SECRETARY RUBIO: All right, who’s got a question?
QUESTION: I do.
SECRETARY RUBIO: I knew you would have a question.
QUESTION: So – Michael Gordon, Wall Street Journal. Sir, the Russians are still making gains on the battlefield. There’s been no public response to the developments in Jeddah. Are you concerned they’re playing for time? Have you had any contact with them? What’s been their response officially and are they willing to accept the ceasefire unconditionally?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I mean, we don’t know the answer to the last question. That’s what we want to know, whether they’re prepared to do it unconditionally. We’ll have contact with them today. There’s already been contacts at different levels with counterparts, different members of the administration, and that’ll continue. But as far as the Russian reaction to it, that’s really the question here, and that is – this is a few hours old. We’re going to bring it to them directly. We’re going to say that Ukraine is prepared to stop all battlefield activity and begin the immediate process of negotiating an enduring end to the war, and we’ll see what their response is.
If their response is yes, then we know we’ve made real progress and there’s a real chance of peace. If their response is no, it’ll be highly unfortunate, and it’d make their intentions clear. So that’s what we’re hoping to hear from them, and obviously, as I said, this was not pre-arranged with them, so they’re – they’re probably processing the news the same as the rest of the world. And so we hope to have a positive answer from them. The ball is truly in their court.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary —
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, Nike Ching with Voice of America. What would be a good G7 joint statement on Russia and on China?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think the perfect statement would be that the United States has done a good thing for the world in bringing this process forward, and now we all eagerly await and – the Russian response and urge them strongly to consider ending all hostilities so people will stop dying, so bullets will stop flying, and so a process can begin to find a permanent peace. I think the first step in all this is the acceptance that there is no military solution to this conflict. Neither side can militarily achieve their maximalist gains – their maximalist goals. I mean, they’re just not going to achieve them through the military side. The only way this conflict can end is through negotiation. That’s the only way you’re going to have peace is through negotiation.
And so we need to start that process. And it is hard to start a process when people are shooting at each other and people are dying. And so our hope is that we can stop that, all these hostilities, and get to a negotiating table where both sides – over some period of time with a lot of hard work – can find a mutually acceptable outcome that, in the case of Ukraine, obviously secures their long-term prosperity and security.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, could you just update us on Mr. Witkoff’s plans for Moscow and whether he’ll be meeting with President Putin?
And then separately, if you wouldn’t mind elaborating on something that Mr. Waltz said yesterday about the specifics that you discussed with Ukrainians about what the end of the war would look like, you had mentioned we’re not going to get maps out and draw lines, but did you actually talk about territorial concessions?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we – we had conversations. As far as Steve’s trip, I’m not here to – I can’t – I’m not going to make any announcements about specific dates, times, or even confirm such a trip. Suffice it to say there is going to be multiple points of contact with the Russians to gauge are they willing to do this or not. And as far as the conversations that were yesterday, yeah – when you sit down with a counterpart like Ukraine, we’re not going to negotiate this publicly, we’re not going to actually put out there sort of what we talked about, because in any negotiation there’s certainly an element where you don’t want one side to be giving away all of this leverage from a public perspective. We had a broad conversation about what it would – but I think the bulk of our conversation was what a negotiation process would look like in terms of not the specific conditions, but rather the timing of it, sort of the steps they would like to see taken.
The Ukrainians made very clear that this isn’t just about ending a war. They need to get their prisoners of war back; they need to get the children back. They’d like to see an exchange of prisoners of war; they’d like to see their children back. So there’s all sorts of things tied to the, humanitarian assistance is important as well. There are areas of Ukraine that have been badly damaged that require immediate assistance. So these are the sorts of things that we talked about as being inclusive in the negotiation process.
So really the bulk of our conversation, when we got to that stage of it, was discussing the kinds of items that need to be on a negotiation agenda if and when we hopefully get there.
QUESTION: He also mentioned security guarantees, which is something that there has been some reluctance for the administration to elaborate on. Have – are you committing to security —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think the point – no – the point to understand is that we’re looking at securing their long-term – what we want to see – like any country in the world, Ukraine wants their long-term security. They want to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. We all do. What is the point of spending all this time to get a ceasefire hopefully and then a negotiated end to the war only to see it re-spark up again in about six years, four years, three years? No one’s – we’re not interested in that, and they certainly aren’t, either.
So I think the question really is more about a deterrence. Can Ukraine create a sufficient deterrent against future aggression, against future attack, against future invasion? Because every country in the world has a right to defend themselves, and no one can dispute that. So that will most certainly have to be part of the conversation. But again, I don’t think there’s – there isn’t a peace to secure until you have a peace.
QUESTION: Not just – not —
SECRETARY RUBIO: There’s no way to have an enduring peace without the deterrence piece being a part of it.
QUESTION: Can I just follow up on that particular point?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes.
QUESTION: Because the joint statement talks about European partners being involved in the peace process, but that’s only attributed to the Ukrainian delegation. There doesn’t appear to be U.S. support for that line —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think what it says in the statement is that they raised the need for the Europeans. But I have already said publicly the Europeans have issued a series of sanctions against the Russian Federation, and I would imagine that in any negotiation – if we get there, hopefully – with the Russians that they will raise these European – the European sanctions that have been imposed upon them. So I think that the issue of European sanctions are going to be on the table —
QUESTION: But it —
SECRETARY RUBIO: — not to mention what happens with the frozen assets and the like. And so I think it’s self-evident that for there to be a peace in Ukraine, at the end of that process there is going to have to be some decision by the Europeans about what they are going to do with these sanctions and so forth. And so that’s why I think they have to be necessarily involved in this regard. Now, whether they’re involved at the front end of it or at the back end of it, it’ll have to play itself out. And then obviously there is also all sorts of security promises that European countries have made to Ukraine, that that will also be, I imagine, a part of this conversation as we move forward.
QUESTION: But —
SECRETARY RUBIO: So we don’t disagree with that statement. I think the statement just reflects that they raised it.
QUESTION: But do you back European peacekeepers in Ukraine, which is something Russia has categorically —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we’ll see. I mean, there’s different ways to – there’s different ways to construct a deterrent on the ground that prevents another war from starting in the future. We’re not going to go in with any sort of preconceived notion. The bottom line is it needs to be something that makes Ukraine feel as if they can deter and prevent a future invasion. How that looks and how that’s put together, that’s what we’re going to be talking about, if we can get to that stage.
Again, right now we’re just trying to get to the stage where there’s actual diplomacy happening. Here’s what we’d like the world to look like in a few days: neither side is shooting at each other, not rockets, not missiles, not bullets, nothing, not artillery. The shooting stops, the fighting stops, and the talking starts. That’s what we want to see. What happens during that talking and how that evolves, I think we’re going to have to be flexible and nimble and creative and patient and work hard at it and hopefully turn it into something that’s concrete.
You’ve covered – many of you have covered foreign policy for years. That’s how these things happen, and they’re not easy, and sometimes they’re difficult to predict which way they’re going to go in terms of the specifics of it. But we just want to get to that stage. That would be, for lack of a better term, a good problem to have, to have to figure out how to negotiate a peace because we’re actually negotiating a peace while the shooting has stopped.
QUESTION: Is the mineral deal essentially the security guarantee that you guys envisioned?
And then a second question is: President Trump appealed to a lot of Americans during his campaign on free speech arguments and not suppressing speech, especially from the government, but your revocation of the green card to many is seen as one of the most anti-speech actions a secretary can take with his powers. How do you respond?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I mean, the first question was again the —
QUESTION: Is the minerals deal a version of the security guarantee?
SECRETARY RUBIO: The minerals deal, yeah. Well, I think that a minerals deal is something that I think is beneficial for both countries. Certainly one of the things that provides for Ukraine’s long-term prosperity and security is vibrant economic growth and development. If their GDP is – begins to grow and – that gives them a tremendous amount of leverage and power and the ability to fund their own defenses. So I think certainly any economic development for Ukraine is positive for their own future.
Obviously if the United States has a vested economic interest somewhere, we’re tied to them on an economic front, we’re in partnership with them on something, we will have an interest in the future of Ukraine as well. I wouldn’t couch it as a security guarantee, but certainly if the United States has a vested economic interest that’s generating revenue for our people as well as for the people of Ukraine, we’d have a vested interest in protecting it if it were to be challenged or threatened.
On your first point, when you enter the – this is an important point, and I’m glad you asked this question. When you come to the United States as a visitor – which is what a visa is, which is how this individual entered this country, on a visitor’s visa, okay – you are here as a visitor. We can deny you that visa. We can deny you that – if you tell us when you apply, “Hi, I’m trying to get into the United States on a student visa, I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages” – if you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this, and if you tell us when you apply for your visa, “And by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, anti-Semitic activities, I intend to shut down your universities” – if you told us all these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa. I hope we would. If you actually end up doing that once you’re in this country on such a visa, we will revoke it. And if you end up having a green card – not citizenship but a green card – as a result of that visa while you’re here and those activities, we’re going to kick you out. It’s as simple as that.
This is not about free speech. This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way. So when you apply for a student visa or any visa to enter the United States, we have a right to deny you for virtually any reason, but I think being a supporter of Hamas and coming into our universities and turning them upside down and being complicit in what are clearly crimes of vandalization, complicit in shutting down learning institutions – there are kids at these schools that can’t go to class. You pay all this money to these high-priced schools that are supposed to be of great esteem and you can’t even go to class, you’re afraid to go to class because these lunatics are running around with covers on their face, screaming terrifying things. If you told us that’s what you intended to do when you came to America, we would have never let you in. And if you do it once you get in, we’re going to revoke it and kick you out.
QUESTION: Can I ask you about the Canada trip coming up? The President has taunted, if you will, Canada, calling it the 51st state, calling Prime Minister Trudeau the governor —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, he said it should become the 51st state from an economic standpoint. He says if they became the 51st state, we wouldn’t have to worry about the border and fentanyl coming across because now we would be able to manage that. He’s made an argument that it’s their interest to do so. Obviously the Canadians don’t agree, apparently, but —
QUESTION: Do you agree with it? Should there be – are you going to discuss that, becoming the 51st —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, that’s not what we’re going to discuss at the G7, and that’s not what we’re going to be discussing in our trip here. So it – they are the host nation, and I – I mean, we have a lot of other things we work on together. We defend North America through NORAD and the airspace of our continent together, so – not to mention the issues of Ukraine and other commonalities. So we’re going to be focused in the G7 on all of those things. That’s what the meeting is about. It is not a meeting about how we’re going to take over Canada.
QUESTION: But more broadly —
QUESTION: But are you concerned at all about the reception that you might be getting, particularly at the event?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I don’t know, should I be? What do you know that I don’t know?
QUESTION: They’re unhappy.
QUESTION: I don’t know, you’ve got the tariffs in the last 12 hours, you’ve just seen this escalating trade war – not just with Canada but, with the exception of Japan, all the other members of the G7.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, so what’s your point?
QUESTION: Well —
QUESTION: Are you worried about alienating the Canadians, that they wouldn’t work with the United States?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, I mean, they’ve invited us to come. We intend to go. The alternative is to not go. I think that would actually make things worse, not better. So – it’s a G7 summit.
QUESTION: One alternative could be not to —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Huh?
QUESTION: The alternative could be not to have tariffs or not to have the language that the President —
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, those are policy decisions. And so at the end of the day, the President’s made those decisions. He’s explained why. It’s not just against Canada, it’s not just against Mexico, it’s not just against G7 countries. He’s imposed steel and aluminum tariffs now on virtually the entire world, and the reason why is not to punish those countries; it’s because he has outlined the need to develop a domestic capability. If you don’t have steel and aluminum, you can’t build warships, you can’t build airplanes, and you are not an industrial economy. There are things we have to be able to protect and there’s a lot of unfair trade practices, a lot of countries out there who subsidize their industries so that they can gain global market share, so they subsidize the industries, they’re operating at a loss. Meanwhile, our industries are trying to compete fairly, and that’s why you don’t have steel plants and that’s why you can’t produce the aluminum. And that really threatens our national security in the long term.
So these are national security concerns when it comes to steel and aluminum and some of these other products. But ultimately the President feels strongly – and I personally agree – that we have made some decisions when it comes to trade policies that have led to the de-industrialization of America and have left us deeply vulnerable to any sort of interruptions in global supplies and/or it being used to extort us, not to mention our inability to produce things that we need for our own economy and for our own defense.
So that’s what those policies are about. Every country in the world we expect will act in their national interest. The United States forgot that. President Trump is reminding us of that and getting us back to that, and I think it is quite possible that we could do these things and at the same time deal in a constructive way with our allies and friends and partners on all the other issues that we work together on. And that’s what I expect out of the G7 and Canada.
QUESTION: Can I just ask on Russia? Did you have – or Waltz – have any contact with Zelenskyy while you were in Saudi Arabia? And then —
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, I didn’t. I don’t believe Mr. Waltz did either, but I did not. But that was the team he selected, and it was appropriate. It was his closest advisor, it was their foreign minister, it was their head of security. So we felt that that was the counterparts they sent and to deal with us, and that’s obviously pretty common in these sorts of things. Generally the heads of state meet heads of state and appropriate counterparts meet others. He – I imagine he had to get back, and he’s – he – the president of a wartime country, so he’s – but we did not have any contact with him there. But I wouldn’t read – read anything into it other than he selected his team for these talks and the President selected his, so —
QUESTION: And was there any discussion with the Ukrainians about how a ceasefire, if Russia agrees, would be enforced? How would the U.S. ensure parties —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, well, the interesting thing about modern warfare is there – it’s easier than ever to monitor and – simply because there’s so many eyes on the ground and there’s also all sorts of overhead commercial satellite and the like. It would be pretty hard to hide drone strikes, it would be hard to hide missile strikes, ballistic strikes, artillery. So we feel like that is something that could be monitored. Obviously, if in fact the Russians say yes – let’s hope they say yes. If they say yes, one of the things we’ll have to determine is who do both sides trust to be on the ground to sort of monitor some of the small arms fires and exchanges that could happen. But those are practices that have become common in these, and I don’t think that would be difficult to set up. We didn’t get into specifics, but obviously the need to monitor a ceasefire is clear to everyone.
QUESTION: Sir, just a quick follow-up on this question.
QUESTION: Can I get a last question? Last question?
MS BRUCE: One more question. One more. This is it.
QUESTION: The —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, because we’re fueling up and have to get back on the plane.
MS BRUCE: Right.
QUESTION: Last question, sir.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, yeah.
QUESTION: The – you haven’t – this administration has not hesitated to put a lot of pressure on Ukraine. You reduced their intelligence support in the middle of a shooting war, you temporarily cut off their arms, criticized them publicly – not you, but leadership in public. Are you truly prepared to apply pressure on Russia should it be recalcitrant and not agree to the terms of the ceasefire? There’s no been no concrete action that this administration has taken to punish Russia since it’s come to office.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, a couple points. To be clear, as far as I am aware, the United States has not provided armaments to Russia. The United States is not providing assistance to Russia. Every single sanction that has been imposed on Russia remains in place. Every single sanction the President inherited has – remains in place.
QUESTION: Trump inherited, previous administration.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Right, but – well, I mean, they’re pretty sanctioned up. I mean, there’s a lot of sanctions on already. So my point being is that we’ve – there’s been no steps taken to relieve any of these things. These things continue to be in place. But we don’t think it’s constructive for me to stand here today and begin to issue threats about what we’re going to do if Russia says no. Let’s hope they say yes.
At the end, let’s understand. I remind everybody and bring you back to the point: The President’s desire here is to bring about a lasting and enduring peace in Ukraine. He wants the shooting and the fighting to stop – not just for 30 days, not just for 60 days, but permanently. To do that, both sides have to come to the table. We are happy – we are happy that the Ukrainians have agreed to do so. Now it is up to Russia to say yes. If Russia says yes, that’s very good news, and we will begin that process and do everything we can to move that process forward. If they say no, then obviously we’ll have to examine everything and sort of figure out where we stand in the world and what their true intentions are. I think it’ll be – if they say no, it’ll tell us a lot about what their goals are and what their mindset is.
But I don’t want to go into that before they’ve even answered us by issuing statements that are abrasive in any way. Our hope is that – when we met with them last, they expressed a willingness under the right conditions, without elaborating on the right conditions, to bring an end to this conflict. That was our question when we met with them. I think I shared it with you that were on our trip. The point of meeting with them was to find out is this a war they wanted to end or is this a war they just wanted to continue in perpetuity until they achieved whatever goals they have in mind, and they expressed a willingness, under the right circumstances, which they did not define, to bring an end to this conflict.
So we have Ukraine ready to come to the table. Now we need to get Russia to come to the table. If they do and the shooting stops, I think that’s a very good day in the world. Obviously no one here is pretending that that negotiation’s going to be easy or fast or simple, but at least we’ve gotten to that point. If their answer is no, then obviously we’ll have to deal with that and we’ll have to at that point make decisions on that basis. We’re not there yet. Hopefully the answer is yes.
MS BRUCE: Thank you, everyone.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Okay, thanks, guys.
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