Secretary of state mike pompeo discussed Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Relations at a Virtual Summit posted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He talked about the west relationship with china, warning about that countries influence and their handling of the coronavirus pandemic and treatment of hong kong. Good morning. Good afternoon from brussels. Welcome back to 2020 and today we are very pleased and honored to welcome u. S. Secretary of state Michael Pompeo for a special conversation. We hosted the secretary in brussels and we are pleased to have him back again for what is sure to be a closely watched conversation on typical challenges facing less than Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Relations. As always, let me say a word of thanks to our part Founding Partners in the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and deloitte and supporting Knowledge Partners we are grateful to all of you. Let me say a very special thank you to u. S. Missions European Union and all three for their consistent partnership and support. Let me also say a word about our forum today for secretary will make brief remarks to begin with and we will turn this over for a conversation to [inaudible] whose germany correspondent for the wall street journal. He will have that conversation with the secretary and then secretary has agreed to take a few questions from our virtual audience as well. Once again, mr. Secretary, thank you for being with us in brussels and thanks to all of you for joining and over to you. Welcome, secretary of state. Welcome to our viewers. I think we will just let the secretary of state after offer opening remarks, what is on his mind and then we will proceed with the discussion and will take some questions from the audience for secretary of state. Please, go ahead. In queue. And, thank you for inviting me to be with you all. Sorry we cannot do this in person britt hello to everyone who logged in to watch today. A few brief remarks. Eighteen moons ago in brussels i made the case to you all that multilateral institutions are in demand of themselves and we have to honestly assess what they do or dont achieve. We have to see them for what they are not what we wish them to be. I dont think that was a favorite among the European Press and you should know that privately any of our counterparts told me they agreed with me. They are realistic about the state of these institutions and they too want to fix them. Im sorry to see more realism on the continent as it relates to the threat of the communist party in china. We should address that challenge together as transatlantic partners have met many challenges and that is what i want to focus on today. First data, we need to acknowledge what is happening and i spoke this month with Foreign Ministers and last friday at an audience in copenhagen in both places i listed to a lot of feedback about the communist party and i laid out a series of facts and i talked about the Peoples Liberation army for the military action and that included congressional at the South China Sea, Deadly Border confrontation in india and opaque Nuclear Program and threats against peaceful neighbors. No one the ccp has broken multiple national commitments, wto, United Nations and the people of hong kong. I talked about the predatory economic practices such as trying to force nations to do business with huawei and an arm of the chinese, and his Party Surveillance state. They talked about many of its violations of european property including its [inaudible] of hsbc. We talked about beijings human rights abuses which continue to shock us all. Just the facts but they lead to a conclusion in our judgment and the United States is not forcing europe to choose between the free world or chinas authoritarian vision china is making the choice between rita and democracy. In the United States we are slow to recognize this reality of the rising authoritarian regime and the authority [inaudible] europe was slow to but the ccps coverup of the coronavirus an outbreak that began in wuhan, china which is now killed tens of thousands of our people and hundreds of thousands of people across the world and it has accelerated everyones awakening. Europeans like americans starting to find their voice in the commission and the external Action Service last spring i did buy china as a systemic rival and very important acknowledgment. We will let the weightings National Threat identified china as a potential thought for the first time in 2019 and did so here again in 2020. The g7 is targeting hong kong and i greatly appreciated how the u. S. Called out china for the Disinformation Campaign surrounding a endemic. Its also not words known on [inaudible] to crush hong kong economy and the Czech Republic has led the charge in to adopt prince wells secure networks, cleaning networks and 5g and my friend secretary welcome call to nato to make china a greater part of the alliances focus. Clearly, there is a transatlantic awakening to the truth about what is happening. Concerns are rightly growing about the c pcps exploitation of multilateral bodies to give you a single example, chinese leaders in the international tillich medications union and the International CivilAviation Organization have leveraged their position to advance chinas narrow interests and certainly the United States and many of our friends have multilateralism but we can always agree these institutions should be rooted in Democratic Values due to their missions and collect the interests of all member states. Look, weve done work the spring and weve led a global [inaudible] knots on behalf of china. The transatlantic world has thrived like no other part of the world since world war ii and so much in part because our countries attacked intellectual property right i want to thank our friends in the uk with whom we work closely for their efforts at securing that important and good outcome. We should keep protecting multilateral bodies and transatlantic partners for my message today in the message today is we have to Work Together to continue the transatlantic awakening to the china challenge and in the interest of preserving our free society, and our future. Particularly in our business communities they make money in china to say we must call attention and simply accept increasingly belligerent ccp. That is nonsense. We dont accept that argument for it there is no comp or mice between freedom and authoritarianism. I dont want the future to be shaped by the ccp and i wager no one on this call wants that either. To that end today i am pleased to announce the United States has accepted high representative proposal to create a u. S. Eu dialogue on china and im excited about this. A new mechanism for discussing the conservatives [inaudible] i look forward to kicking that off with representative [inaudible] as soon as we can pull it together it my invitation is to defend these values in our time but they may shape the world for the good of the future just as theyve done in the past. We will defend these values together and with on that im happy to take questions from you and others as well. Thank you very much. An exciting piece of news and i know that [inaudible] how will it work . Could you tell me what dialogue you and indirectly it will be linked by brussels to include bilateral communications as well. How will that work . Youre right, its new in the sense that the proposal came from my representative in the last handful of days but you should know that we were very interested and we put a big team and working together to begin to outline the shape of what this would look like and im very hopeful i will be able to travel to europe here in just a handful of weeks to go kick that off but we will certainly start at the senior level and we will outline the mission sets and while i dont know exactly what shape im confident we will set up a structure that will enhance our collective shared knowledge and our collective responses to ensure we protect freedom for every democracy on both sides of the atlantic. Is there a timeframe with this . Where do you expect it to kick off and start operating . I am hopeful because its real. Just in the next few weeks. Its a little more difficult because we are stuck in terms of our capacity to travel but i would expect that we will have a team in place identified in the next weeks and then well work can begin. It is something that has a starting point that we want to kick off but i dont know theres an endpoint that will go on for extended time because the challenge that we are trying to solve for is how to preserve freedom and democracy in the atlantic and protect our citizens. [inaudible] knowing the European Union, i myself have cover this for over a decade and i know that these people love a good committee. Are you considering that this might bog down the real action on the pressing challenges and throw out this lengthy debate which will become technical and so on and the eu loved these things . It has shown in the past a tendency towards more discussion and little action. Do you fear that could be the outcome . Im realistic and you should know that people in america love committees and government is not immune to that bureaucratic phenomenon. We are guilty to of that from time to time. Very helpful that this will be different from that. Indeed what i am hopeful is well, lets back up. The first thing we all have to do is make sure we have corrective data separate cant take collective action unless you have a shared understanding of the core facts. I dont think anyone would dispute what i just laid out. We should build on that. Once we are confident we have a shared understanding of the threat that is posed by the Chinese Communist party then we can begin to take action. There is a lot of work that has been done in information and sharing that has taken place but what we are counting on is this dialogue and it will the resistance or as you described an outlet for energy with no action or rather a catalyst for action. On our side we will work to make sure we have a shared threat of practices and then a proposals were things that we can do together. We know known that everyone will share and there will be 2000 different views and this was through many issues but i believe that by doing this we can perform a collective judgment and find a set of places where there is a significant overlap and then begin to execute the correct responses and the same way Transatlantic Alliances have always preserve democracy and freedom and a set of collective responses that will preserve and protect those freedoms that the chinese Commons Party wants to undermine each and every day. I think and outlining this you make two very important points in that there is an awakening in europe about the rule of china and how it shapes the global order today and a lot of people are making a lot of money in china and there is this tension between these two awareness and two issues. China is responsible for much of the growth in the European Union, especially in its biggest economy in germany. I remember last year when President Trump was at the height of the negotiation with china over a new trade arrangement and they trump traveled to beijing with ceos in tow and it was seen in some american circles as trying to undermine the american argument when europe is doing business with china and trying to reconfigure the old relationships. Mr. Burrell himself said quite recently he [inaudible] he explained the Foreign Policy as we have it our way and one will be the chinese way but we will try to travel the line and want you are saying is basically i thank you cant do that. At one point you have to wake up to the reality of things. If europe continues to attempt [inaudible] as the divide widens and people fear that its happening over covid and so on is there a contingency plan on your behalf on half behalf of the administration . We have big trade relationships with china too. The markets of a billion plus people and that is important to the United States economy. It is not necessarily an either or what is required is that the rule set on which that trading gauges has to be reciprocal and house to be fair for europeans notice this to, make no mistake, chinese has stolen a lot of german secrets and the german people are worse off for that. Billions of dollars of little extra property stolen by the chinese, and his Party Outside of germany and hardworking german people created that intellectual property and worked hard and build that, protected that system in the chinese came and stole it. Theyve done it all across europe and they continue to do it. They are doing it in the United States as well. That is the place where we can work very closely together and it is not they have to choose business over confronting the Chinese Communist party but indeed confronting the chinese, and his party creates opportunity for increased Wealth Creation in europe and in the United States of america. The last thing to say about this is we are called that china needs markets to print this is what President Trump figured out that frankly no president has been willing to undertake before was china needs access to western knowledge, western knowhow and we need to make sure they do that through the system of rules based order and [inaudible] so, i think the people of europe will demand the same thing that the people of the United States of america are demanding. We no longer allow the Chinese Communist party to dictate the rules, terms and conditions of those relationships when they are not fair and equitable to our people. That is what President Trump has been seeking and im confident that is what the european leaders will seek from their leaders as well. Thank you. It goes beyond the issue of china and move on to other issues which is crucial for the Transatlantic Relationship. You yourself have served during the cold war in germany when i think there were around 300 u. S. Troops on the ground there and President Trump has announced he will pull out around 10000 of those troops because of a number of issues including germanys economic ties and the energy with russia and germanys failure to reach 2 budget payments for nato et cetera. What do you how to explain this strategic decision because we know that u. S. Strategy to pending on everyone else has concluded in 2014 russia did pose a threat to europe and the United States interests. How would you explain this to your counterparts in europe who were surprised, i think, we even saw the polish president do that yesterday who visited the white house in the country stands to gain from this in terms of getting troops over to poland and he himself pleaded with the president not to do this and not to pull the troops out. What would be your strategic Analysis Year and how does this help the american interests . Several thoughts. First, we do consider russia to be a serious threat, spending 1 of your gdp on defense as germany does acknowledge is that they may well not taken a serious threat as the United States of america takes it. But they need to. They need to live up to the commitment that the United States made on their behalf and that the commitment that the eu floated through them and equipment to germany made that it would [inaudible] and it has chosen not to do that. The president has been clear that that doesnt show the resolve that Vladimir Putin needs to see from germany. You reference briefly where your money will now have a significant piece of their energy connected to russian in such a deep and fundamental way that Vladimir Putin who appears to now will be in power for quite some time to have the capacity to have a, capacity to inflict real cost of germany if he chose to do so or threaten to do so. As for our decision President Trump has spoken to secretary esper will be in london today and brussels tomorrow and he will talk about our plan and how we are thinking about delivering it but you should understand this and i hope that our European Partners will understand this as well that when you ultimately see we conclude how we ultimately deliver on the statement the president has made that they are aimed squarely at what we believe to be democracies, fundamental interests. Americas most fundamental interest. It has been a long time since there has been a Strategic Review of our poor posture all across the world but we undertook that starting about two and half years ago whether there was our forces in africa or asia or the forces we have in the middle east and in europe. We began to say these are often decisions were made in a different time and should be reallocate those in a different way into we have a different composition of those forces and Everyone Wants to talk about Ground Troops . I get it. I was a young tank officer and you describe that and theres nothing i like as much as a good m1 tank but is often the case that the capacity to deter russia or other adversaries is indeterminate anymore by having a bunch of folks garrisoned someplace. We went to fundamentally look at what is the nature of the conflict with the nature of the threat and how should we allocate our resources whether resources in the intelligence community, resources from the air force and marines in our broad set of allocations and Security Apparatus and to encounter Cyber Threats and how to allocate them and what is the best way to do that and the decision the president made with perspective germany is a outcome from a collective set of decisions about how we will posture our resources around the world. I will close with this last thought in answer to your question. This will dictate that in certain places there will be fewer american resources. There will be other places that i just talked about the threat from the chinese Commons Party and now threats to india and vietnam and threats to malaysia, indonesia, South China Sea in the philippines and we will make sure that we are postured appropriately to counter the alike. Think thats the challenge of our time and we will make sure we have resources to do that. To the extent that changes and what the United States says to do impacts adversely a threat someplace and other nations need to step up and take responsibility for their own defense in ways that they had not done previously. We want to do this in full consultation with all our partners on the world and certainly our friends in europe. Another issue that similarly is chipping away at the continent in the Transatlantic Relationships is the issue of iran which i think you are also directly involved in and is there any sort of Contingency Planning for the eventuality that iran is restarting the Nuclear Program and i think the maximum Pressure Campaign and people have said its may well lead to leading to iran going back to what was the whole point of this agreement was to avoid them and striving to achieve and to create a Nuclear Weapon. What would you do in that sense. I thank you said earlier on cbs in an interview that were confident they will not go there but they seem to be suggesting they are going there. What would you do if they went there . And the europeans are not on board, it would appear . Europeans who have a different view of how to achieve that. Fundamentally think we are wrong and we had this conversation now for three and half years with them. We continue to have a disagreement there. There is no doubt the maximum Pressure Campaign has been successful. The hezbollah has fewer resources and we inflate to their capacity to build out systems that we would have buildout if we continue to do business with the ayatollah and weve built out a Big Coalition to counter iran and the gulf states and all across the region so im confident that the approach that our administration has taken is correct. Its also true iranians have chosen not to violate the commitment of the jcpoa and their sovereign decision to do so and in october of this year the arms embargo will expire and that cant happen the iranians will be permitted to buy weapon systems and become one of the largest sellers of weapon systems around the world to be able to buy chinese jets and russian jets and i cant imagine if a citizen of sylvania or germany or greece or any other european country would conclude it was wise to allow the iranians to have that capability and the capacity to generate [inaudible] so the United States will make sure that does not happen. We have u. S. Security Council Resolution that we will present in the coming weeks and we are hopeful that we will convince all the partners on u. S. Security council to extend the arms embargo on iran makes sense and the central failure of that nuclear deal that after just a handful of years, three years plus, we are having to contemplate the expiration of that provision which is central to european security. Not just the security of the american people. As for the Nuclear Program we are watching it closely and i wont say anymore that we are confident that we have the capability collectively to ensure iran never gets a Nuclear Weapon. Do you have the confidence that you will not be alone in this . Is there an alliance in the european nations to actually take more significant action in this regard . Look, i think the europeans will have a very difficult argument to make to the world that they are not prepared to do what it takes to extend those arms embargo. Any freedom loving nations to standby when they have the capacity, tool, Legal Mechanism to extend those arms embargo with the europeans as the weeks tick by here and will conclude the same thing the United States did that it is imperative that the arms embargo be extended. As for the coalition there are many countries, many European Countries that are with us and not only the case with france and germany but the United Kingdom have a say in this and there are many European Countries that share our view and lots of countries in the region. Israel, gulf states, all of whom understand that the Worlds Largest state sponsor of terror has terrorism squarely in toronto and they are prepared to be alongside taking the action that we need to ensure that there is never a Nuclear Weapon in the hands of ayatollah. Very dangerous thing. Mentioned the covid19 crisis and that is the reason why we were doing this in this virtual online way. There is a lot of concern about transatlantic travel which has been instructed by this, initially the United States close the borders for europeans and now the europeans are opening their borders but now it appears theres discussion about the European Union could impose restrictions on travel from the United States because of the levels of infection. Is there any way to get around it . All they see is the business and eager to restart the movement and is there any youve spoken to your counterparts about this . Is there any solution that you can discuss . Thats a real challenge and a real challenge for all of us to decide how and when to open up our economies and society and everyone is trying to figure that out from city councilman to mares to county commissioners to provincial leaders, governors here in the United States and theres an normalcy, likes issues of what the appropriate level of activity and travel is in order to both ensure we get our economies going again and provide protections and safety for our people. We are working on her european counterparts to get that right, both today and to europe and vice versa and that is a posture we all taking seriously to figure out how to get this over pit we need to get our Global Economy back going again and theres enormous destruction of wealth created in poverty yields Bad Health Outcomes and many parts of the world. We need to get our economies back going again. We work closely with our european friends. Inside the european there are different views and we worked with a Dozen Companies or countries that have differing opinions. [inaudible] we will work to get this right and to make sure it is science based, health based and that our transportation team, home on saturday team as well as the state department delivers a process instead of tools so that not only are our nations comfortable opening their borders up again but individuals are making the choice to travel are comfortable and that they are being protected so that we will in fact not only allow travel again but actually have people who choose to travel again as well. Great. And keep it lets take questions from the audience because we are running short of time. The new york times, midatlantic elder, turks are billing up their presence there and they have gone up to 10000 troops. American troops are still there so it appears that they have more leverage with russia to get to a seriously about syria. Are you going to try to do that and what are the russians saying . I appreciate that question. Ambassador jeffrey and our team are looking to move forward and the unsecured Council Process and the Constitutional Committee are making progress but it has been terribly slow. The question suggests and talks about leverage and look, our true presence there is designed to work diligently to make sure the work we did to destroy the caliphate in syria is diminished and [inaudible] we have made very clear to the russians and clear to the iranians as well that they need to leave this and millions of people have had to flee syria and are a direct result and we passed or came into effect just this week with an incredible broad set of sanctions on the Syrian Regime and it has had an impact already. Look no further than the evaluation of the syrian currency and financial challenges presenting to the assad regime. We hope each of these actions the United States is taken and we have done so with great partners from European Countries as well. Each of these actions were taken and it will lead to a political resolution that will ultimately allow them to not only can we begin that long effort to do the reconstruction work that will need to be done but all of the places that are so burdened by Syrian Refugees in such terrible conditions whether thats [inaudible], lebanon, turkey, very difficult circumstances have the Opportunity One day return to their country and that is the Mission Statement we have asked for a double medic team and help them in the coming months we can make Real Progress on that. Question from [inaudible]. [audio difficulties] ive talked a little bit about the meeting and i dont want to say much more about the actual conversations but suffice it to say what i read to you this morning about the challenges of the chinese comets party still exist even after that gathering. I think we were able to make it clear some of the actions the United States has prepared to take and i also think that the chinese took away from us this is not the United States confronting china in the world is not confronting china bit while i was sitting there at the g7 statement on hong kong came out. Literally someone slipped in a note telling him that the statement had come out and wanted to say it was just the United States from and after them for the National Security lawsuit pending there but it is not. This challenges of the South China Sea, it Southeast Asia countries who understand the threat we will share that and there were no major breakthroughs and they shared that they have every intention of completing the first part of the trade deal and we hope that is the case and we hope it will fulfill all their commitment there. We go to another question. He is asking what proof do you have specifically that while weight is an arm of the ccp surveillance state, something which you have sent now and said before as well . Well, many things that i can share in an open setting but i am highly confident that anybody who stares at while weight for very long we know if you go to the top floors of their commercial building inside of china that there are numbers of the chinese Security Apparatus working there. More simply you can just get online and look at Chinese Security logs. It requires Companies Like huawei to share any information that they have, whether healthcare information, other personal information of a citizen from the Czech Republic or citizen of germany or france and that information if huawei captures that system they dont need a back door and they dont need secret access. They own the joint. They dont need a key but they own the infrastructure and that information and huawei has the capacity to capture it. The most egregious privacy violations in the world and that information will be in the hands of the Chinese Communist party, chinese comets party deems it necessary to have that information. Huawei has a legal obligation to provide it to them. That is different than, i think, anyplace else in the world, certainly any country that has the capacity to have this much infrastructure inside western democracy telecommute patient systems. It is simply unacceptable. A bunch of china questions pouring in. Chris is asking whether theres any shared interests with china that could be pursued in parallel to your campaign to contain china and redefined the relationship . I would ask this question if i may that is there any way you could add as an incentive to the europeans to come along with you on this journey because so far it seems there is a lot of friction and seems to have been effective and is there any incentive that you can offer them . I think the europeans have every incentive to do precisely what it is the United States is doing which is to protect their own people and to demand reciprocity and demand bear treatment into no longer say look, you have a billion people and we will do it your way and that has been the model in the west for an awfully long time now and the europeans have every incentive to get this right, not for the United States and not for the good of the worlds but for the good of their own people so there are plenty incentives already consist. I want to take the first part of that because yes, there are a whole lot of things that we hopefully can work on with the chinese commonest party but they get a vote and they get to decide. We have not said we wont trade with them and we have simply said we will trade on a bare set of conditions and we have not said we will not do business with you but we said stop stealing our intellectual property so yes, there is a wide field we can choose to work on projects with them that they have to decide and will they continue to abuse the western system and will they behave in ways that no other nation behaves when it comes to global connors. They still hold out their claims they are developing one of the largest economies in the world and that is not fair but only to americans and to brits and to the dutch and it is not fair to the developed nations who actually as the wto was formed it was designed for and so yes, i think theres a lot of places we can work but i dont see with the chinese comets party has an echo consistent with what we demand from each other in the Transatlantic Alliance but we do our level best to compete and to operate the rules based organization to go to our Court Systems and make a claim that is truly adjudicated in a fair and impartial way absent of politics but that does not exist today. Inside or operate under a whole different set of rules then European Investment inside of china and that is not right. There access to our Capital Markets in ways we dont have access to theres and we can work on all these things but theyve got to make the decision that they conclude thats in their best Interest Rate they have not done so today. Thank you. To say there was a time for another question or was that it . Im sorry, i will have to run off. I apologize. Thank you for being with us thank you very much. Thank you everyone for joining me today so long. Watch houseboats on the dc statehood legislation friday and 9 00 a. M. Eastern live on cspan to vote on legislation to both the District Of Columbia as a state. Watch live friday on cspan, online cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Maryland senator ben card and pay tribute to journalists and others killed on the anniversary of the capital is that shooting in annapolis, maryland. Five employees of the newspaper were killed by a gunman on june 28, 2018. The senator fort maryland. Thank you, mr. President. This sunday will mark a grim anniversary. On june 28, 201838 yearold man who held a longtime grudge against the Capital Gazette newspaper in annapolis maryland was reporting about him made good on his sworn threats and he entered the newspapers office headed to the newsroom and deliberately shot and killed