Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to Press

QUESTION:  With troop movements changing and Allies asking for clarity, what was your message today?  The assurance —   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, no, no – guys, the – first of all, the United States has global commitments for our military.  So we are constantly reevaluating where we’re positioning forces.  And since the first day of this administration, the Department of War has been working on that, and that’s known to our Allies.  I think what’s happening now is that any decision that’s announced or made is viewed through the broader context of some of the frictions that we’ve had in recent months.  But at the end of the day, I think it’s well understood in the Alliance that the United States’ troop presence in Europe is going to be adjusted.  That work was already ongoing, and it’s been done in coordination with our Allies.  I’m not saying they’re going to be thrilled about it, but they certainly are aware of it.  And we have obligations in the Indo-Pacific; we have obligations in the Middle East; we have obligations in the Western Hemisphere.  So this has been an ongoing process.  It’s not – shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody.  

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary —  

QUESTION:  Did you discuss the NATO – did you discuss the NATO Force Model today?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  It didn’t come up in – directly in our – but again, it ties back to the same conversation, and that is, in a moment of conflict, what can everybody commit.  And that decision – I think there’s going to be some announcements on it later today in regards – if it hasn’t come out already, in the next few days.  And it’ll be a collective product.  I mean, they’ve been working it through the internal systems of NATO in terms of the force postures, of what we would be able to supply along with others.  Every country has to constantly reevaluate what their needs are, what their commitments are around the world, and how to properly structure that.  

QUESTION:  Do you think there’s a case for the U.S. to reduce —  

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, the —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  What?  

QUESTION:  Do you think there’s a case for the U.S. to reduce its contribution to the Force Model?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I’ll let the folks in the Department of War and over at NATO make those announcements.  But this is not a decision that was made on the back of a napkin.  I mean, this has been an ongoing process, involving other countries as well and the contributions they can make.  It’s not just our force posture.  It’s what other countries can contribute as well to come up with something that works for NATO and that’s realistic and that allows us to force posture, for example, in a two-front conflict.   

So – but again, this is all technical work that’s being done by military people.  These are not political decisions.  

QUESTION:  Did you make —  

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, have you made —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  What’s that?  I’m sorry.  Are you from Sweden?  

QUESTION:  Yes.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Okay.  You have a great country.  This is a great country.  This is a beautiful place.  Wow.   

QUESTION:  Thank you for visiting.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Thank you.  I wish we were here longer.  And they keep apologizing to me for the weather.  There’s nothing wrong with this weather.  Miami’s 95 degrees with mosquitos and humidity this time of year.  That’s – all right.  

QUESTION:  We could – we can swap.  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  But your sunrises are way too early.  It’s like 3:45 and the sun is up.  What’s wrong with these people?  (Laughter.)  That’s not your fault.  Go ahead. 

QUESTION:  Apart from the weather, what are you going to report back to President Trump from your impressions of the Helsingborg meeting?  And also, have you got anything reassuring to say about the support for Ukraine that Sweden fear might be fading?  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I mean, Ukraine’s getting more support than they ever have through the PURL program that the United States continues to be involved in. There’s been no changes made to that program.  Look, my job here today was to come and set the stage for what will hopefully be a successful leaders’ meeting in Ankara in about six weeks.  I think we all know what the situation here is.  Number one is, like always – and this is not new.  I mean, if you go back 30 years, there’s never been a time in which there hasn’t been a debate in American politics about what our presence and our contribution to NATO should be.  And that is always driven by what is the value of NATO to the United States.  

And I understand NATO’s valuable to Europe, and it should be.  It also has to be valuable to the United States.  So we always have to make that argument – in every administration, in every era – and that’s what we’re in the process of doing now is explaining this is the value of NATO to the United States.  Related to that is what our force posture is within that Alliance, what our contributions are.  

So obviously one of the things that I’ve always used – and I’ve long been an advocate for NATO in my time in the Senate, and one of the arguments I always made was that these bases in the region provided us logistical options that we wouldn’t otherwise have.  And when some of those bases are denied to you during a conflict that we’re involved in, then you question whether that value is still there.  So that’s going to have to be discussed.  There’s no doubt about it.  I think there’s also going to have to be some focus on how – a year after the meeting at The Hague – how much progress has been made in terms of the increased contributions.  There are some countries that have doubled their defense spending over the last few years.  There are others that are still lagging.  In the end, the goal is to have a NATO that is strong, and the stronger our NATO Allies are, the stronger NATO is going to be.  So —  

QUESTION:  Have you made progress today, sir, with the Allies on getting the Strait of Hormuz fully back up and running, and have any —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No, that would be pretty ambitious to be able to open the straits at this meeting here today.  But I can tell you that – what the hope there is.  This is what I hope for – and this is a point I made – is we all would love to see an agreement with Iran in which the straits are open and they abandon their nuclear ambitions and so forth, their nuclear weapons ambitions.  That’s what we would all hope for, and that’s what we’re going to continue to work on, and that’s what – work is ongoing, even as I speak to you now in that regard.  

But we also have to have a plan B.  And plan B is what if Iran refuses to open the straits?  What if Iran decides we refuse to open the straits, we’re going to own the straits, and we’re going to charge tolls for it?  Okay, at that point something has to be done about it.  And I would argue that there are countries represented here today that are more deeply impacted by this then even the United States is.  So all I’m saying and have said – and I think this has been reiterated by others; there are other countries that agree with me on this – is that we have to start thinking about what do we do if a few weeks from now Iran decides we don’t care, we’re going to keep the straits closed, we’re going to sink any ship that doesn’t listen to us or doesn’t pay us.  Then someone is going to have to do something about it.  Okay, they’re not just going to voluntarily reopen the straits in that scenario.  So we have to start thinking about it.   

I raised that point today.  I got a lot of nods; I got a lot of people that came up to me afterwards and acknowledged it.  But we don’t have an announcement for you today in terms of something that’s happening.  I know there’s a plan in place for what to do if the shooting stops.  It’s what the French-UK initiative talks about, when the conditions are set.  Well, what they mean by when the conditions are set is when no one is shooting.  And – but we have to have a plan B for if someone is shooting – then how do you reopen the straits?  And so I made that point today.  I don’t know if that would be a NATO mission necessarily, but it would certainly be NATO countries that can contribute to it.  

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary —  

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, were there any asks of Canada or of European partners with regard to reopening the straits, anything that they can —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No, no concrete asks today.  I mean, that’s not what the purpose of this meeting was.  But I raised the point I just made a second ago, and that is that at some point, ideally, they open the straits.  You still – let’s say Iran decides to open the straits and say, okay, we’re not going to shoot at people anymore.  Someone’s still going to have to go in and reduce these mines, and some of these countries have a lot of minesweepers, so they could play a key role.  And I think that’s the utility of the UK-French mechanism that they’ve set up. 

But I’m saying plan B needs to be what if Iran says, no, we refuse to open the straits.  Then someone’s going to have to go in and do something about it.  That doesn’t mean we couldn’t do it.  We could.  The United States could do it.  But there are countries that have expressed an interest in potentially being a part of something like that if, in fact, we get to that point.  We don’t need their help, but they’re willing to do it, and I think we should take them up on it if they are.  But I don’t think there’s been any firm commitments or firm asks today; it would be premature.  But I just raised the issue that this is something we may need to confront at some point – again, if we can’t get an agreement done.  We’d prefer to get an agreement done. 

Go ahead. 

QUESTION:  Another Swedish question, please. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yes.  It’s your country.  I have to.  

QUESTION:  In the bilateral with the Swedish administration today, what was the most important outcome of that meeting? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  With your administration here? 

QUESTION:  Yes. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Oh.  Well, first of all – well, I – again, I told them what I told you.  They did a great job of hosting this, and they’ve been a model Ally – really, a tremendous addition to NATO.   

Beyond that, we are cooperating – we have for a long time – cooperated on issues of technology and so forth.  As an example, Ericsson’s a very important company.  It’s one of the only companies in the world that can compete in 5G and 6G with Huawei, for example.  So we have a vested interest in that.  We’ve partnered with Swedish companies for a very long time.  Today we signed a memorandum of understanding that further adds to our cooperation on biomedicine, biotechnology, AI, all these innovative – and we’re building on a foundation of years and years, actually decades, of cooperation between our two countries.  In fact, the first country in Europe that signed onto Pax Silica was Sweden. 

So we have already sort of a preexisting relationship when it comes to collaborating on innovation and in technology that just makes it logical to build on.  And that’s what we worked on today, and that, I think, is very meaningful, what we signed today.  Because I just think it’s going to give further impetus to what we’ve already done in the past together. 

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary —  

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary —  

QUESTION:  Would you join a call between President Trump and President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan, if it happens?  And — 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Would I do what now? 

QUESTION:  Would you join a call between President Trump and President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan, if that call happens?  And can you tell us if preparations are underway for that, as the President has — 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah, I don’t have any news on that for you today.  I just – I don’t. 

QUESTION:  Sir —  

QUESTION:  The Iranian —  

QUESTION:  The President announced – the President announced —  

QUESTION:  (Inaudible) 3.0.  Is there a —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah. 

QUESTION:  — concrete timeline?  Because many Europeans are maybe scared that we have less Americans; it’s still the most powerful army in the world.  So they want to know, how much time do we have for this transition? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I’m not – I don’t – look, I don’t set those timelines, and I’m not going to give you a timeline today, other than to say that it’s something that needs to happen.  And I think there’s a growing acknowledgement in Europe.  And look, every – I think that’s the challenge, okay.  And there’s not a criticism, just a challenge.  Even though this is a coalition in terms of NATO, and even the EU is still a collection of individual states who all have different politics and all have different budgets and all have different political considerations, and understanding some of these countries have done a lot already and are doing well ahead of schedule, and others not as much, and for a variety of reasons.  And so that’s always the challenge with this, is that it’s – at the end, even though it’s an alliance, you’re dealing with individual countries who have their own political dynamics at play.  But look, it can’t take forever, because ultimately there are decisions we need to make in terms of our own global force posture.   

QUESTION:  Can you talk about the role of Qatar in terms of negotiating an end to the Iran war?  There’s some reporting today that a Qatari delegation negotiating team is in Tehran, coordinating with the U.S. on trying to bring the war to an end. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, the primary interlocutor on this has been Pakistan, and it continues to be.  And they’ve done, I think, an admirable job, and that’s who we continue to work through.  Obviously, other countries have interests because – especially Gulf countries that are in the middle of all this may have their own situation going, and we talk to all of them.  But I would just say that the primary country we’ve been working with on all of this is Pakistan, and that remains the case.  And it’s my understanding – he was supposed to go yesterday, but it could be as early as today – that Field Marshal Munir could be traveling there very, very soon.  And we are in constant communication with him, at the highest level of our government are constantly talking to him.   

QUESTION:  The Iranian —  

QUESTION:  If this announcement —  

QUESTION:  Do you think that – sorry, sorry.  Do you think that the administration has respected 76,000 threshold troops deploying, U.S. troops deployment in Europe or set by Congress?  Or do you think you can go below that? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Below the — 

QUESTION:  The 76,000 troops – U.S. troops — 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Are you asking me a legal question?  Like, if our laws are – no, we need to – the United States has global military commitments.  We’ve made commitments to South Korea, to Japan, to other places as well.  We’re constantly reevaluating the threat matrix in the world – where could a conflict emerge, are we properly postured, and so forth.  And so this is always the work.  Every Department of War, every Pentagon over every administration has constantly had to reevaluate these things.  And so we’ll continue to reevaluate.  That’s been an ongoing process that started from the first day of this administration and throughout it in coordination with NATO countries.  So none of this is surprising, although obviously I understand why it creates some nervousness.   

But I think there’s a broad recognition that there are going to be eventually less U.S. troops in Europe than there has historically been, for a variety of reasons.  In fact, there was a surge after the – for example, the movement of troops from Germany that was announced a week ago, the Germans didn’t freak out about it.  Because they knew it just took us back to the 2022 numbers.  And it was, I think, a reduction of less than 11 or 12 percent of our total presence there.  And understand sometimes when these numbers come out, these aren’t just people with guns.  These are support staff.  I mean, there’s all kinds of other things.  These aren’t just fighters, war fighters necessarily; they’re all the support that comes with it.  So – although they may be in uniform.  And so nonetheless, I mean – but that’s always going to be an ongoing process. 

All right, I got to – I do have to run, so a couple more.   

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, the Iranians —  

QUESTION:  Is there any role for NATO to play when it comes to the situation in Cuba? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No, NATO’s far from Cuba.  (Laughter.) 

QUESTION:  I know, but so is Iran. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I – we haven’t talked about that, at all. 

QUESTION:  What do you see as Sweden’s role within NATO? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Important.  I mean, Sweden’s been an incredible addition to NATO.  Understand that a country that basically had to fend – defend itself for a very long time, but it has a robust and mature manufacturing sector, industrial sector, technology sector.  So look, this is not a criticism, so I don’t want you guys to read into this as like I’m criticizing some country, but generally the additions to NATO have been countries that join because they were in a weak position, and so they join because they needed the collective strength of an alliance.  But when we added the two countries – Sweden being one of them – these are two countries that brought to the table capabilities that NATO didn’t use to have, and with whom we’ve already had long-term defense agreements for a very long time and cooperation.   

So they were an – Sweden was an incredible addition.  It made the Alliance much stronger, no doubt about it.  And especially now, when we’re talking about – one of the things we talk about is the defense industrial base.  I mean, Sweden had a mature defense industrial base that it now brought into NATO.  So the opportunity to – we already work on aircraft together and so forth.  The ability to build on that is extraordinary, and that’s one of the things we want to be able to do, and beyond defense, on other areas that touch on defense but maybe are not defense directly. 

QUESTION:  The Iranians said today, Mr. Secretary that they’re —  

QUESTION:  The President announced a —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I already – did you already get a question? 

QUESTION:  Only one.  (Laughter.) 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I know, but – (laughter).  Boy, this guy’s greedy.  All right.  This is my last one.  I apologize.  I got to fly to India.  Go ahead. 

QUESTION:  Greenland and the Arctic. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah. 

QUESTION:  Have you been discussing that? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  We had an Arctic – well, we didn’t discuss Greenland today, but we had an Arctic meeting today of the seven countries, and very positive.  We’ll have a joint statement.  I don’t know if it’s out yet.  It should be out any moment.  And I think there’s a growing – although this is an effort that’s pre-existed, I think there’s a growing commitment to make it a regular part of our engagements as NATO, is to focus on Arctic security for obvious reasons.  We’re an Arctic nation.  We’re always going to be focused on the Arctic.  It’s great to see that other countries are a part of this effort now and that it’s going to play a more prominent role – the Arctic is going to play a more prominent role – in NATO and in discussions around NATO.   

So we had a – our political officers met a few days ago and worked out a lot of details on the joint statement, and then we had the foreign ministers’ meeting today and potentially a leaders-level meeting at some point on it as well.  So it’s a good forum within NATO, and I thought today was very positive, and the joint statement should reflect that.   

Okay, I said that was – I’ll do one more because I’m – I’m a nice guy. 

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary – Mr. Secretary, the President announced 5,000 troops going —  

(Chit-chat.)

SECRETARY RUBIO:  All right.  I’m going to do one more and then I’ll do you because you’re so persistent.  Go ahead. 

QUESTION:  Thank you.  Have the peace negotiations under American leadership in Ukraine stalled, and do you think that the Europeans should take over?   

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah, the peace negotiations on Ukraine under American leadership – let me just say we got involved – okay – because we were told we were the only ones that could do it.  We were the only ones that the Russians and the Ukrainians would talk to, so we got involved.  They were not fruitful, unfortunately.  That’s the – we stand ready to continue to play that role.  Despite leaks that are not true, despite stories out there about us forcing the Ukrainians to take this position or that position, which are not true, we – if we see an opportunity to pull together talks that are productive, not counterproductive, and that have the chance to be fruitful, we’re prepared to play that role.  There are – there are no such talks occurring at this time, but we hope that will change because that war can only end with a negotiated settlement.  It will not end with a military victory by one side or the other, at least from a traditional standpoint of how military victories are defined.   

So it will have to – and if we can play a role in making that happen, the President is very much interested in doing it.  We just, over the last few months, just sort of sensed that there wasn’t a lot of progress being made, but maybe dynamics will change.  And if they do, we stand ready to play whatever constructive role we can play.  If someone else would like to handle it, they should.  But there doesn’t appear to be anybody else in the world right now that can handle it.  So we’re more than happy to do that if the opportunity presents itself to have constructive and productive talks.  We’re also not interested in getting involved in an endless cycle of meetings that lead to nothing.   

Okay. 

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, very, very quick — 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  He’s so persistent.  Go ahead, one last one. 

QUESTION:  Yeah, I appreciate that.  Very quick —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  And then I’ve got to go.   

QUESTION:  The President said that 5,000 troops will be going to Poland.  Can you please clarify:  Where will they be coming from?  And separately —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  They’ll be coming from America.  They’re Americans.  

QUESTION:  I mean – and —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Oh, you mean specifically where?  I’ll leave the details on that to the Department of War to announce all these — 

QUESTION:  Five additional – 5,000 additional —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah, but I’ll – but like, I mean, in fairness, I’ll leave it to the Pentagon to tell you the specifics of how logistically that’s going to work.  That’s not my place to answer what —  

QUESTION:  Then let me ask you something you can respond.  Can I get your reaction to recent Russian – increasing Russian campaign targeting Baltic countries? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, it’s concerning.  I mean, you always worry about escalation, right?  You always worry about that.  We understand these countries feel threatened by it, obviously, for obvious reasons.  So it’s a concerning thing because you always worry that something like that can spark into something bigger.  And that’s always a possibility.  And so we’re concerned about it.  We’re watching it carefully.  We’re obviously engaged in – with our Allies in NATO on that regard in terms of what’s happening, and we keep up to date.  But the underlying response to your question is we’re concerned about it, because we don’t want it to lead to some broader conflict that can really lead to something far worse. 

Okay?   

QUESTION:  The Iranians today said, Mr. Secretary, that there’s some forward movement once again —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah, I said the same thing – I can’t believe I said the same thing that the Iranians did.  There’s been some progress.  I wouldn’t exaggerate it; I wouldn’t diminish it.   

QUESTION:  Are you optimistic —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  There’s more work to be done, but look, yeah, there’s been some, and that’s a good sign.  I’m glad they said that.  We’re not there yet.  I hope we get there.  The President would prefer to do a good deal.   

QUESTION:  Are you optimistic that —  

SECRETARY RUBIO:  But as – I don’t – you’re asking me if I’m optimistic?  I don’t characterize it as optimistic or pessimistic.  I – it’s – we’re going to respond based on the facts as we see them and as they emerge.  So the – what the President has outlined as his priorities are clear.  Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.  The issue of highly enriched uranium has to be – its disposition has to be dealt with, and of course the issue of future enrichment has to be dealt with as well.  Those are the core pillars of any sort of agreement – in addition to opening the straits, of course.   

So I think there’s been some progress, but I wouldn’t – we’re not there yet, and hopefully that’ll change.  It may not.  Honestly, it may not.  We’re dealing with a very difficult group of people.  And if it doesn’t change, then the President’s been clear he has other options.  He prefers the negotiated option and having a good deal, but he himself has expressed concern that maybe that’s not possible.  But we’re going to keep trying.  I know our guys are still working on that very hard, so – all right, guys.  Thank you. 

QUESTION:  Thank you, sir.   

QUESTION:  Thank you.   

QUESTION:  Thank you.