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U.S. Department of State Weekly Digest Bulletin Inbox x U.S. Department of State <usstatebpa@public.govdelivery.com> 7:24 AM (4 hours ago)  to me Peru’s Independence Day 07/28/2019 You are subscribed to Secretary's Remarks for U.S. Department of State. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. Peru’s Independence Day 07/28/2019 07:25 PM EDT On behalf of the Government of the United States of America, I extend my warmest congratulations to the people of Peru on the anniversary of your independence. The friendship between the United States and Peru is defined by our shared values of democracy, security, mutually beneficial trade, and human rights. Our partnership is strengthened by our work together in the region to promote democracy, to fight against transnational criminal organizations, to create greater economic opportunities, and to increase defense and security cooperation. This year, we also honor the tenth anniversary of the implementation of the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, which has helped bring prosperity to citizens of both our nations. I share my heartfelt good wishes to the Peruvian people today and in the year ahead. The post Peru’s Independence Day appeared first on United States Department of State. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo With David Rubenstein, President of the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. 07/29/2019 You are subscribed to Secretary's Remarks for U.S. Department of State. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo With David Rubenstein, President of the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. 07/29/2019 01:39 PM EDT MR RUBENSTEIN:  Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for coming.  I know you had nothing else to do today, so -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  It’s been a busy Monday already.  Thanks for having me here.  I really appreciate it. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Did something happen this morning I don’t know about or -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  No.  All is well.  I’m here.  It’s good.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  So you became our 70th United States Secretary of State in April of 2018.  You’re happy with the job?  Is it as much fun as you thought it was going to be? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Every day.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  So what are the most significant foreign policy issues of concern to you?  What do you think are the biggest challenges we have in our country right now in the foreign policy area? SECRETARY POMPEO:  So I get asked this question about sort of rank ordering the challenges. MR RUBENSTEIN:  You mean that’s not an original question?  (Laughter.) SECRETARY POMPEO:  I mean, so look, it’s an important  question.  It’s about priorities and resources and how do you allocate time, and how do you think about the problem set.  For me, the first task when I came in now, goodness, 16, 17 months ago to the State Department after having been the CIA director was to make sure the State Department was ready in the moment of crisis.  So I spent a lot of time making sure that my team was prepared for the day that every CEO tries to deal with too, right – what happens when something really bad happens that was unexpected, and is your team capable, do you have the resources and people that can respond in the moment for something that frankly you hadn’t given enough thought about? In terms of priorities, every morning the first thing I do is read about China.  So I take time and talk about all the broad array of issues that present both real opportunity for the United States and risk to America from China. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Well, let’s talk about China for a moment.  The trade negotiations are going on.  You’re not the lead in the trade negotiation.  I think Bob Lighthizer is taking the lead in that.  But can you make any progress in non-trade issues until the trade is resolved? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah.  And we’ve made some.  We’ve had other places where we’ve gone backwards.  The Chinese have frankly been very helpful on North Korea.  So they have done more to enforce the UN Security Council resolutions on  North Korea than ever at any time in history. They’re helpful with us today in Afghanistan and the project there too.  It’s something folks don’t spend a lot of time thinking about. So far so good with respect to respecting our sanctions enforcement on the Islamic Republic of Iran, although we sanctioned a Chinese company last week, or perhaps it was the week before, for having violated those sanctions.  But so there are places we can work with China. There are lots of diplomatic fronts where we have – we don’t share the same values, but we have overlapping interests and we work on those problems. MR RUBENSTEIN:  What would be the U.S. response if the Chinese were to send military into Hong Kong to put down the protests there? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, so I never answer hypotheticals about what we will do or won’t do.  So well played.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Well, I thought I’d get – all right. SECRETARY POMPEO:    Having said that, look, we’ve been pretty clear: protest is appropriate.  We see this in the United States.  I am confident there will be protestors when I drive through the building at the State Department today.  And we hope the Chinese will do the right thing with respect to respecting the agreements that are in place with respect to Hong Kong. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  So you have been to North Korea and you’ve met with the leader of North Korea on a few occasions, and you’ve been there when the President has met with him.  So what type of person is he?  Does he have great, interesting thoughts?  Does he have – does he speak English?  Do you communicate in English with him?  And can you just can summarize what your impression is of the leader of North Korea? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah.  So I’ve spent more time with him than any American.  I passed Dennis Rodman on the last trip.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  So he – look, he’s bright.  He has managed to rise to the level of leadership in a difficult environment where he was a very young man when his time came.  From my very first interaction with him, he’s been very candid with me about the things that are important to him, the priority set, and how the negotiations might proceed.  He’s now repeated that he’s prepared to denuclearize.  It’s now time to execute.  And I hope that we can achieve that.  I hope – I head to Asia to tomorrow midday.  I’ll be in Bangkok for a couple of days.  We hope that we can have working-level discussions starting again very soon so that we can unlock the Rubik’s cube.  It’s a real challenge that he is presented with as the leader of North Korea as well.  We hope that he can see his way clear so we can get that brighter future that President Trump has talked about. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Do you expect a third summit to be announced anytime soon, the date and time of it? SECRETARY POMPEO:  There’s nothing in the works.  There’s nothing planned. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  And why did the last summit end before the lunch even occurred?  Why did it kind of abruptly end? SECRETARY POMPEO:  There was a big bid-ask spread, to put it in economic terms. MR RUBENSTEIN:  All right. SECRETARY POMPEO:  We’d had a number – I can’t go into all this, but we had a number of conversations about a broad range of issues in the run-up to that.  My team had worked very, very hard, and it just turned out that the idea that the leaders could bridge that gap in that moment turned out to not work that day. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Do you think the – the U.S. position has been that we would not lift sanctions until there was a so called denuclearization, but would you be willing to consider having the North Koreans keep whatever they have in nuclear weapons now and then lift sanctions if they didn’t do more than they have now, or is that something that’s too hypothetical? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Too hypothetical. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  I didn’t want to give you the answer, but all right.  So -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah.  Look, I’ll say this.  I’ve talked about this publicly a couple times.  We hope that there are creative solutions to unlocking this.  It is a very difficult challenge for each of us.  We have to remember, too, these aren’t U.S. sanctions; these are UN Security Council resolutions.  These are global sanctions put on by every single country, and so we are mindful that we are the steward for enforcing those. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Let’s go to an easier part of the world, the Middle East.  Okay?  (Laughter.)  So the Straits of Hormuz – are we committed to keeping open the Straits of Hormuz at any cost militarily? SECRETARY POMPEO:  We’re going to keep them open.  We’re going to build out a maritime security plan.  Countries from all across the world who have a vested interest in keeping those waterways open will participate.  It will take more time than we wish it would take, but I’m very confident that the world understands its importance, that America is prepared to be a significant part of that, but we need countries from all across the world to assist us in protecting commercial transit.  We’ll be successful. MR RUBENSTEIN:  But our position, I presume, is that if a U.S. ship were taken by the Iranians, we would presumably do something militarily – I guess, I don’t know.  But what about if a ship is taken that’s a British ship or some other nationality?  Are we not committed to recovering that ship or doing something to defend those ships? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Well, we’ve seen it.  We have seen them take a British ship. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Right. SECRETARY POMPEO:  So this isn’t a hypothetical.  And we are working – I was working with – I guess I’m now working with my third British foreign minister since I’ve been a secretary of state.  But working with the British to find the solution to both (a) right that injustice, and second, prevent it from happening again.  So to establish deterrence.  That’s the mission set. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Now, recently you gave a visa for the foreign minister of Iran to come to the United States for a UN event.  You’re familiar with that? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I did.  That’s true.  Yes. MR RUBENSTEIN:  So when he was in the United States, were there any indirect or direct talks with him and the State Department about anything that you can talk about? SECRETARY POMPEO:  No talks. MR RUBENSTEIN:  No talks.  And – okay.  And he -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  Although he spoke.  The American media decided to give him a megaphone to talk about things that are untrue going on in the Islamic Republic of Iran and gave him a chance to lie vociferously to the American people.  I look forward to the chance to speak to the Iranian people in that same way, but truthfully. MR RUBENSTEIN:  All right. SECRETARY POMPEO:  And tell them honestly about what’s going on inside of their own country.  So far, they have not taken me up on that offer. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Now, President Trump has imposed tough sanctions on Iran.  Do you think they are going to have the effect of bringing Iran to the negotiating table, or not? SECRETARY POMPEO:  You have to step back a little bit.  Remember the objective.  The objective is the National Security Strategy that was laid out now two and a half years ago with respect to the Middle East.  So it’s broader.  We tend to focus on the tactical; you have to step back and think about what we’re doing more broadly in the Middle East. With respect to Iran, it’s the world’s largest state sponsor of terror.  It has the capacity to continue to work towards developing a nuclear weapon system, which would cause proliferation risks all throughout the Middle East.  And so we are very concerned about that as well.  Our chosen strategy was to take a 180-degree turn from what the previous administration has done.  They created opportunity for enormous wealth for the kleptocrats in Iran and for them to underwrite Hizballah, militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen that are even as we speak preparing to continue their attacks on Saudi Arabia.  We have decided to go the other way.  We are trying to reduce their resources to conduct terror campaigns all around the world, build out their missile systems and their nuclear program, and we’ve been incredibly effective at that. I remember, David – I’m sure no one in this room, but many here in Washington said that American sanctions alone won’t work.  Well, they’ve worked.  We have taken over 95 percent of the crude oil that was being shipped by Iran all around the world, and we have taken it off the market.  And we’ve done so with – I checked when I came in, Brent Crude is at 63.34; 17, 18 percent lower than when we withdrew from the JCPOA.  So we have managed both to protect the economic growth that world needs while doing our best to deny resources to the Islamic Republic of Iran regime. MR RUBENSTEIN:  The prospect of another Iranian agreement, one that’s more favorable to your point of view and the President’s point of view, is that likely to happen this year, next year, or you just can’t predict? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I don’t do time.  Timelines are a fool’s errand in my business.  They were a fool’s errand in my business when I ran a small company in Kansas, too. MR RUBENSTEIN:  But the Iranians are now enriching uranium at a greater level than they were before.  Do you worry that somebody – Israel – might attack the Iranian facilities, or are you not worried about that? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yes, they’re enriching more than they were under the agreement.  Their temporary reduction in enriched uranium has now ended; they are moving back in the wrong direction.  We’re urging them to think about it.  But for us, it’s not about these levels set in the JCPOA. MR RUBENSTEIN:  All right. SECRETARY POMPEO:  It’s about the capacity to build out a nuclear weapons system in a timeframe that matters to you and your kids and your grandkids.  The previous agreement didn’t remotely touch that. MR RUBENSTEIN:  In the Middle East, do you see any prospect for peace between Israel and the Palestinians?  There’s been talk of a plan, and do you see any progress being made? SECRETARY POMPEO:  So there’s a reason it hasn’t been solved for 40 years or more.  In the end, this will be the decision of the prime minister of Israel and the leadership in the West Bank and Gaza.  I’ve been deeply involved in Mr. Kushner’s efforts there. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  He’ll be traveling, my team will be traveling with him in the coming days, to flesh out for our partners in the region our path forward.  In the end, we can present our vision, our plan, what we hope they will engage on.  We hope we get the Gulf States to join us in that effort, and frankly, the European countries too, to say this is the path forward.  But in the end, the decision about whether to make this fundamental rapprochement is up to those two countries, those two leaders. MR RUBENSTEIN:  All right.  But is our position, the United States Government position, that we prefer a one-state solution or a two-state solution? SECRETARY POMPEO:  You’ll see our plan shortly. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  Will you give us a hint, or -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  No.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  We prefer what the Palestinians and the Israelis agree to, and what the nature of that relationship will look like. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  Any progress, you think, between Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE in resolving their dispute?  Are we in the middle of that, in terms of resolving it? SECRETARY POMPEO:  No, they’re in the middle of it. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Right.  So we’re not in the middle of trying to resolve that? SECRETARY POMPEO:  We’ve made clear we hope that they will join together.  We think Gulf state unity on the issues that matter to America and American citizens matters. MR RUBENSTEIN:  What about Yemen?  Any progress in reducing the conflicts there? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, real progress.  It is uneven – in the end, the player who will get to play the ultimate final card there would be the Iranians.  The Houthis have to make a decision.  They’ve got to decide if they want to continue down the path of being disruptive and accepting Iranian missiles and launching them into Saudi Arabia. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Now, negotiations are underway with the Taliban in the Middle East.  The U.S. is involved in that.  Do you see any progress in reducing our need to be in Afghanistan?  Anything in the near future? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, real progress.  I try not to do timelines, but I’m optimistic.  We’re not just negotiating with the Taliban.  That’s the story.  The truth of the matter is we’re talking to all Afghans.  So we’ve spoken with the – President Ghani, I spoke to him on Friday night or Friday morning.  I’m speaking with the opposition, those folks that are not inside the government.  We’re speaking with Taliban officials.  We have – Ambassador Khalilzad has worked all across Afghanistan with – I’m – when I was there last time, I met with NGOs, I met with women’s groups – a broad swath of Afghanistan.  We want them to take their country back, and we want to reduce what is, for us, tens of billions of dollars a year in expenditures and enormous risk to your kids and your grandkids who are fighting for America.  We think there’s a path to reduce violence, achieve reconciliation, and still make sure that the American counterterrorism effort in Afghanistan has a value and the potential to reduce risk here in the States. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Before the next presidential election in the United States, would you expect we reduce our troops in Afghanistan? SECRETARY POMPEO:  That’s my directive from the President of the United States.  He’s been unambiguous:  End the endless wars, draw down, reduce.  It won’t just be us.  Those of you who have served know that it – Resolute Support has countries from all across Europe and around the world.  We hope that overall the need for combat forces in the region is reduced. MR RUBENSTEIN:  All right.  I’m -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  So yes, it’s not only my expectation, it’s – it would be job-enhancing. (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  All right.  On Russia, you’ve met with Mr. Putin many times, I assume. SECRETARY POMPEO:  A few times, yes, sir. MR RUBENSTEIN:  And any impressions of him that you might convey?  Is he very smart, very tough?  Does he understand English?  Do you convey your thoughts to him in English or does he have an interpreter or -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  I think he speaks English plenty well.  Look, he’s very clear about the things that are in Russia’s interest, the things they’re working on.  We had a strategic dialogue with them that we hope will build into something that handles a broad set of proliferation issues, not just nuclear proliferation issues but a broad array of proliferation issues.  We hope China will join that set of conversations.  We think today, in today’s world, these agreements need to have China be part of them.  And I hope that President Putin will support us, and I think he will. MR RUBENSTEIN:  For the time being, would you say that there is any progress in Ukraine or anything related to Ukraine?  Is that something that’s just off the table right now in terms of the discussions? SECRETARY POMPEO:  So, we’re engaging with the new government in Ukraine.  They just finished up their parliamentary elections last week.  New president – I hope that that will engender a more creative set of ideas about how to resolve this problem.  The conflict in Ukraine is real.  They’re still fighting, not every day, but a lot.  It’s very real. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Crimea, do you think that’s not – never going to be returned to Ukraine, sadly? SECRETARY POMPEO:  The U.S. position is that is unacceptable.  Crimea must come back. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Now – there are protests now in Russia about local elections.  And the leader of the protests is in jail, and there’s been reports that he’s been poisoned.  We don’t know if that’s accurate or not.  Do you have any comment on what’s going on there?  Is the United States protesting to the Russian Government about what’s occurring? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I’ve read the reports.  I don’t have anything to add this morning.  I think everyone understands the U.S. position, right?  This goes for – you asked about Hong Kong earlier, Russia, all these places.  We always support freedom of expression, freedom to practice one’s religion, to live out one’s conscience.  We hope that for every citizen of the world. MR RUBENSTEIN:  You were the head of the CIA at the beginning of this administration.  Do you have any doubt that the Russians interfered with our last presidential election? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Oh, none, none. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay, so have you conveyed -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  And the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one in 2018.  People forget, we’ve had an election since 2016.  I hear people say, “Oh, we have to protect 2020.”  Well the good people who ran in 2018 cared a lot about us protecting that one.  We did so very effectively, and we’ll do so again in 2020.  And it’s not – just a last thing – I just – I know this town, I know exactly what will get reported.  Just so you know, it ain’t just Russia.  That’s bad English; I’ll try and correct it.  There are more nations than just Russia who are attempting to undermine Western democracy.  That has been true since the founders created this great nation, and so we have to be ever-vigilant. MR RUBENSTEIN:  There is legislation that’s passed the House, now in the Senate, to give more resources to keep the Russians from being able to do this again.  Is the administration supportive of the legislation which seems to be blocked right now in the Senate? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, I don’t know the details of the legislation.  I am convinced the State Department has all the resources it needs to perform its part of that function.  We have what we need.  We have the authorities we need; we have the money we need.  The burden is on me to execute that. MR RUBENSTEIN:  And have you communicated to Mr. Putin that we do not like what he’s done before, and he shouldn’t do it again? SECRETARY POMPEO:  On a number of occasions. MR RUBENSTEIN:  And what’s his response? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Noted. (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  That’s a diplomatic term for “I hear you, brother.” (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  So – okay.  He doesn’t admit anything, I assume, but okay.  So with respect to England, there’s a new prime minister.  You have met Boris Johnson before? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I have.  I met him when I was CIA director, and I believe he was foreign secretary at the time, when I met him. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Does the current Trump administration support a Brexit or would you prefer that there be a “remain?”  Or do you not take a position on that? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I have confidence in the British people. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  Now, the British ambassador had to resign because his cables were leaked by somebody.  Do you tell your own ambassadors they should be a little bit more careful about what they say to you because somebody could leak what they’re writing?  Is that a worry? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Not at all, and if I did, they’d ignore me.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  I mean, right – they have a duty, they have responsibility.  Our task is for them to tell us what they’re seeing.  The power of the State Department is that we have these officers on the ground.  Many countries can do policy and think tanks, but we have people everyplace that when we want them to give us the granularity that you can only get with those interactions, then we expect that they’ll report them accurately, truthfully, candidly, and then our mission is to make sure they don’t end up in The Washington Post. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Now in respect to Mexico, we have been concerned about people coming over the border.  Are you confident that the Mexican Government is now doing what it can to keep more people from not coming over the border? SECRETARY POMPEO:  They are. MR RUBENSTEIN:  So they’re doing enough, you think, or you’re -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  No, it’s not enough. MR RUBENSTEIN:  And -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  They still have a high side of 2,000 every day.  It’s unacceptable, and so they need to do more, we need to do more, Congress needs to change the rules.  We have to create a deterrence, right.  And it has to be the case that those who want to come here legally can and those who want to come by some other mechanism choose not to because they understand that they’re not going to find a way.  I remember this as a member of Congress.  People would call my office and say hey, we live in pick-a-country-around-the-world, and they’d say they want to come here and get citizenship, and – anyway, I won’t tell you the joke we told -- MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  -- but the simplest way to do it would be go to Mexico and come on.  But what you want to encourage them to do is to file their paperwork, go through the lawful process -- MR RUBENSTEIN:  Right. SECRETARY POMPEO:  -- become citizens.  We’re the most welcoming nation in the world.  We will always be.  But it’s not the case that we can be lawless or have our sovereignty broken through having this mass immigration in an unlawful mechanism.  It’s truly – there’s a national security risk very, very broadly speaking. And so when I speak with my Mexican counterparts – I was in El Salvador last week speaking with my El Salvadorian counterpart who understands whose challenge it is.  It’s theirs, not ours.  We got to get this right. MR RUBENSTEIN:  In Mexico and Canada, we have redone NAFTA and now USMCA, but Congress hasn’t passed it.  Are you worried that Congress might not pass that legislation? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I hope they will.  I hope they will.  The President’s doing everything he can to create growth here in the United States of America, and USMCA would contribute to that substantially.  And so I hope they’ll pass it.  I’m out of the – I don’t do vote-counting anymore.  I did that for six years, and so I’m out. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Speaking of south of the border, Venezuela:  Would the U.S. ever send troops in if that was necessary to keep further violence from occurring there? SECRETARY POMPEO:  See, you started trying to get me at the beginning, now you’re trying at the end.  The President has said pretty clearly we’re going to do all that it takes to make sure the Venezuelan people get democracy back, and that’s the mission set.  We’re closer today than we were several months ago, but in the end, we’ll do our part and the nations of the region – we’ve built out a great coalition from members of the OAS to what we call the Lima Group to 56 or 58 other countries who are joining us and who understand Maduro is not the duly elected president.  Progress every day. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Now, President Trump has sometimes tweeted things that are not favorable about some people working for him.  He’s never tweeted anything unfavorable about you. SECRETARY POMPEO:  It’s early.  It’s early.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  So what is the secret of your success in your relationship with the President?  You didn’t know him before he was elected, did you? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I did not.  I met him the day I interviewed to be CIA director, just after he was elected. MR RUBENSTEIN:  And who recommended you to be CIA director? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I don’t know for sure.  I don’t know. MR RUBENSTEIN:  You mean the CIA doesn’t have the ability to figure out who recommended you?  (Laughter.)  We should figure that out. SECRETARY POMPEO:  David, you’d never believe that the CIA only does foreign espionage.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay, I got it.  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  You – I’ve never been able to convince you of that.  But it’s true.  They only -- MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  But somebody recommended you, you had an interview with them. SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah.  I think the Vice President was likely the person who I had known and served with as a m The post Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo With David Rubenstein, President of the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. appeared first on United States Department of State. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo With David Rubenstein, President of the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. 07/29/2019 You are subscribed to Europe and Eurasia for U.S. Department of State. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo With David Rubenstein, President of the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. 07/29/2019 01:39 PM EDT MR RUBENSTEIN:  Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for coming.  I know you had nothing else to do today, so -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  It’s been a busy Monday already.  Thanks for having me here.  I really appreciate it. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Did something happen this morning I don’t know about or -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  No.  All is well.  I’m here.  It’s good.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  So you became our 70th United States Secretary of State in April of 2018.  You’re happy with the job?  Is it as much fun as you thought it was going to be? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Every day.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  So what are the most significant foreign policy issues of concern to you?  What do you think are the biggest challenges we have in our country right now in the foreign policy area? SECRETARY POMPEO:  So I get asked this question about sort of rank ordering the challenges. MR RUBENSTEIN:  You mean that’s not an original question?  (Laughter.) SECRETARY POMPEO:  I mean, so look, it’s an important  question.  It’s about priorities and resources and how do you allocate time, and how do you think about the problem set.  For me, the first task when I came in now, goodness, 16, 17 months ago to the State Department after having been the CIA director was to make sure the State Department was ready in the moment of crisis.  So I spent a lot of time making sure that my team was prepared for the day that every CEO tries to deal with too, right – what happens when something really bad happens that was unexpected, and is your team capable, do you have the resources and people that can respond in the moment for something that frankly you hadn’t given enough thought about? In terms of priorities, every morning the first thing I do is read about China.  So I take time and talk about all the broad array of issues that present both real opportunity for the United States and risk to America from China. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Well, let’s talk about China for a moment.  The trade negotiations are going on.  You’re not the lead in the trade negotiation.  I think Bob Lighthizer is taking the lead in that.  But can you make any progress in non-trade issues until the trade is resolved? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah.  And we’ve made some.  We’ve had other places where we’ve gone backwards.  The Chinese have frankly been very helpful on North Korea.  So they have done more to enforce the UN Security Council resolutions on  North Korea than ever at any time in history. They’re helpful with us today in Afghanistan and the project there too.  It’s something folks don’t spend a lot of time thinking about. So far so good with respect to respecting our sanctions enforcement on the Islamic Republic of Iran, although we sanctioned a Chinese company last week, or perhaps it was the week before, for having violated those sanctions.  But so there are places we can work with China. There are lots of diplomatic fronts where we have – we don’t share the same values, but we have overlapping interests and we work on those problems. MR RUBENSTEIN:  What would be the U.S. response if the Chinese were to send military into Hong Kong to put down the protests there? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, so I never answer hypotheticals about what we will do or won’t do.  So well played.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Well, I thought I’d get – all right. SECRETARY POMPEO:    Having said that, look, we’ve been pretty clear: protest is appropriate.  We see this in the United States.  I am confident there will be protestors when I drive through the building at the State Department today.  And we hope the Chinese will do the right thing with respect to respecting the agreements that are in place with respect to Hong Kong. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  So you have been to North Korea and you’ve met with the leader of North Korea on a few occasions, and you’ve been there when the President has met with him.  So what type of person is he?  Does he have great, interesting thoughts?  Does he have – does he speak English?  Do you communicate in English with him?  And can you just can summarize what your impression is of the leader of North Korea? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah.  So I’ve spent more time with him than any American.  I passed Dennis Rodman on the last trip.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  So he – look, he’s bright.  He has managed to rise to the level of leadership in a difficult environment where he was a very young man when his time came.  From my very first interaction with him, he’s been very candid with me about the things that are important to him, the priority set, and how the negotiations might proceed.  He’s now repeated that he’s prepared to denuclearize.  It’s now time to execute.  And I hope that we can achieve that.  I hope – I head to Asia to tomorrow midday.  I’ll be in Bangkok for a couple of days.  We hope that we can have working-level discussions starting again very soon so that we can unlock the Rubik’s cube.  It’s a real challenge that he is presented with as the leader of North Korea as well.  We hope that he can see his way clear so we can get that brighter future that President Trump has talked about. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Do you expect a third summit to be announced anytime soon, the date and time of it? SECRETARY POMPEO:  There’s nothing in the works.  There’s nothing planned. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  And why did the last summit end before the lunch even occurred?  Why did it kind of abruptly end? SECRETARY POMPEO:  There was a big bid-ask spread, to put it in economic terms. MR RUBENSTEIN:  All right. SECRETARY POMPEO:  We’d had a number – I can’t go into all this, but we had a number of conversations about a broad range of issues in the run-up to that.  My team had worked very, very hard, and it just turned out that the idea that the leaders could bridge that gap in that moment turned out to not work that day. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Do you think the – the U.S. position has been that we would not lift sanctions until there was a so called denuclearization, but would you be willing to consider having the North Koreans keep whatever they have in nuclear weapons now and then lift sanctions if they didn’t do more than they have now, or is that something that’s too hypothetical? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Too hypothetical. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  I didn’t want to give you the answer, but all right.  So -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah.  Look, I’ll say this.  I’ve talked about this publicly a couple times.  We hope that there are creative solutions to unlocking this.  It is a very difficult challenge for each of us.  We have to remember, too, these aren’t U.S. sanctions; these are UN Security Council resolutions.  These are global sanctions put on by every single country, and so we are mindful that we are the steward for enforcing those. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Let’s go to an easier part of the world, the Middle East.  Okay?  (Laughter.)  So the Straits of Hormuz – are we committed to keeping open the Straits of Hormuz at any cost militarily? SECRETARY POMPEO:  We’re going to keep them open.  We’re going to build out a maritime security plan.  Countries from all across the world who have a vested interest in keeping those waterways open will participate.  It will take more time than we wish it would take, but I’m very confident that the world understands its importance, that America is prepared to be a significant part of that, but we need countries from all across the world to assist us in protecting commercial transit.  We’ll be successful. MR RUBENSTEIN:  But our position, I presume, is that if a U.S. ship were taken by the Iranians, we would presumably do something militarily – I guess, I don’t know.  But what about if a ship is taken that’s a British ship or some other nationality?  Are we not committed to recovering that ship or doing something to defend those ships? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Well, we’ve seen it.  We have seen them take a British ship. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Right. SECRETARY POMPEO:  So this isn’t a hypothetical.  And we are working – I was working with – I guess I’m now working with my third British foreign minister since I’ve been a secretary of state.  But working with the British to find the solution to both (a) right that injustice, and second, prevent it from happening again.  So to establish deterrence.  That’s the mission set. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Now, recently you gave a visa for the foreign minister of Iran to come to the United States for a UN event.  You’re familiar with that? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I did.  That’s true.  Yes. MR RUBENSTEIN:  So when he was in the United States, were there any indirect or direct talks with him and the State Department about anything that you can talk about? SECRETARY POMPEO:  No talks. MR RUBENSTEIN:  No talks.  And – okay.  And he -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  Although he spoke.  The American media decided to give him a megaphone to talk about things that are untrue going on in the Islamic Republic of Iran and gave him a chance to lie vociferously to the American people.  I look forward to the chance to speak to the Iranian people in that same way, but truthfully. MR RUBENSTEIN:  All right. SECRETARY POMPEO:  And tell them honestly about what’s going on inside of their own country.  So far, they have not taken me up on that offer. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Now, President Trump has imposed tough sanctions on Iran.  Do you think they are going to have the effect of bringing Iran to the negotiating table, or not? SECRETARY POMPEO:  You have to step back a little bit.  Remember the objective.  The objective is the National Security Strategy that was laid out now two and a half years ago with respect to the Middle East.  So it’s broader.  We tend to focus on the tactical; you have to step back and think about what we’re doing more broadly in the Middle East. With respect to Iran, it’s the world’s largest state sponsor of terror.  It has the capacity to continue to work towards developing a nuclear weapon system, which would cause proliferation risks all throughout the Middle East.  And so we are very concerned about that as well.  Our chosen strategy was to take a 180-degree turn from what the previous administration has done.  They created opportunity for enormous wealth for the kleptocrats in Iran and for them to underwrite Hizballah, militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen that are even as we speak preparing to continue their attacks on Saudi Arabia.  We have decided to go the other way.  We are trying to reduce their resources to conduct terror campaigns all around the world, build out their missile systems and their nuclear program, and we’ve been incredibly effective at that. I remember, David – I’m sure no one in this room, but many here in Washington said that American sanctions alone won’t work.  Well, they’ve worked.  We have taken over 95 percent of the crude oil that was being shipped by Iran all around the world, and we have taken it off the market.  And we’ve done so with – I checked when I came in, Brent Crude is at 63.34; 17, 18 percent lower than when we withdrew from the JCPOA.  So we have managed both to protect the economic growth that world needs while doing our best to deny resources to the Islamic Republic of Iran regime. MR RUBENSTEIN:  The prospect of another Iranian agreement, one that’s more favorable to your point of view and the President’s point of view, is that likely to happen this year, next year, or you just can’t predict? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I don’t do time.  Timelines are a fool’s errand in my business.  They were a fool’s errand in my business when I ran a small company in Kansas, too. MR RUBENSTEIN:  But the Iranians are now enriching uranium at a greater level than they were before.  Do you worry that somebody – Israel – might attack the Iranian facilities, or are you not worried about that? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yes, they’re enriching more than they were under the agreement.  Their temporary reduction in enriched uranium has now ended; they are moving back in the wrong direction.  We’re urging them to think about it.  But for us, it’s not about these levels set in the JCPOA. MR RUBENSTEIN:  All right. SECRETARY POMPEO:  It’s about the capacity to build out a nuclear weapons system in a timeframe that matters to you and your kids and your grandkids.  The previous agreement didn’t remotely touch that. MR RUBENSTEIN:  In the Middle East, do you see any prospect for peace between Israel and the Palestinians?  There’s been talk of a plan, and do you see any progress being made? SECRETARY POMPEO:  So there’s a reason it hasn’t been solved for 40 years or more.  In the end, this will be the decision of the prime minister of Israel and the leadership in the West Bank and Gaza.  I’ve been deeply involved in Mr. Kushner’s efforts there. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  He’ll be traveling, my team will be traveling with him in the coming days, to flesh out for our partners in the region our path forward.  In the end, we can present our vision, our plan, what we hope they will engage on.  We hope we get the Gulf States to join us in that effort, and frankly, the European countries too, to say this is the path forward.  But in the end, the decision about whether to make this fundamental rapprochement is up to those two countries, those two leaders. MR RUBENSTEIN:  All right.  But is our position, the United States Government position, that we prefer a one-state solution or a two-state solution? SECRETARY POMPEO:  You’ll see our plan shortly. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  Will you give us a hint, or -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  No.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  We prefer what the Palestinians and the Israelis agree to, and what the nature of that relationship will look like. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  Any progress, you think, between Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE in resolving their dispute?  Are we in the middle of that, in terms of resolving it? SECRETARY POMPEO:  No, they’re in the middle of it. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Right.  So we’re not in the middle of trying to resolve that? SECRETARY POMPEO:  We’ve made clear we hope that they will join together.  We think Gulf state unity on the issues that matter to America and American citizens matters. MR RUBENSTEIN:  What about Yemen?  Any progress in reducing the conflicts there? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, real progress.  It is uneven – in the end, the player who will get to play the ultimate final card there would be the Iranians.  The Houthis have to make a decision.  They’ve got to decide if they want to continue down the path of being disruptive and accepting Iranian missiles and launching them into Saudi Arabia. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Now, negotiations are underway with the Taliban in the Middle East.  The U.S. is involved in that.  Do you see any progress in reducing our need to be in Afghanistan?  Anything in the near future? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, real progress.  I try not to do timelines, but I’m optimistic.  We’re not just negotiating with the Taliban.  That’s the story.  The truth of the matter is we’re talking to all Afghans.  So we’ve spoken with the – President Ghani, I spoke to him on Friday night or Friday morning.  I’m speaking with the opposition, those folks that are not inside the government.  We’re speaking with Taliban officials.  We have – Ambassador Khalilzad has worked all across Afghanistan with – I’m – when I was there last time, I met with NGOs, I met with women’s groups – a broad swath of Afghanistan.  We want them to take their country back, and we want to reduce what is, for us, tens of billions of dollars a year in expenditures and enormous risk to your kids and your grandkids who are fighting for America.  We think there’s a path to reduce violence, achieve reconciliation, and still make sure that the American counterterrorism effort in Afghanistan has a value and the potential to reduce risk here in the States. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Before the next presidential election in the United States, would you expect we reduce our troops in Afghanistan? SECRETARY POMPEO:  That’s my directive from the President of the United States.  He’s been unambiguous:  End the endless wars, draw down, reduce.  It won’t just be us.  Those of you who have served know that it – Resolute Support has countries from all across Europe and around the world.  We hope that overall the need for combat forces in the region is reduced. MR RUBENSTEIN:  All right.  I’m -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  So yes, it’s not only my expectation, it’s – it would be job-enhancing. (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  All right.  On Russia, you’ve met with Mr. Putin many times, I assume. SECRETARY POMPEO:  A few times, yes, sir. MR RUBENSTEIN:  And any impressions of him that you might convey?  Is he very smart, very tough?  Does he understand English?  Do you convey your thoughts to him in English or does he have an interpreter or -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  I think he speaks English plenty well.  Look, he’s very clear about the things that are in Russia’s interest, the things they’re working on.  We had a strategic dialogue with them that we hope will build into something that handles a broad set of proliferation issues, not just nuclear proliferation issues but a broad array of proliferation issues.  We hope China will join that set of conversations.  We think today, in today’s world, these agreements need to have China be part of them.  And I hope that President Putin will support us, and I think he will. MR RUBENSTEIN:  For the time being, would you say that there is any progress in Ukraine or anything related to Ukraine?  Is that something that’s just off the table right now in terms of the discussions? SECRETARY POMPEO:  So, we’re engaging with the new government in Ukraine.  They just finished up their parliamentary elections last week.  New president – I hope that that will engender a more creative set of ideas about how to resolve this problem.  The conflict in Ukraine is real.  They’re still fighting, not every day, but a lot.  It’s very real. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Crimea, do you think that’s not – never going to be returned to Ukraine, sadly? SECRETARY POMPEO:  The U.S. position is that is unacceptable.  Crimea must come back. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Now – there are protests now in Russia about local elections.  And the leader of the protests is in jail, and there’s been reports that he’s been poisoned.  We don’t know if that’s accurate or not.  Do you have any comment on what’s going on there?  Is the United States protesting to the Russian Government about what’s occurring? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I’ve read the reports.  I don’t have anything to add this morning.  I think everyone understands the U.S. position, right?  This goes for – you asked about Hong Kong earlier, Russia, all these places.  We always support freedom of expression, freedom to practice one’s religion, to live out one’s conscience.  We hope that for every citizen of the world. MR RUBENSTEIN:  You were the head of the CIA at the beginning of this administration.  Do you have any doubt that the Russians interfered with our last presidential election? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Oh, none, none. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay, so have you conveyed -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  And the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one in 2018.  People forget, we’ve had an election since 2016.  I hear people say, “Oh, we have to protect 2020.”  Well the good people who ran in 2018 cared a lot about us protecting that one.  We did so very effectively, and we’ll do so again in 2020.  And it’s not – just a last thing – I just – I know this town, I know exactly what will get reported.  Just so you know, it ain’t just Russia.  That’s bad English; I’ll try and correct it.  There are more nations than just Russia who are attempting to undermine Western democracy.  That has been true since the founders created this great nation, and so we have to be ever-vigilant. MR RUBENSTEIN:  There is legislation that’s passed the House, now in the Senate, to give more resources to keep the Russians from being able to do this again.  Is the administration supportive of the legislation which seems to be blocked right now in the Senate? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah, I don’t know the details of the legislation.  I am convinced the State Department has all the resources it needs to perform its part of that function.  We have what we need.  We have the authorities we need; we have the money we need.  The burden is on me to execute that. MR RUBENSTEIN:  And have you communicated to Mr. Putin that we do not like what he’s done before, and he shouldn’t do it again? SECRETARY POMPEO:  On a number of occasions. MR RUBENSTEIN:  And what’s his response? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Noted. (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  That’s a diplomatic term for “I hear you, brother.” (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  So – okay.  He doesn’t admit anything, I assume, but okay.  So with respect to England, there’s a new prime minister.  You have met Boris Johnson before? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I have.  I met him when I was CIA director, and I believe he was foreign secretary at the time, when I met him. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Does the current Trump administration support a Brexit or would you prefer that there be a “remain?”  Or do you not take a position on that? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I have confidence in the British people. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  Now, the British ambassador had to resign because his cables were leaked by somebody.  Do you tell your own ambassadors they should be a little bit more careful about what they say to you because somebody could leak what they’re writing?  Is that a worry? SECRETARY POMPEO:  Not at all, and if I did, they’d ignore me.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  I mean, right – they have a duty, they have responsibility.  Our task is for them to tell us what they’re seeing.  The power of the State Department is that we have these officers on the ground.  Many countries can do policy and think tanks, but we have people everyplace that when we want them to give us the granularity that you can only get with those interactions, then we expect that they’ll report them accurately, truthfully, candidly, and then our mission is to make sure they don’t end up in The Washington Post. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Now in respect to Mexico, we have been concerned about people coming over the border.  Are you confident that the Mexican Government is now doing what it can to keep more people from not coming over the border? SECRETARY POMPEO:  They are. MR RUBENSTEIN:  So they’re doing enough, you think, or you’re -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  No, it’s not enough. MR RUBENSTEIN:  And -- SECRETARY POMPEO:  They still have a high side of 2,000 every day.  It’s unacceptable, and so they need to do more, we need to do more, Congress needs to change the rules.  We have to create a deterrence, right.  And it has to be the case that those who want to come here legally can and those who want to come by some other mechanism choose not to because they understand that they’re not going to find a way.  I remember this as a member of Congress.  People would call my office and say hey, we live in pick-a-country-around-the-world, and they’d say they want to come here and get citizenship, and – anyway, I won’t tell you the joke we told -- MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  -- but the simplest way to do it would be go to Mexico and come on.  But what you want to encourage them to do is to file their paperwork, go through the lawful process -- MR RUBENSTEIN:  Right. SECRETARY POMPEO:  -- become citizens.  We’re the most welcoming nation in the world.  We will always be.  But it’s not the case that we can be lawless or have our sovereignty broken through having this mass immigration in an unlawful mechanism.  It’s truly – there’s a national security risk very, very broadly speaking. And so when I speak with my Mexican counterparts – I was in El Salvador last week speaking with my El Salvadorian counterpart who understands whose challenge it is.  It’s theirs, not ours.  We got to get this right. MR RUBENSTEIN:  In Mexico and Canada, we have redone NAFTA and now USMCA, but Congress hasn’t passed it.  Are you worried that Congress might not pass that legislation? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I hope they will.  I hope they will.  The President’s doing everything he can to create growth here in the United States of America, and USMCA would contribute to that substantially.  And so I hope they’ll pass it.  I’m out of the – I don’t do vote-counting anymore.  I did that for six years, and so I’m out. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Speaking of south of the border, Venezuela:  Would the U.S. ever send troops in if that was necessary to keep further violence from occurring there? SECRETARY POMPEO:  See, you started trying to get me at the beginning, now you’re trying at the end.  The President has said pretty clearly we’re going to do all that it takes to make sure the Venezuelan people get democracy back, and that’s the mission set.  We’re closer today than we were several months ago, but in the end, we’ll do our part and the nations of the region – we’ve built out a great coalition from members of the OAS to what we call the Lima Group to 56 or 58 other countries who are joining us and who understand Maduro is not the duly elected president.  Progress every day. MR RUBENSTEIN:  Now, President Trump has sometimes tweeted things that are not favorable about some people working for him.  He’s never tweeted anything unfavorable about you. SECRETARY POMPEO:  It’s early.  It’s early.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  So what is the secret of your success in your relationship with the President?  You didn’t know him before he was elected, did you? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I did not.  I met him the day I interviewed to be CIA director, just after he was elected. MR RUBENSTEIN:  And who recommended you to be CIA director? SECRETARY POMPEO:  I don’t know for sure.  I don’t know. MR RUBENSTEIN:  You mean the CIA doesn’t have the ability to figure out who recommended you?  (Laughter.)  We should figure that out. SECRETARY POMPEO:  David, you’d never believe that the CIA only does foreign espionage.  (Laughter.) MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay, I got it.  Okay. SECRETARY POMPEO:  You – I’ve never been able to convince you of that.  But it’s true.  They only -- MR RUBENSTEIN:  Okay.  But somebody recommended you, you had an interview with them. SECRETARY POMPEO:  Yeah.  I think the Vice President was likely the person who I had known and served with as a m The post Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo With David Rubenstein, President of the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. appeared first on United States Department of State. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo at the U.S. Department of State 230th Anniversary Celebration 07/29/2019 You are subscribed to Secretary's Remarks for U.S. Department of State. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo at the U.S. Department of State 230th Anniversary Celebration 07/29/2019 03:26 PM EDT SECRETARY POMPEO:  Thank you all.  And good afternoon.  I hope everybody’s enjoying this birthday celebration.  That was a stirring video, and I want to thank all of the former Secretaries for participating in it.  Each of them was kind enough to share with me their advice.  I called them after I was nominated.  I called every single one of them.  And they all began with:  Listen more than you talk.  I hope I’ve done that.  I try to do it every day.  Show up in-person as much as you can, be everywhere, and don’t forget to sleep.  (Laughter.)  Working on the last one. This is the second important birthday that I’ve had the chance to celebrate this month.  The first one was America’s.  This past 4th of July, Susan and I were here at the State Department, with members of our team, watching the fireworks light up the sky, and ambassadors from all across the world.  It was a beautiful sight, and it had a greater significance too. On July 4th, 1776, our Founders laid down the proposition that all men are created equal.  They said we all possess certain unalienable rights. And four score and seven years later – 87, for those who aren’t up on 19th century math – (laughter) – Abraham Lincoln reaffirmed those ideals in the Gettysburg Address.  He told the world that the United States was engaged in a Civil War to protect those very rights. Now, here we sit 155 after that.  We at the State Department follow in the footsteps of our forefathers.  We use diplomacy to defend that very set of unalienable rights – not just for Americans, but for people all across the world: We negotiate agreements with friends and foes alike to avert military conflict, and thereby prevent innocent civilians from dying.  We should take this mission seriously every moment. We assist nations eager to preserve their independence from foreign influence. And we are blessed in that we stand grounded in the unique moral authority of American values, in defense of the voiceless, when we see human rights abuses. There is no other federal agency – none, and I served in the Department of Defense and I was a member of Congress.  There is no other federal agency that can do this around the world like the United States Department of State.  None.  Ours is a very special mission, and today’s anniversary is an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to it. I want to take a minute, and I want to hear from Dr. Kissinger too.  But I want to take a minute by looking back at our history.  You’ll see what we’ve always stood for. In 1814, a man named Stephen Pleasonton was a clerk at the State Department.  When the British invaded Washington, he was there.  At that time, the State Department was the keeper of all of the nation’s documents, so Mr. Pleasanton took it upon himself to smuggle the Declaration, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and all of our nation’s treaties to safety outside of the city of Washington, D.C.  Pretty remarkable. Think too of men who have not been recorded so much in history, a man named George Waller.  He was our charge d’affaires in Luxembourg at the outbreak of World War II.  And when the Germans invaded Luxembourg, Mr. Waller refused to evacuate.  Many Jews were still seeking visas to the United States, and he wanted to help them.  The problem was, his post was not a visa-issuing consulate.  You know, the bureaucracy was in his way.  (Laughter.)  So Mr. Waller drove five hours to Antwerp in the dark of night to retrieve visa forms and a stamping machine.  It sounds old school, but he made it back to Luxembourg and proceeded to issue life-saving visas to hundreds of Jews. We all know this as we sit here today:  Our family members are the hidden heroes of diplomacy.  Take family member Kitty Herrick.  She was the wife of our Ambassador to France at the outbreak of World War I.  She helped launch the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris.  Parisians called her “The American Angel.” I wanted to tell those three stories today for a reason.  These folks show what the State Department – and the mission of American diplomacy ‒ is truly all about.  These diplomatic heroes laid a foundation for each of us – not just by protecting freedom through their good works, but by being a true example of service. Now the conn is ours.  It’s our turn to pave the way for those who will come after us.  And we’re doing this too by defining what it means to be a member of the Department of State.  As you can see from behind me, we must be One Team, on One Mission, dedicated towards One Future. This was the vision behind the department-wide effort to create the Professional Ethos, which we rolled out this past April.  The Ethos simply lays out commitments that unite every single person who is working on behalf of the State Department.  This should happen across administrations and generations and, indeed, jobs and roles.  It includes, of course, a commitment to our Constitution, to protecting the American people, to serving with professionalism and integrity, and to taking responsibility for each and every action that each of us takes. You heard a little bit earlier today from Counselor Brechbuhl on how and why the Ethos was developed.  It’s a critical part of reinvesting in the Department and will serve us for decades to come. There are two immediate ways that the Ethos will impact each one of us.  First, it will be the new training course and the “One Team Award.”  Regarding the “One Team” course, supervisors, let me be clear:  Tremendous effort has gone into creating this course and I expect all new hires to attend.  That’s all, every one of them.  Existing team members will be engaged in the coming weeks and months by their leadership team in the Ethos discussions and workshops. And regarding the “One Team Award,” Carol Perez mentioned this – we’ll start soliciting nominations for it immediately.  Please give your full attention to ensure that the people who best exemplify what it is we’re trying to do, what our Ethos shall be, are recognized in this process. Let me close with the last piece of the puzzle, which is “One Future.” Every morning when I get to work, I walk through a hallway lined with paintings of my predecessors.  My son jokes that mine will look out of place after Madison and Jefferson and Monroe.  It’s nothing like our family members to keep us humble.  (Laughter.)  Some of the pictures are of the people we just saw in that video, and it is a vivid reminder that the State Department’s story began long before we got here.  And it will extend long after we are gone.  Our future diplomats will look back on us like we look back on our forefathers.  They’ll consider our deeds and tell our stories.  And I hope for their sake they don’t have to look at a painting of me every day. Let’s set a shining example for them.  Let’s protect the American principles that have made our nation the greatest in the history of the world. And let’s do that as One Team, One Mission, and One Future.  Thank you.  (Applause.) I now have the – I get the incredible honor to introduce our next presentation – a conversation with the Dean of America’s Secretaries of State:  Dr. Henry Kissinger, led by his official biographer, Dr. Niall Ferguson. It’s difficult to do justice, Dr. Kissinger.  I know you can see – you’re staring at me.  (Laughter.)  It is difficult to do justice to the impact that you had on the State Department and on America, and indeed, on the world. The influence of Secretary Kissinger’s tenure can still be felt in places like China and Russia and to – in the Middle East.  And even today he continues to influence current events effectively.  At 96 years old, he’s a globetrotter and an active advisor to so many – including me.  Thank you, sir. And Dr. Kissinger found a worthy biographer as well in Dr. Niall Ferguson.  A brilliant historian, Dr. Ferguson has taught at Oxford and Harvard and NYU.  He’s currently a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. We’re grateful for each of you being with us today.  Please, join me in welcoming Dr. Kissinger and Dr. Ferguson to the stage.  (Applause.) The post Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo at the U.S. Department of State 230th Anniversary Celebration appeared first on United States Department of State. Deputy Assistant Secretary Thomas DiNanno to Travel to Europe 07/29/2019 You are subscribed to Europe and Eurasia for U.S. Department of State. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. Deputy Assistant Secretary Thomas DiNanno to Travel to Europe 07/29/2019 04:54 PM EDT Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense Policy, Emerging Threats, and Outreach Thomas DiNanno will travel to Romania, Poland, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland from July 27 to August 6 for meetings and events focused on outer space security, missile defense, international security, and arms control. Learn more about the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance (AVC) by visiting www.state.gov/t/avc and following @StateAVC on Twitter. The post Deputy Assistant Secretary Thomas DiNanno to Travel to Europeappeared first on United States Department of State. Assistant Secretary Fannon Travels to Lebanon, Jordan, and Greece 07/30/2019 You are subscribed to Europe and Eurasia for U.S. Department of State. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. Assistant Secretary Fannon Travels to Lebanon, Jordan, and Greece 07/30/2019 01:45 PM EDT Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Francis R. Fannon will travel to Beirut, Amman, and Athens from July 31 to August 9, 2019. Building on his previous trip to the region, Assistant Secretary Fannon will be meeting with government officials and private sector representatives to discuss energy security and regional energy cooperation.  This trip represents a long-term commitment to the Eastern Mediterranean to expand economic opportunities in the energy sector, including natural gas development and related exports, and to encourage discussions on how countries can harness energy cooperation for increased regional stability and economic growth that benefits the entire region. In Lebanon, Fannon will promote private sector energy development to help address Lebanon’s pressing energy needs.  This visit is not related to ongoing maritime boundary discussions. In Jordan, Fannon will engage with the private sector, government officials, and civil society, to promote regional cooperation.  The three-country trip will conclude in Greece, which plays a key role promoting energy integration for the region.  While in Greece, Assistant Secretary Fannon will participate in a “3+1” working group meeting with Greece, Israel, and Cyprus. The overall goal of the multi-country trip is to advance energy diversification for shared prosperity and security throughout the broader region. For further information, contact Donald Kilburg, Spokesperson for the Bureau of Energy Resources, at KilburgDF@america.gov or visitwww.state.gov/e/enr.  Additional information is available on Twitter at @EnergyAtState. The post Assistant Secretary Fannon Travels to Lebanon, Jordan, and Greeceappeared first on United States Department of State. Sale of F-16 Aircraft to Bulgaria 07/30/2019 You are subscribed to Europe and Eurasia for U.S. Department of State. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. Sale of F-16 Aircraft to Bulgaria 07/30/2019 06:00 PM EDT The United States welcomes the Bulgarian Government’s decision to purchase eight F-16 multirole fighter aircraft, munitions and related equipment. We salute Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and the Bulgarian Government on its commitment to modernize its military through the acquisition of these highly capable, NATO interoperable aircraft. We look forward to working with Bulgaria on this project and to enhancing our long-term strategic partnership. We also appreciate the pivotal role the U.S. Congress played in supporting the use of Foreign Military Financing for a portion of this acquisition, and the coordinated effort across the U.S. Government to achieve this success. The post Sale of F-16 Aircraft to Bulgaria appeared first on United States Department of State. INF Myth Busters: Pushing Back on Russian Propaganda Regarding the INF Treaty 07/30/2019 You are subscribed to Arms Control and International Security for U.S. Department of State. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. INF Myth Busters: Pushing Back on Russian Propaganda Regarding the INF Treaty 07/30/2019 12:44 PM EDT Russian Myth:  Russia’s demonstration of the 9M729 on January 23, 2019, proved that the system is INF Treaty compliant and showed that Russia is being transparent. Fact:  Russia’s so-called “demonstration” on January 23, 2019, of what it claimed was the 9M729 launcher and canister did not change the fact that the system is a violation of the INF Treaty, because it has been flight-tested to distances prohibited under the treaty.  The United States and most of our NATO Allies did not attend this briefing, because we all saw it for what it was – another attempt to obfuscate while giving the appearance of transparency.  The “demonstration” was completely controlled by Russia.  There is nothing that Russia can say or show to change the fact that Russia has already tested the 9M729 cruise missile to ranges beyond 500 kilometers in violation of the INF Treaty.  The United States provided to Russia in writing an illustrative framework of the steps it would need to take to return to compliance and save the INF Treaty.  Only the complete and verifiable destruction of Russia’s 9M729 missiles, launchers, and associated equipment will resolve U.S. concerns. Russian Myth:  Russia is interested in dialogue about the treaty, while the United States is not. Fact:  The United States has spent over six years in dialogue with the Russian Federation to try to resolve Russia’s non-compliance.  Prior to the U.S. suspension of its obligations on February 2, the United States raised Russia’s INF violation in more t ... [Message clipped]  View entire message ReplyForward