Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to Press

SECRETARY RUBIO: So this is an important trip, obviously. We're going to go visit three countries strongly aligned with the United States. We have a lot of common interests with them, both taking on regional transnational criminal terrorism and also economic engagements. We're hoping to wrap up good, solid trade deals with all three of these countries in the foreseeable future. And of course, a lot of strong cultural links.

So I think it's part of a trend that you're seeing in the Western Hemisphere of alignment with the U.S. and U.S. interests. If you read our National Security Strategy - I'm sure all of you have read it very carefully page by page - it outlines one of our priorities is strengthening our presence in the Western Hemisphere. And I think this trip and these meetings, as much as anything else, is continuing to further that goal as part of that strategy.

QUESTION: Secretary Rubio, why not travel to Venezuela on this trip? As you mentioned, this is all about the Western Hemisphere.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we'll get there eventually, as I said, but you can't go everywhere. This is a condensed week, obviously, with Labor Day yesterday and then 9/11 on - on Friday that we'll be commemorating the 25th anniversary. So we just simply couldn't add another, and these are countries we needed to get to that I hadn't gotten to yet.

So in the case of Colombia, they just had a free and democratic election. They elected someone I know very well, very aligned with the U.S., and we want to - we have a longstanding relationship. In the case of Peru, after some political turmoil, they too have had a recent election, and President Fujimori is someone we look forward to engaging with. And then in Ecuador, obviously, their election was last year but they face - they're one of our closest security partners in the region, and I think there's more we can do with them - economics as well.

QUESTION: Secretary Rubio, what would your message be to Latin Americans who might look at the Venezuela oil deal and think that the U.S. Government's interested in extracting resources or just sending troops?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I -

QUESTION: What's your message?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, what I would say to anyone who is concerned that the U.S. is doing something negative towards the Western Hemisphere as regards to energy is those oil fields, once dominated by China and Russia and Iran, by the way; Iran also had some concessions - and they're no longer there. So I think they're much better off partnering with the United States. They will benefit greatly from it. These fields were in many cases nonproductive; in essence, the Chinese and Russian companies held these fields but never turned them into anything. These fields are going to be productive and they're going to generate royalties and revenues for the Venezuelan people - eventually through a democratically elected government, hopefully sooner rather than later - and directly benefit the people of Venezuela, as opposed to going into the pocket of some corrupt government official or in the hands of American and Venezuelan adversaries, really.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, do you have anything to say about the British decision on the imports from Israel - or from settlements in -

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, they alerted us to it. We don't have any announcements. Obviously, these are decisions that they make. And we and the President has expressed this in the past: We don't want to see anything destabilizing going on right now in the West Bank with so much going on in the region. We think it has implications as well on our ability to make progress with regards to Gaza and the 20-point plan and Board of Peace that we're very committed to. Obviously, we're not going to do what the UK did. We saw their announcement today, but I don't have any comment on it right now.

QUESTION: But Ambassador Huckabee said that you've - that the Brits will suffer because of that with the U.S., that he suggested that the U.S. -

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I would say that the President has not commented on this. As I said, neither have I at this point. We were made aware that they were going to make this decision. We heard their arguments as to why. But look, we share the goal of stability. We don't want to see some uptick in violence or an uptick in conflict or tensions in the West Bank at a very tenuous time in the region. There's always tenuous times. But beyond that, I don't think - as of this moment, we don't have any further comment on the UK decision that I think was announced just a few hours ago.

QUESTION: Overnight the Houthis launched a substantial attack on Saudi Arabia. What are your thoughts on that when the U.S. has put pressure on the Houthis to kind of stay out of this fight?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, look, again, the Houthis in many ways are agents and proxies of the Iranians. I think behind some of this is clearly the Iranian hand. The U.S. has a very strong defensive military relationship with Saudi Arabia, and we're watching those events very closely. It's been going on for some time. I think there's been some ground operations as well where many forces are taking on the Houthis and pushing back against some of the ground advances that they attempted to make. And we're monitoring that, as I said, very, very closely. And - but I would defer as far as on the defense side to the Department of War. I don't think there'll be any announcements on that today.

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