taxpayer money, and then we have to spend 10 -- $100 million
to get $10 million to people. We’re not doing that anymore, okay? We have
stopped. We are no longer going to spend 10 million -- $100 million dollars to
get $10 million to recipients. We’re not going to fund these global NGOs all
over the world that are living off of this. We’re not doing it. We are prepared
to help them work with governments and appropriate NGOs on the ground that are
delivering assistance.
We will be there and we will be helpful. There are a lot of other rich
countries. They should also pitch in and help, and some of them are and some of
them are not. But we are going to do our part, we’re going to continue to do our
part, but it’s going to be balanced with all of the other interests we have as a
country. We are not a nation -- we are the richest country in the world, but our
resources are not unlimited. They are not unlimited. And we have a massive
national debt, and we have many other priorities as well. And it’s time to
recalibrate all of that. So we’ll be there. We’ll be helpful as much as we can.
We’ve got other things we have to take care of as well, but we care deeply about
what’s happened there. We wish we had a more cooperative government.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary --
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, what’s your --
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, the Middle East was part of your discussion here in
NATO, especially that you find support from members toward your policy of air
strikes in Houthis and your maximum pressure policy toward Iran?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah. I mean, on the Houthis, everybody wants to get their
ships through the Red Sea. We’re the only ones doing anything about it, but
everyone wants to get their ships through there. As I said, we’ve done the world
a great favor by taking on this band of criminals who have unfortunately
sophisticated weaponry that they can use to -- I mean, they’ve attacked, what,
150, 160 merchant vessels -- 174 times they’ve attacked the United States Navy?
So I think the world should be grateful to the United States for being involved
in this and doing this. Everyone thanks us for it. I understand these nations
have limited capabilities despite being very rich countries. Nobody else can
project power there and do this. But that said, we think that mission is going
to bear fruit and it’s necessary. We can’t have a band of criminals controlling
that.
In the case of Iran, I don’t know of any country in the world that’s excited
about Iran ever having a nuclear weapons capability. Some are more forceful
about it than others. We’ve had talks about that. As you know, the President
would like to figure out what’s going to happen there, but he’s also made it
clear that there is not going to be a nuclear-armed Iran. That’s not going to
happen under his watch.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary --
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, what’s your message to foreign citizens who may be
afraid to come to the United States because they’re concerned about potentially
being detained over some minor administrative error or because they might have
something on their phone -- like criticism of the President or of the
Israel-Gaza conflict --
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, no, no, no --
QUESTION: -- and they don’t want to come into the United States now?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No -- first of all, those -- people that have their phones
looked at and so forth, and you’ll have to -- I’ll refer you to CBP to go
through their processes. But generally, it’s people that have been flagged
coming in for a reason. I would say that if you’re not coming to the United
States to join a Hamas protest or to come here and tell us about how right Hamas
is or to tell us about -- stir up conflict on our campuses and create riots in
our street and vandalize our universities, then you have nothing to worry about.
But thousands -- thousands and thousands of people come into the U.S. every
single day to conduct business, to travel, to do all -- to visit relatives. It
happens every day, it’s very commonplace, and nobody has a problem.
I mean, if you’re coming here to create problems, you’re probably going to have
a problem. And I think that’s a good thing. If you’re coming here to create
problems -- not here -- the United States -- you’re probably going to have a
problem. Yeah, we’re not -- we’re not going to continue to be stupid enough to
let people into our country who are coming here to tear things up. Not going
happen.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, have the Russians done anything concrete to make you
encouraged that they are truly interested in peace? I mean, you talk about
timeline -- I know you’re not going to give a specific timeline, but are you
talking weeks? Are you talking months?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I think we’re talking weeks probably, yeah. I mean, there’s a
lot that has to happen here in the next few weeks in order for this to be real.
In terms of concrete, they’ve agreed to certain things. I mean, I think there
are things they’re not striking now that they were before. Obviously both sides
claim that the ceasefire is being violated; it’s typical with ceasefires like
this. But that said, not concrete in terms of -- are we closer to peace? We’re
closer to peace simply because we’re talking to both sides, but we’re not closer
to peace because we have a deal on our hands to end this conflict.
But we’re going to know soon enough. That’s my point I make everybody -- people
come, oh, well, Putin, you can’t trust him. It’s not about trusting Putin; it’s
not about trusting anybody. This is about actions. If you’re interested in
peace, you stop fighting and you lay out the conditions by which you’re willing
to end a war. And they have to be reasonable conditions, right, not crazy stuff.
If you’re interested in peace, that’s what you do. If you’re not interested in
peace, then you sort of drag it out and you come up with excuses and you -- and
we know that, and we’re not going to get pulled into that. But let’s hope it
doesn’t come to that. Let’s hope it -- let’s be optimistic here that that’s not
the direction we’re going. We’re prepared if it is, but let’s hope that we’re
not heading in the direction of this is just a delay tactic.
MODERATOR: All right, one more and then we wrap up.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Don’t you guys want to go home [inaudible]?
QUESTION: Just to follow up, Mr. Secretary. Your allies here and also Ukraine,
they believe that Russia is actually preparing for -- to launch another
campaign, some military campaign, as soon as the winter season ends. Do you have
any reason to doubt that?
SECRETARY RUBIO: That they’re going to do what? I’m sorry.
QUESTION: That -- that Russia is -- Russian side are -- they are preparing to
start another military campaign.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well then, we’ll know they’re not interested in peace.
QUESTION: And at this very moment, they’re targeting energy sites. Can I get
your reaction to that?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Targeting what? I’m sorry.
QUESTION: Energy sites in Ukraine.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, again, this is -- I get that that means they’re violating
the ceasefire. That’s not a good sign, but I think that will tell you this, that
ultimately this is a war. Right now, things are going to be blowing up in
Ukraine and inside of Russia because there’s still a war going on. That’s what
we’re trying to end, okay? If we have a true ceasefire, which is what we wanted,
a complete ceasefire, nothing should be blowing up. But the Russians didn’t
agree to that. They wanted a partial.
And then, obviously, when you get into these partials, it’s one of the reasons
why we didn’t push for a partial -- we’ll take it because it’s better than
nothing -- but one of the reasons why didn’t we push -- why we didn’t push for a
partial, because there’s always disputes about what are you hitting and what
you’re not hitting. But in the end, this is still a war, and we want it to stop.
The fact that religious sites are being hit or energy sites are being hit or
civilian sites are being hit, that’s why war is a bad thing, and that’s why the
President wants to end it.
As far as them conducting another campaign, well, then that will be a very clear
sign, right? If all of a sudden we wake up tomorrow and the Russians are
launching a massive offensive, then I think that’s a pretty clear sign they’re
not interested in peace. That hasn’t happened yet; let’s hope it doesn’t happen.
We want to know whether they want to do peace or not, and if they do, then
there’s a way there and we’re willing to help. If they’re not, then it’s good to
know early so we can adjust our policies accordingly.
MODERATOR: All right, everybody, thank you so much.
SECRETARY RUBIO: All right. Thank you, guys.
MODERATOR: And thank you, guys.
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