Press Briefing with Daniel Kritenbrink, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and Brian Nichols, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere[...]

MODERATOR: Greetings to everyone from the U.S. Department of State's Media Hub of the Americas. I would like to welcome our participants who have dialed in from the United States and across the world, from several regions. This is an on-the-record press briefing with Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols. Our speakers will discuss today the outcomes of the Economic Leaders Week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Lima, Peru.

As a reminder, today's briefing is on the record. With - and with that, I will turn it over to Assistant Secretary Kritenbrink first, and then we will hear from Assistant Secretary Nichols. Welcome, and thank you for your participation.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KRITENBRINK: Natalia, thank you very much for the kind introduction. Hi, everyone. This is Dan Kritenbrink. I'm really honored - (interruption) - I'm really honored to be speaking with you today from Lima along with my good friend, Assistant Secretary Brian Nichols, about our engagement during APEC Economic Leaders Week.

And of course let me start off by really just again underscoring why we're here. We're here to participate in the vitally important APEC Economic Leaders Week here in Peru, where, as the United States of America, we are demonstrating one year after we hosted APEC in San Francisco in 2023, we are continuing to demonstrate our strong commitment to working with our fellow member economies to promote trade and investment and advance inclusive and sustainable growth across the Asia Pacific region.

Secretary Blinken has continually emphasized our positive economic agenda in his conversations and has pushed to advance it across a wide range of international economic fora. And through APEC, we've driven forward policies that promote trade and investment and, again, advance inclusive and sustainable growth that impact 40 percent of the world's population and nearly half of global trade across the APEC member economies.

Earlier today, Secretary Blinken took part in the APEC ministerial meeting, during which he underscored our shared vision for an open, dynamic, resilient, and peaceful Asia Pacific community - a community where all economies are free to choose their own path and their own partners, where problems are dealt with openly, where rules are reached transparently and applied fairly, and where goods, ideas, and people flow lawfully and freely. And that is a message that he and President Biden will convey in each of their meetings across the next few days.

Now, apart from the ministerial meeting, the Secretary also met separately with both the ROK Foreign Minister Cho and with the Japanese Foreign Minister Iwaya. During each of these separate discussions, the Secretary underscored to his Korean and Japanese counterparts the importance of our bilateral alliances, and they also talked about some of the challenges that we face in the region. In particular, they condemned in the strongest possible language the DPRK's recent ICBM launch.

They also discussed and expressed their deep concern regarding the DPRK's deepening ties with Russia, including, of course, the escalatory deployment of North Korean troops to Russia, potentially for use on the battlefield against Ukraine. Secretary Blinken also noted to Foreign Minister Cho how much the United States looks forward to supporting the ROK's 2025 APEC host year in line with its theme of "Building a Sustainable Tomorrow."

Additionally, today the Secretary in his meetings with both his Japanese and Korean counterparts affirmed the importance of continuing to institutionalize and advance U.S.-Japan-ROK trilateral cooperation to promote peace, prosperity, and security across the Indo-Pacific and the entire world. They also noted how much they look forward to carrying these conversations forward during tomorrow's trilateral leaders meeting.

I should also add that the Secretary also had the opportunity to meet with Chinese Taipei leaders representative Lin Hsin-i on the margins of today's APEC meetings as well, in which we discussed our important economic cooperation.

The Secretary will of course join President Biden for his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday. That will be an important meeting in which we expect the two leaders will take stock of efforts to responsibly manage the competition between the United States and China. We expect that they will discuss areas of cooperation, but they will also, we anticipate, address in depth the many areas of difference and how to manage those areas of difference between us in the period ahead.

With that, I'll pass it over to Brian.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY NICHOLS: Thank you, Dan. I think Assistant Secretary Kritenbrink has given a fabulous overview, and I'll just make a few points. This is an incredible opportunity and demonstration of the engagement and the leadership of our partners on the Americas side of the Asia Pacific region. Peru is hosting APEC for the third time, and their experience shows. Things are running very smoothly here. President Biden is very much looking forward to meeting with President Boluarte here to talk about our cooperation on economic growth, security, and making average people's lives better in the United States, in Peru, and across the Asia Pacific region.

The focus that this meeting has is very much how to create a more inclusive, connected, successful region for the average men and women in the Asia Pacific region. And whether that's increasing digital connectivity, whether that's bettering education, whether that's giving micro, small, and medium-sized businesses more opportunities, whether that's making sure that the challenge that's presented by climate change is addressed, we're working on all of those issues. And for the Americas and our APEC member partners like Chile, Peru, Canada, Mexico, we're fully engaged, and it matches closely with the economic agendas that we've laid out in the 2022 Summit of the Americas, the agenda in Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, which had its summit at the White House last November.

So we've got a lot of great things that we're working on in this region, and the partnership not just with the private sector but with civil society and nongovernmental organizations, as well as labor unions - all of it works together in a synergistic way to lift prosperity not just in our hemisphere but around the Asia Pacific region.

Just to note that in addition to the President's meeting with President Boluarte, Secretary Blinken today did meet with his Canadian counterpart Melanie Joly, talked about the various key issues that we face, whether it's trying to promote democracy and stability in Haiti, addressing the conflict in the Middle East, the breadth and depth of our relations across the U.S.-Canada border, the longest border that any two countries share. It was a really full conversation reflective of the incredible partnership that we have with Canada.

And with that, we'd love to hear your questions.

MODERATOR: All right, thank you so much. We will now begin the question-and-answer portion of today's briefing. We received some questions in advance from Infobae outlet journalist Renato Delgado, and I do not see that journalist currently online, but because we are recording I will go ahead and read some of his questions. The first one: "Considering that the Port of Chancay was inaugurated today, a Chinese port in Peru that will change the economy of South America, does the United States have any comments regarding the impact on international security that this project may cause?"

ASSISTANT SECRETARY NICHOLS: Well, thanks for the question. We're certainly aware that PRC state-owned enterprise is inaugurating a new megaport in Chancay, Peru. We believe it is essential that countries across the hemisphere ensure that PRC economic activities respect local laws as well as safeguard human rights and environmental protections.

We have an incredible depth and breadth of our relationship with Peru, and you're seeing that in our cooperation just this week, whether it's on economic development with the transfer of rail cars to Peru from Caltrain, donating 93 passenger cars and 20 locomotives to the city of Lima. The administrator of NASA, Bill Nelson, signed an agreement to incorporate Peru into a sounding rockets process that will allow us to explore the ionosphere and build Peru's space capability, and we'll be donating nine Blackhawks to the Peruvian police to help them deal with transnational organized crime in Peru.

So we're really focused on our cooperation with Peru which goes back - well, we've got nearly 200 years of bilateral relations with Peru, and those have been a demonstration of the closeness of our two countries. We'll be focused on building those relations and making sure that Peruvians understand the complexities of dealing with some of their other investors going forward.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KRITENBRINK: Brian, can I add just one comment from a general perspective, from the East Asia perspective? Whether we're here in Lima or across East Asia, I often get the same question, and something we always like to say just from a macro perspective is that we're not asking countries to choose. What we want to do is focus on what is our affirmative agenda and what is our offer that the United States of America puts on the table. And Brian has outlined eloquently what we're doing here in Peru, and I could make that same presentation for our partners across the region, across the world. That's where we focus. And while we don't want countries to have to choose - that's not the game we play - we do want to make sure that countries have choices and they are able to make them freely without coercion. That's our approach.

MODERATOR: All right, thank you so much. So I will continue with a second question from the same outlet, Infobae. The question is: "Could this perspective change with the new administration that enters the United States next year?"

ASSISTANT SECRETARY NICHOLS: Well, we're here with President Biden focused on deepening the progress that we've made over the course of four years. We've done an enormous amount to build resilient, growing economies not only in the United States but among our partners around the Asia Pacific region and certainly in my focus in the Western Hemisphere in the countries of the Americas. That's what we're focused on right now.

MODERATOR: All right. We have a participant with a hand raised. I ask that the person identify themselves and their outlet, please. We have a user under the name Alex Raufoglu. Please go ahead and unmute and go ahead with your question.

QUESTION: Hi, thank you so much for doing this. Can you hear me?

MODERATOR: Yes, we can.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KRITENBRINK: Loud and clear.

QUESTION: Perfect. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I have a clarification question, a clarifying question on the meeting with Taiwanese officials. Was it a side meeting or - because we did not see it scheduled in advance. Was it a last-minute meeting? What triggered the meeting? Was there anything that they asked you, any details, any color you can offer about that?

And secondly if I may about Korea, a meeting with the South Korean officials, do you sense any sign of Korean support for Kyiv is sort of transforming given the latest developments? How do you depict that? Thank you so much.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KRITENBRINK: Well, thank you very much for your question. Look, what I would say on the first question of course is that Taiwan has participated in APEC as Chinese Taipei as one of the APEC member economies from the very beginning. So as is always the case when American officials participate in APEC, we do have an opportunity to engage with the representatives from Chinese Taipei and that was certainly the case this year, as has always been the case. And as a longstanding and important member economy of APEC and as one of the world's most important trading economies, we always have a great deal to discuss, and that was certainly the case today.

On your question regarding the ROK, I will of course let our South Korean allies speak for themselves. But as I tried to indicate in the summary of the meeting, I think it is no secret that this North Korean deployment of more than 10,000 troops to Russia, apparently for use on the battlefield against Ukraine, is a deeply destabilizing and escalatory move that I think unfortunately will have impacts in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific. And I think what the two foreign ministers underscored was that increasingly security matters between Europe and the Indo-Pacific are indivisible, and we're seeing that really proven through this irresponsible and escalatory step taken by the DPRK.

Now, I think the move also reflects a measure of desperation on the part of Vladimir Putin, but I think it's fair to say that both Washington and Seoul are likeminded in how inappropriate and escalatory this step is, and we are committed together with partners across Asia and Europe to take steps in response. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I now will call on Andrés Fidanza from El Observador. Go ahead with your question. And we are continuing with English audio. If you have a question in Spanish, please submit it in writing. Thank you. Go ahead, Andrés.

QUESTION: Hi. Thank you very much. I'm from Argentina. I have two questions about Argentina. President Milei said he wants to make a free trade agreement with the States, and in parallel Argentina withdraw from the COP just today or yesterday. What do you think about both situations?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY NICHOLS: Well, I'd note that climate change is a major challenge that countries need to come together to address. The United States has a delegation at the COP at Baku. We are committed under the Biden administration to continue our collective efforts to combat climate change, and we believe that the vast majority of peoples around the world share that goal.

With regard to future negotiations between our good friends in Argentina and the United States, we'll leave that to the next administration.

MODERATOR: Thank you so much. All right. We are actively checking the Q&A tab. And we are going to go on to a pre-submitted question, and it looks like the outlet Infobae sent several, so we're going to continue with those. Okay. One more about Peru. "Do you consider Peru a strategic geopolitical ally?"

ASSISTANT SECRETARY NICHOLS: Peru is a crucial ally for the United States. Whether it's addressing challenges of the environment, combatting transnational organized crime, illegal logging, illegal artisanal gold mining, protecting the world's fisheries, working together on peacekeeping operations around the world, Peru is clearly a strategic ally and we're very honored to work with them across a whole host of issues.

MODERATOR: All right, we have a question in the Q&A feature. It is from Ken Harada from Jiji Press. It came in in English; I'll go ahead and read it: "NSA Jake Sullivan said at the trilateral meeting tomorrow among the U.S., Japan, and the Republic of Korea that one of the main things that will come out is the establishment of a secretariat for the trilateral on a going-forward basis so that there is an institutional framework. Question is: Could you give us a little bit more of details on this organization? How many people will it have? Who is going to be on top of it? Where do you put the main office of the organization?"

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KRITENBRINK: Well, I thank our friend from Jiji for the question. I think this is what I would say. As the National Security Advisor indicated, we think that, increasingly, one of the most significant developments we've seen in the region over the last few years has been the increasingly - the increasing networked nature of our cooperation across the region. We talk about building a latticework of overlapping network - an overlapping network of relationships, both formal and informal, that we think really have contributed to peace and prosperity across the region. And I think one of the most significant developments has been our trilateral cooperation between the United States, the ROK, and Japan, as represented at the Camp David Summit last year. And of course our goal all along has been to make sure that that cooperation is increasingly institutionalized so that it is enduring.

So we have stated for some time that our goal is to work on that. I'm not in a position today to really announce the details, but I will just state that we are committed to institutionalizing to the maximum extent possible our cooperation, including through a secretariat, and I would say we'll have more to say about that in the coming days and weeks. But again, we're quite excited for the leaders-level meeting tomorrow, and more importantly, we're excited about institutionalizing that cooperation so that it continues to contribute in an enduring way to our shared security and prosperity.

MODERATOR: All right. Without any questions at this time, I'd like to welcome our speakers to provide any final remarks before I close out, or any additional comments and any other topics you would like to share with participants.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KRITENBRINK: Natalia, I'll just say again we've really enjoyed our opportunity to speak with journalists today, and particularly enjoyed the opportunity to come back to Lima and to participate in the APEC Summit that they're so skillfully hosting.

Brian?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY NICHOLS: I'd echo Dan's comments that we're here working on issues of importance for the American people and the people of the Asia Pacific region. We've made tremendous progress over the course of the year between San Francisco and now, and we look forward to sealing that process and moving forward to continue to better the lives of our people and to increase prosperity around the region.

MODERATOR: Excellent. Well, that concludes today's briefing. I would like to thank our two assistant secretaries - Assistant Secretary Kritenbrink and Assistant Secretary Nichols - for joining us today, and thank all of the journalists on the line for participating from multiple regions of the world. If you have any questions about today's briefing, you may contact the Miami Media Hub at [email protected]. An English recording and transcript will be available for this briefing, and you can follow the State Department on X, for those of you who would like content in Spanish, through USA en Español - USA en Español - on the X platform. Thank you and have a good day.

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