Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to the Press – United States Department of State

SECRETARY RUBIO: We had a great visit – great visits. This is an extraordinary forum. ASEAN is the primary way in which the United States engages in Southeast Asia diplomatically. The United States is a country that has deep ties in this region. We are a Pacific nation. We have U.S. citizens that live in the Pacific, obviously in Hawaii and in other territories. And we have strong relationships with many of our partner nation-states here in the region, and that includes, for example, we are the – the United States is the single largest source of foreign direct investment. So we’re very happy to have come here today. We were very warmly received, very positively received. We had very good meetings, some (inaudible) deliverables, and new action items we’ll be able to work on together in the years to come.

QUESTION: Sir, how was your meeting with Wang Yi? How was the progress on that end?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, it was a very productive meeting. It wasn’t a negotiation. It was a meeting. It was a positive meeting. And it’s important that the United States and China have productive meetings and regular engagement and communications. So we felt really good about it – very – thought it was very constructive, and hopefully we’ll be able to build on that to continue to bring stability to our relationship. I think it would benefit the world for that to —

QUESTION: Did you discuss –

QUESTION: And tariffs?

QUESTION: – a summit between President Xi and President Trump?

SECRETARY RUBIO: President Trump’s been invited to visit China. It’s a visit he wants to undertake, and so we’ll work on finding the right date for that, but I’m sure it’ll happen because the President – both presidents want it to happen.

QUESTION: Sir, can you discuss some of the deliverables that were committed to today and yesterday?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, a couple deliverables – obviously, we entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Malaysia on civil nuclear cooperation, which is very positive. We saw elevation in our relationship with a number of countries that will be formalized over the next few weeks as well. So these are very positive engagements. We had a couple of defense agreements or defense sales that we were able to announce to a couple of our partners during this visit as well. Those will become public soon enough. And so we thought that it was a very positive engagement. And we identified new areas of cooperation.

One of the things we’re very interested in is taking on these scams that are going on, that are preying on, not just Americans, but even people here in many of the countries represented at ASEAN. And we think that these cyber criminals that are operating out there as well that are very harmful and – to our country but to all the countries that are represented here. So, but we hope to have some real deliverables on that, and we look forward to there being a very positive and productive leaders meeting in October.

QUESTION: Sir, a question on tariffs. Are you afraid that the tariffs (inaudible) ASEAN will backfire against the U.S.?

SECRETARY RUBIO: No, I’m not concerned about that. That’s not going to happen, because these tariffs are being applied on a global scale. These are not aimed at one country or one region. It’s all around the world. And it’s very simple, okay? For 20 or 30 years, the United States has built up enormous trade deficits with multiple countries around the world, in every region – in Europe, Canada, Mexico, and in this region as well – and that had to be addressed. And so that’s what the President is doing.

Now, obviously, those tariffs that he’s announced will take affect on the 1st of August, because markets need certainty. But there is always the possibility that before August 1st, or at some point after August 1st, we will reach arrangements with individual countries that changes those numbers in a positive way, but that takes some time to work on. So, that could happen. But by and large, this is not aimed at any one country. This is globalized. This applies to virtually every country in the world, because the trade deficit the U.S. was running with too many countries was simply unsustainable. We had to address it. We had to address it.

QUESTION: Sir, you talked – you met bilateral with all member of ASEAN.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Almost all.

QUESTION: But – yeah, yeah. Okay.

SECRETARY RUBIO: We tried. Yeah. But we saw everybody, and it was a very, very positive engagement. We were very warmly received – a lot of appreciation for the U.S. role, a lot of deep partnerships. Today, by the way, is the 30th anniversary of the U.S. diplomatic relations with Vietnam; that’s something we intend to continue to commemorate with real actions in addition to high-level meetings. So we had a very positive – this was a very, very positive trip.

QUESTION: Sir, can you discuss about – can you say to us what were you discussing with Mr. Lavrov this morning?

SECRETARY RUBIO: With Mr. Lavrov this morning?

QUESTION: Yeah, yes, before the –

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I’m not going to tell you what I was discussing with him, but it’s not a – unrelated to what we discussed yesterday.

QUESTION: How about aside of tariff, with ASEAN did you (inaudible) with the ASEAN member?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Sure. I mean, there’s a lot of things we have in common. I mean, cyber security is one example of something that I think everyone represented here is very deeply committed to. If you think about the digital economy, which is going to be critical to all the growth that’s going to go on in the world – and most of the growth that’s going to go on in the world is going to happen right here, okay? It’s in Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia; two-thirds of global economic growth is going to happen here over the next 25 or 30 years, and much of that is going to be on digital platforms. Those platforms have to be secure. They have to be secure from cyber criminals. They have to be secure from nation-state actors that may seek to undermine it. So that was a recurring theme in all of our engagements, and everyone is very enthusiastic to work together on these things.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you.