Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Brussels, Belgium.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Good morning, Mr. Secretary, dear Marco, a warm welcome to NATO, your first foreign minister
00:14meeting.
00:15But before I continue, let me express my condolences about the four U.S. soldiers who died during
00:26exercise in Lithuania.
00:28Our thoughts are with their family, their friends, their colleagues' soldiers, and we
00:34have the deepest respect for their service.
00:37I also want to highlight the work being done by the U.S., Lithuania, but also Poland and
00:43Estonia to work around the clock, basically to do everything to make sure that they would
00:51be recovered.
00:52But again, we are very sad about their death.
00:55Marco, I want to commend you for your tireless diplomacy over the last couple of months.
01:01You have traveled the whole world.
01:04I also want to thank you for what you did before as a senator, supporting NATO.
01:09And we will have a lot to discuss over the coming two days.
01:13Of course, Ukraine.
01:14As I said before, President Trump, the team, you broke the deadlock.
01:19You started a process of negotiations with our full support to bring the Ukraine war
01:26to a lasting, to a durable peace.
01:30And in the meantime, the Europeans are stepping up, providing a lot of military support to
01:36Ukraine, and we have seen the latest numbers coming in that overall NATO allies have provided
01:42in the first three months over $20 billion in support to Ukraine to make sure they can
01:48stay in the fight as long as it continues.
01:50We will also discuss the other threats over the next two days.
01:54Of course, Russia, which is our long-term threat, but also the increasing problems we
01:59have with China, of course, North Korea, Iran, and all of these four getting more and more
02:04connected, and these two theaters getting more and more connected and working intertwined.
02:11We know that the United States is a staunch ally in NATO.
02:14I had a very good meeting with the President, with President Trump.
02:19But that commitment comes with an expectation, and the expectation is that the European allies
02:24and Canada need to spend more.
02:27Since Trump 45, the aggregate extra spending from Canada and Europe has been 700 billion
02:33up to now.
02:34But when you look at the hundreds of billions of euros slash dollars now rolling in in the
02:40last couple of months, this is probably the biggest surge in defense spending we have
02:44seen in Canada and Europe since the Cold War, since the Berlin Wall came down.
02:49So that is good news, but still we need to do more.
02:52And then, of course, we will meet with the partners from Japan, South Korea, Australia,
02:57and New Zealand.
02:58Also to discuss another important issue, which is defense industrial production and how we
03:01can do more with them to work together.
03:04So lots of ground to cover, but again, a warm welcome.
03:08Please.
03:11And I'm glad you had a good meeting.
03:12I know I was out of the country while you were there, but I know you had a good meeting
03:14with the President.
03:15Thank you for your condolences of the four Americans who tragically lost their lives
03:19in an important training exercise.
03:21We honor them, and it also reminds us that the United States is in NATO.
03:26We're an active, as we speak right now, the United States is as active in NATO as it has
03:30ever been.
03:31And some of this hysteria and hyperbole that I see in the global media and some domestic
03:35media in the United States about NATO is unwarranted.
03:38The United States President Trump's made clear he supports NATO, we're going to remain
03:42in NATO.
03:43He's made clear.
03:44But our first ambassador that got out of the United States Senate is our ambassador to
03:48NATO, who joins us here today on his first day, on his first hour on the job.
03:52So all of that is a testament to it.
03:54But we want NATO to be stronger.
03:55We want NATO to be more viable.
03:56And the only way NATO can get stronger and more viable is if our partners, the nation
04:01states that comprise this important alliance, have more capability.
04:05This is a collection not just of partners and allies, but of advanced economies of rich
04:10countries who have the capability to do more.
04:13We understand that's a tradeoff.
04:15We have to do it every single year in our country.
04:17I assure you that we also have domestic needs.
04:20But we've prioritized defense because of the role we've played in the world, and we want
04:24our partners to do the same.
04:26And I understand there's domestic politics after decades of building up vast social safety
04:31nets that maybe don't want to take away from that and invest more in national security.
04:35But the events of the last few years, our full-scale ground war in the heart of Europe
04:39is a reminder that hard power is still necessary as a deterrent.
04:44And so we do want to leave here with an understanding that we are on a pathway, a realistic pathway,
04:49to every single one of the members committing and fulfilling a promise to reach up to 5
04:53percent spending.
04:54That includes the United States.
04:55We'll have to increase its percentage because if the threats truly are as dire as I believe
05:00they are, and the members of this alliance believe they are, then that threat has to
05:04be confronted by a full and real commitment to have the capability to confront these things,
05:09to confront them.
05:10And that's been the message President Trump had in his first administration, and it's
05:14the one he brings into this one.
05:15He's not against NATO.
05:17He is against a NATO that does not have the capabilities that it needs to fulfill the
05:21obligations that the treaty imposes upon each and every member state.
05:25And it wants our name, and no one expects that you're going to be able to do this in
05:28one year or two, but the pathway has to be real.
05:31This is our truth, but it is a basic one that needs to be said now in order for us to prove
05:36and in order for us to build the kind of NATO that has the capability to defend the territories
05:41of our nation states and deter any action that would be aggressive against any one of
05:46us.
05:47So I hope to have a chance to engage on that here today in our conversations.
05:49I'm sure we will.
05:50Of course, we're also happy to be joined by our Indo-Pacific partners, who have become
05:54great partners to the alliance, as we also see increased threats to both freedom of
06:01navigation and territorial integrity in the Indo-Pacific.
06:05So we look forward to engaging them as well in this context, and thank you for the chance
06:09to be here at my first visit.
06:10I hope I'm very productive.
06:12Thank you very much.