Remarks
Secretary of State
SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you, (inaudible). Good morning, everyone. It was, as expected, a wonderful, lively opportunity with some very talented officers from all across the world. I had a chance to share with them my sense of what they need to do as leaders from my time and service as a business leader, a young lieutenant, and now as Secretary of State, but also talking about the important connection between the State Department and Department of Defense and the ways we can work together around the world.
So with that, I’ll take some questions.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, I was struck by your use of the word “soon.” When you were into the first eight minutes of (inaudible) --
SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes, sir.
QUESTION: And you said, “You need to be ready as something will be happening soon.” Can you elaborate on that? Is that just a general “be ready?”
SECRETARY POMPEO: Always be ready. Always be ready. In fact, I tell this to my State Department team every day, the work you do today, to be prepared for what might happen at 3:00 this afternoon, it’s absolutely imperative. You do not know when that moment’s going to come – 24/7, every day.
QUESTION: Sir, how much money is being cut from the golden – sorry, the Northern Triangle countries, and why is that a good policy move?
SECRETARY POMPEO: The crisis at our border is serious. Everyone acknowledges that today. President Trump is working to set the conditions so that we can keep our country safe, secure, and sovereign. That’s what’s going on at the border, we are using every element of American capacity to work with partner countries, Northern Triangle countries – El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala – as well as our Mexican counterparts to achieve that end. So we’ll use all of our tools, diplomatic tools. We are going to solve this problem at the border.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, in December you had praised Mexico’s effort and cooperation on border security. What happened in these past few months that the President is now threatening to shut down the border?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Just look at the math. Just look at the math. How many folks are coming across? This is a crisis. We need to fix it.
QUESTION: What do you say to states like Pennsylvania that might be facing things – cuts from things they were hoping for in order to pay for that wall?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Oh, goodness. We make decisions all the time on our priorities in America. We’ll make them again. I am confident the people of Pennsylvania want a safe and secure border too. I am intensely confident of that.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, in the wake of the Mueller report coming out last week and the conclusions that were reached about collusion – no collusion between the Trump campaign and Soviet government, I am curious if you feel like there’s an opportunity for some kind of a reset with our relations with Russia now. In other words, were there things that the administration might have wanted to do that they felt like the optics were bad or something like that while that investigation was going on? Is there any kind of an opportunity for a reset, and what would that be?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Look, I think the President has been clear, we’re always looking, have been looking for every opportunity to find places where we can work with the Russians, places were our interests overlap. I did some of that when I was the director of CIA, where we worked on counterterrorism together very effectively, effectively for both countries. Yes, that’s certainly the case that we are looking for places we can work together. But as the President said I think in the same press conference or the same one that you’re talking about, Russia’s got to leave Venezuela. And so there are places where our interests don’t overlap, and in those places I hope we can have conversation with the Russians where they understand the things that matter to us and the things that we’re going to ensure happen or don’t happen.
QUESTION: Sir, perhaps relatedly, then, what diplomatic steps or foreign policy steps are we taking to address cyber warfare, including from foreign agents, foreign countries?
SECRETARY POMPEO: This administration has done an enormous amount of work to continue to combat the threat from cyber terrorism or cyber theft. It’s an ongoing challenge; it has been for 20 years. It often gets talked about in the context of elections. We’ve put an enormous focus on that, and frankly, had some good success in 2018. We are very focused on making sure that the federal elections in 2020 are also safe and secure, but the cyber challenge is something that’s going to go on for years and years and years.
STAFF: We have time for one more.
QUESTION: Could I ask you a quick question about climate change? I was curious with the United States out or backing out of the Paris accord at this stage, can you tell me how you characterize American objectives on climate change to our partners around the world at this point? What are we striving for?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Sure. We want safe drinking water and clean air. We – we’re taking in all the science. Go look at the countries that are still in the Paris Agreement and see what their CO2 emissions were. It’s one thing to sign a document; it’s another thing to actually change your behavior.
Go look at Chinese carbon emissions since they entered the Paris Agreement. They may feel good about being in the deal. Their people may, you may feel good about their people being in the deal, but it didn’t produce – if you’re looking for a change, it didn’t change a thing.
Indeed, this was why President Trump withdrew, because it was a document without any enforcement mechanism that was going to cost the American people a fortune for no benefit. The burden of that agreement fell on the people of the United States. But go look, go look at the other countries that joined the deal and see how they’ve done in the now – what are we, three years in. It’s one thing to sign agreements; it’s another thing to have enforceable mechanisms that actually deliver good outcomes for the American people, and that’s what President Trump’s very, very focused on.
STAFF: Thank you.
SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you, all. Thank you for joining me today.
Published April 01, 2019 at 05:15PM
Read more at https://travel.state.gov
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