QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, first off, congratulations. Ninety-nine votes. I guess everyone is behind you. How does it feel 30-plus days in?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Busy. We've been busy. We're doing a lot of work. We're doing the work of diplomacy in the State Department, a lot of - this - President Trump is not a patient man. He works - moves very quickly. He's been given a mandate, and he hit the ground running from day one going through that, then going through some of the reforms that we're going through on foreign aid and things of that nature. So it's a lot of work, but it's been fun. It's been exhilarating.
QUESTION: One thing you said you wanted to do is address the Ukraine-Russia war quickly. We got some news today. First off, it looks like the mineral deal has been done. Can you confirm that?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I can't confirm it, obviously. Our Secretary of the Treasury Bessent is working on that. He's done a great job of putting that together. So my last indication was that it was very close to the finish line. We were on the - not even the one-yard line. We were like at the half-yard line, almost like when the Eagles pushed the quarterback across.
QUESTION: Right.
SECRETARY RUBIO: The tush push thing. So it's close and it's good. Look, it's a good deal. It's an important deal. We still want to end this war. I mean, that's important thing. The President has made very clear - he campaigned on it - if there's a chance to end this war, he wants to pursue it. He views it as a dumb war, a costly war, a - it's a meat grinder and it has to stop. And we're going to do everything we can, if it's possible, to try to bring it to an end, and to an end - to a peace that's sustainable.
QUESTION: President Zelenskyy and the President clashed last week. There's no doubt about it. Maybe President Zelenskyy said some things he shouldn't about the President not being informed, and then came back and didn't do the mineral deal. Even though the Secretary of Treasury was hoping to leave with it. So this week is going to be different. It looks like that President Zelenskyy is going to be here in Washington this week. What can you tell us about it?
SECRETARY RUBIO: This is a good deal for Ukraine. I mean, the United States working with them to - after the conflict to be able to utilize their natural resources not just to pay back the American taxpayer but to develop the Ukrainian economy. I think it's a great deal for them and it's the right deal for us, as the President —
QUESTION: Will there be security guarantees in it?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the security guarantee is that the United States is now a partner with the Ukrainians in something important. That's going to be making money for us to get paid back for our taxpayers and also Ukraine to build. But what Ukraine needs - people keep using the term "security guarantees." What Ukraine needs really is a deterrent. They need to make it costly for anyone to come after them again in the future. And that can be discussed, and it doesn't have to just be America. I mean, the Europeans can be involved in that.
But really none of that can be discussed until the war ends. We have to have the war end. And as long as people are being killed - this is a meat grinder. And it's a challenging thing because the Russians have more meat to grind, right? They're throwing people out there in waves, and it's a very, very bloody war, it's a very costly war, and it's time for it to come to an end. The President is right. President Trump is right about this.
QUESTION: How much friction is between President Zelenskyy and President Trump?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I don't - people - it's - there's a lot of stuff in the media about it, but in the end of the day, the President's objective is clear. He wants the war to stop. He wants the war to end. And to do that, you have to have both sides agree to it, right?
Now, we talked to Zelenskyy. I think what the President was irritated by, and rightfully so, was this argument that somehow we haven't talked to Ukraine. After President Trump spoke to Putin, which he hadn't spoken to in four years, he picked up the phone. I was there for both calls. He immediately called Zelenskyy, right away, and then Zelenskyy met with our Treasury Secretary. And then he met with me and the Vice President, and then he met with Kellogg. And then - so he has had engagements, constant engagements. I've talked to the foreign minister of Ukraine twice in the last six days. So to say that we're not engaged with them is just not accurate. It was not accurate.
QUESTION: But you sat down in Saudi Arabia and you looked at Lavrov, who's got decades of experience in his position. You had been there just for a month, even though you've got foreign policy experience. What makes you believe that the Russians sincerely want to have this war to end?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.
QUESTION: What do you think?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think we're going to test it. We told them, do you guys want to end the war or do you want to continue? If you want to end the war, we can talk about what it would take to end it from their perspective. If you want to continue on the war, just tell us now. And they agreed to a follow-up where we're going to send teams of diplomats to meet with theirs to sort of talk about what it would take the end the war. If what they insist on is unrealistic, then we know they're not real about it. But we have to test that proposition. We need to know and the President wants to know early in his presidency are the Russians interested in ending this war or are they not. Donald Trump is a dealmaker. President Trump has made deals his entire life. He's not going to get suckered into a bad deal. He's going to get tricked into an endless negotiation. But he does want to be a peacemaker, not just a dealmaker but a peacemaker, and President Trump is testing whether the Russians are serious or not. So the answer to your question is we don't know, but we're going to find out.
QUESTION: But we know this: It's easier to have a ceasefire than it has to end the conflict.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, in the end —
QUESTION: Because you remember in the '90s we promised if they give up their nuclear weapons we'd watch their back. That didn't work out. And in 2014 a ceasefire, that didn't work out. They have an invasion in 2022. Macron just came down and said I sat for seven hours with Vladimir Putin, and when I left he totally flipped on everything we discussed and he invaded Ukraine anyway.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah.
QUESTION: How does that make you feel confident that he would ever agree to anything that you could - that would be sustainable?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, first of all, with all due respect to President Macron, he's not President Trump. President Trump is a different person, very different. Also represents the United States, which I think is the only country in the world and President Trump is the only leader in the world that could actually get Putin to agree to a peace. If it's possible, the only one who can do it is President Trump. So I think there's a big difference there.
Again, this is not about having confidence in the Russians. This is actions. Either they're serious about stopping the war - and we'll know that when we engage them. Pretty quickly we'll know. If they're making maximalist demands that they know can't be met, then we know they're not serious about it. But we have to test that, right? It's the only way you're going to find out if this is possible or not.
And we were very clear with the Russians. There was no negotiation. We didn't sit down over a map and start drawing lines. What we said is if you're interested - we can't do anything with you, we can't cooperate with you economically, we can't engage with you on a bunch of other things —
QUESTION: But they want that.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, maybe. We'll find out, right? I mean, I'm sure they want it, but they can't have it. That can't happen until the war ends. And that was our point: If you want to have closer cooperation with the United States on a bunch of other issues around the world, both geopolitical and economic, that war has to end. And so we need to test to see how serious they are about it, and that's what we're doing, and that's what's the President has asked us to do, and that's what we're going to try to do here.
QUESTION: Senator Rubio called Vladimir Putin a thug. Do you still feel the same way?
SECRETARY RUBIO: But at the end of the day, what we feel about Vladimir Putin is irrelevant to achieving a peace here. What we're trying to do now is get people - we have to be grownups here. We're trying to get people to a negotiating table. You don't get people to a negotiating table like Vladimir Putin by calling him names, by being antagonistic. This is a costly war. It's cost billions of dollars for the United States, billions of dollars for Europe, three million Ukrainians no longer living in the country. So this is not a - this is not a PR thing. This is not a political campaign. This is real-world every day.
If this war goes on for another year like some people say it should, that's thousands of dead people. So this is real stuff. We have to be serious and mature about it. And in the work of diplomacy, you don't get someone to the table, right - I can't attract someone to sit down at a table and tell us what they're interested in doing about ending a war if we're insulting them, no matter how we may feel about them. I'm sure they have said very mean things about me, but we want to get this thing done. We want peace.
QUESTION: Do you think it was necessary to take out of the UN resolution talk that Russia did invade Ukraine and start this war?
SECRETARY RUBIO: So what is the UN? The UN's usefulness is to promote peace, to end wars. And so I go back to the same point I made: To put a resolution out there, okay, that condemns Russia, no matter how people may feel about it, is to basically invite them not to sit at the table, to argue nothing's changed; why are we going to negotiate with you? We're trying to get them to a negotiating table so we can test whether they're serious or not about peace, and I think anything that is unnecessarily antagonistic is going to keep them from negotiating.
QUESTION: Right.
SECRETARY RUBIO: We're going to find out soon enough. But what everyone needs to remember here, the goal here is not to help Russia or any - the goal here is to end a war that is costing the lives of thousands of people, destroying a country. Every day that goes by the cost of rebuilding Ukraine gets higher and higher and higher. Who's going to pay that?
QUESTION: But is it worth noting that Ukraine has outstripped everybody's expectations?
SECRETARY RUBIO: There's no doubt.
QUESTION: Killed over 800,000 - there's been casualties of over 800,000 of the Russians. They have to bring in North Koreans. They killed just about all of them.
SECRETARY RUBIO: There's no dispute. There's no dispute the Ukrainians have been very brave. They're fighting for their country. They've exceeded everyone's expectations, especially the Biden administration. They've done incredible stuff. But at the end, what we're trying to point to here is that this war has to come to an end now.
QUESTION: True.
SECRETARY RUBIO: We're three years into the thing and it needs to stop. And we can do that and also recognize their bravery.
QUESTION: And also they've just - the Ukrainian parliament just voted to keep President Zelenskyy president throughout the war. So the talk of him being a dictator probably isn't accurate, right?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, ultimately, the bottom line here is that they've got their system of government. They'll have to handle that internally. What we're focused on here is ending the war. That's it. That's all. The thing that matters is can we end the war, is it possible. If this war doesn't end —
QUESTION: Right.
SECRETARY RUBIO: — then this administration is going to - we're going to go back to Congress and ask for more money for Ukraine? It was hard enough to pass that the last time, and even the Europeans are telling us they're going to have trouble with it. So we need to bring this thing to an end.
QUESTION: Right. But how it ends would really dictate if it starts again, right?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Absolutely, right. It's got to be a sustainable end to the war.
QUESTION: Germany had a big election. President Trump congratulated the new presumed leader, although it's going to take months for them to form a government. His name is Friedrich Merz and he said this: "I would never have thought I would be saying this on TV, but after Donald Trump's remark last week it is clear that the government does not care much about the fate of Europe. My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that step by step we can really achieve independence from the U.S." He says in its current form - NATO in its current form is in jeopardy and it's time for the European nations may have to establish an independent European defense capability. Your reaction?
SECRETARY RUBIO: My reaction is NATO is not in jeopardy. The only thing that puts NATO in jeopardy is the fact that we have NATO Allies who barely have militaries or whose militaries are not very capable because they've spent 40 years not spending any money on it. We've been NATO.
And all President Trump has argued is what every president, every American president, has argued for the last 30 years, and that is these are rich countries, okay? These are rich countries, especially in Western Europe. They have plenty of money. They should be investing that in their national security, and they're not. You have countries spending 1.5 percent, 1 percent of their economy, and we just can't keep subsidizing that. It's not fair and it's not sustainable.
That's what puts NATO in jeopardy is that we don't have Allies in some cases. Now, others have done it. Poland, Czechia - there's a bunch of countries that have done it, but some have not. And these are rich countries - Germany, France. We know this. So that has to be fixed.
I would also say that you talk about the comments of the new German leader. He was in the middle of a campaign. People say things. I think there was a little bit of hysteria last week about —
QUESTION: This was after he won.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Okay. Well, there's a lot of hysteria going on.
QUESTION: But is he misreading?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Misreading?
QUESTION: As far as you're concerned, he thinks that the U.S. wants out of Europe, do your own thing. Is he misreading Donald Trump on the —
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, we're not saying do your own thing. We're saying do more. It's their continent, right? Why should we not be - why is it unreasonable for the United States to ask rich European countries to invest more money in their own national security? What can't continue to happen is the United States basically is their security blanket so they only spend 2 percent on defense and then build up this massive social safety net. Well, of course they can. Of course they have universal everything because we've basically been their security. That's not sustainable. That's not a partnership. That's a dependency and that's not good for Europe either.
QUESTION: What a start you've had. Thirty-plus days. you've been to Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Germany, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. In the beginning, you've got six nations there, Central and South America. There's a message. And it seems to have been our border matters, let's establish some relationship because we've got to get control of our southern border and you've got to control yours. What did you walk away with? What was your message?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we walked away from the following. All those countries you mentioned in Central America are all migratory routes. That is the route that people take to get to the southern border, right? They start in the Darién Gap in Panama. They work their way sometimes through Costa Rica, oftentimes through Guatemala and El Salvador, and they work their way up towards the United States. So our border in many cases, when it comes to mass migration, begins there. So we want countries to cooperate in stopping it.
In addition, a number of these countries - I add Honduras now to the list. A number of these countries have now agreed not just to take back repatriation flights of their own nationals but to take third-country, meaning people from other countries who basically enter the United States illegally. We can send them to those countries and they have a choice. They can go back to their home country or they can go to these countries. These are powerful tools, and that's why you're now seeing historically low numbers under President Trump, historically low numbers at the border.
QUESTION: Do you think that's because of your visits?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think it has a lot to do with President Trump. It has to do with the fact that people that were coming here realized that this isn't Joe Biden. Under President Trump you're not just going to be able to come in, claim asylum, and stay forever. And so we are literally in some of these countries - I had a call yesterday. One of these countries, they now have people doing U-turns, right? They were on their way here. They realized, okay, they're not playing around anymore, President Trump is serious, and they've done a U-turn. They're trying to go back to their country.
QUESTION: Right.
SECRETARY RUBIO: We're seeing that happen. And that is as a result of President Trump's very clear leadership on migration.
QUESTION: You have an expertise in Central and South America. One area in which you focused on was Venezuela, and you said there's got to be a regime change. There still isn't. The election was a sham. By Ric Grenell going down there and pulling out hostages - which is great - and having them take in their citizens is excellent. Love the result. But are you legitimatizing an illegitimate leader?
SECRETARY RUBIO: No.
QUESTION: A thug down there.
SECRETARY RUBIO: No, no. Venezuela has - that regime, which is what controls that territory of Venezuela, has an obligation under the law, under international law, under recognized covenants of every law, to accept their foreign nationals who are unlawfully and illegally in another country. Okay? If an American is - illegally immigrates to Venezuela or Panama or Costa Rica, we have an obligation to take them back if they deport them to us.
QUESTION: Right.
SECRETARY RUBIO: The same is true. And so Ric went down there to basically tell them you need to take these people back and you're going to come get them. And they have. They've had - they flew to Honduras last week and picked up a bunch of these gang members, Tren de Aragua gang members, and we need you to release these Americans.
QUESTION: And they did.
SECRETARY RUBIO: He went down asking - we thought maybe five. He came back with six. So that's it. That's what the trip was about and that's what it needs to be, because Venezuela - remember, Venezuela stopped taking migration flights, deportations, because they wanted to blackmail Joe Biden. Donald Trump is not going to be blackmailed. President Trump will not be blackmailed by them. And so that's what that trip was about.
QUESTION: But Maduro should go, in your mind, still?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I continue to believe that he is a horrible dictator who is instilling all kinds of instability.
QUESTION: Are you demanding he leave?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we're going to work on that policy because I'm going to tell you something. He is allowing Iran to operate out of Venezuela. He is allowing the Chinese to operate out of Venezuela. He's threatening his neighbors in the region. He has flooded us with gang members - flooded with these Tren de Aragua gang members that are in this country doing terrible things. Why would we want someone like that to be there? We're not going to discuss publicly what our work is going to be in that regard, but he remains the same threat today that he was two years ago, three years ago, four years ago. That's going to have to be dealt with.
QUESTION: Have we allowed over decades China to make their way into Central and South America, and is Panama an example of that?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes.
QUESTION: We've just not put enough attention in our own backyard.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well —
QUESTION: Is that what you heard when you went there?
SECRETARY RUBIO: It is. I mean, a couple of things. Their corruption, right? The previous president, two presidents ago, those people are all wrapped up in a web of corruption. In fact, he's standing trial in Panama now for that.
So they bought their way like they've done in many parts. And you wake up one day and realize they control both of the ports of entry to the Panama Canal, they control the cranes, they have a huge presence there. And I am very happy that after our visit - I think the same day I was there - Panama became the first country in Latin America, in the Western Hemisphere, to get out of the Belt and Road Initiative. And I think there'll be more news coming up soon with regards to Panama - all positive for America.
Our admiral who runs SOUTHCOM was down there last week, signed a cyber security agreement with them, because the cyber vulnerability of the canal is also very serious. You guys had a very good special on Fox Nation about the Panama Canal and the threats posed there. So I think that this is something you're going to see a lot more news on in the next few months.
QUESTION: We go down there and we make demands, but they also look at us, I hear - and you tell me - and say, "Where have you been?" There was a gap. We need aid and you have not really paid much attention.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, well —
QUESTION: Do you plan on addressing their - is there a comprehensive policy to get China out and be more attentive?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the good news about both Costa Rica and Panama is they don't need aid. They really don't need it. I mean, they want to partner with training, like they want us to help train their police forces and things of that nature, but these are not recipient countries for the most part. They're very pro-American. You've got the president of Panama - we've got a problem with the canal situation but he's a pro-American president. The president of Costa Rica is a pro-American president. President Bukele in El Salvador, a pro-American president. We had a good meeting with the president of Guatemala. The president of the Dominican Republic, a pro-American president.
So what I would say is what we haven't done is we haven't paid attention to pro-American allies in the region. We've almost ignored them and in some cases we've even punished them. We've had administrations like the Biden administration that criticized Bukele and called him a dictator and all kinds of things like that when he's actually pro-American.
QUESTION: And the biggest joke is Brazil, where this Lula is a criminal, a convicted criminal. He's leading that country. Bolsonaro, who is pro-West and pro-U.S. —
SECRETARY RUBIO: Right.
QUESTION: — seems to be looking at a looming arrest, and that has allowed China to get a foothold there. But I want to talk about what else you did and what the President did. He's declared MS-13 and TDA terrorists - and these cartels terrorist networks.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Correct. They are.
QUESTION: Does that allow us to go after them like we do al-Qaida and ISIS?
SECRETARY RUBIO: That allows us - obviously we have to cooperate with the countries that we're working. We've been working very closely with Mexico. We want them to do more. I know Pete's been talking to them. We're going to have meetings with them later this week as well. We'd like to work with Mexico to go after these cartels because they're a threat to the Mexican Government, not just to us. And some of that work is already happening.
In the case of Tren de Aragua, this is a vicious - one of the most vicious criminal gangs in the world.
QUESTION: Right.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Okay? These guys from the military - we had them in Guantanamo. We sent them to Guantanamo, Guantanamo to Honduras. The Venezuelan regime picked them up from there. These guys in Guantanamo, the military police are saying these are some of the toughest people; they're tougher than the al-Qaida guys in the prisons.
QUESTION: Where you have KSM and all these other guys?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, they're saying these guys are even tougher than those guys, they're even worse than those guys. They're a very dangerous gang. We've seen it in our streets.
QUESTION: So you need permission from their government to take them out. I don't think we were asking Yemen, Sudan, Syria if we have to take out ISIS and al-Qaida in their country.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think the - no, no.
QUESTION: We just hit them, right?
SECRETARY RUBIO: The United States has a right to defend its national interest at every point. If our national security is being threatened, it doesn't matter where it's coming from, we have a right —
QUESTION: We're doing it.
SECRETARY RUBIO: — to act.
QUESTION: But we never did that before.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, but what we want is we want to work with the Mexicans. We want to work with them to go after them because they're on the ground.
QUESTION: What have they told you, Mr. Secretary?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Look, we're going to find out. I mean, so far there's good signs, there are some good things we've never seen before. We've seen the numbers at the border come down. We want them to do more. But they've deployed, what, 14,000 of their national guard to their border. We've provided them information about certain cartel leaders and they've gone after them. But we've got to keep this going. This isn't like a one-week or one-month thing. We've got to - we've got to make sure this is enduring.
QUESTION: Everyone who's decided that it matters to them and who cares about drugs coming across our border, fentanyl coming across our border, knows the precursors are in China.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes.
QUESTION: They could stop in a second. They go to Mexico to the cartels and they come across our border, and Mexico blames us for wanting it to begin with. That, to me, is a nonstarter. I don't know about you. So how do we stop this? China could stop it tomorrow.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, they could. And a couple of things. The Chinese would tell you if you were with them here today, they'd say: Well, we don't have a drug problem; what do we care about precursors? They're not drugs, right? But they could stop it if they wanted to. You have to wonder in some cases, is this a deliberate thing, like are they flooding us with fentanyl?
QUESTION: Like their own version of the "open door."
SECRETARY RUBIO: In reverse, right. And are they doing this on purpose? You have to wonder. I mean, I'm just saying.
QUESTION: But do you really wonder or do you know?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we can't prove that they're doing it on purpose, but boy, it looks like it. It really does. I mean, they know these guys are operating and they don't - and I think they're holding it over our head too, right? They're saying, well, we'll help you with this if you don't put tariffs or you don't do something else. But we can do more.
So as an example, when I was in Guatemala - we've trained their police department. It was one of the waivers I issued on foreign aid, and we've trained their police department to spot the precursors. Because one of the ways they do it is they bring it through Guatemala and then up to the United States and into the labs of Mexico that are making these pills. And the Guatemalans themselves, we've trained them and equipped them to be able, with our DEA, to be able to identify the precursors and pull them out. I'd much rather disrupt it there than when they're in a lab already in Mexico; it's almost too late.
So these are good things that we want to continue to do. But look, at the end we're being flooded. It's coming through there, and it's also coming through the border with Canada.
QUESTION: You've called China the most dangerous near-peer adversary the U.S. has faced.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Ever.
QUESTION: So we need concrete steps to face off with them.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes.
QUESTION: Who clearly are building up their military to face off with us.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Yes.
QUESTION: As sophisticated as possible. What is your plan? And they have told us by 2027 they're taking Taiwan.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, there's —
QUESTION: Daily incursions - what could you do about it? How committed are you and the President of the United States to defending Taiwan?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, a couple of points. The first is there's three things we have to do when it comes to - look, China is going to be a rich and powerful country. No matter what we do, that's what - we're going to have to deal with that. But we have to deal with the reality. What we cannot have is a world where China is so powerful, we depend on them. And that's right now where we're headed, unfortunately. That's going to change. That's going to change under President Trump.
Number one is we have to have our own domestic capability. If you don't want to depend on China, you'd better be able to make it for yourself, and we've allowed way too many industries to fall into the hands of the Chinese, everything from rare earth minerals to pharmaceuticals. We have to have a domestic capacity, and it's one of the ideas behind the tariffs that the President is pursuing writ large. It's why people say, well, only put tariffs on China. Well, that's not enough, because China has factories in other countries all over the world and they flood us with those products. So we have to have our own domestic capacity.
Number two is we have to have - we have to be present. In the Indo-Pacific they're trying to drive us out. We have a strong relationship. We are a Pacific nation. We are. And so we have relationships in the Pacific, and we're not going to abandon those - Japan, South Korea.
You mentioned Taiwan. We have a longstanding position on Taiwan that we're not going to abandon, and that is: We are against any forced, compelled, coercive change in the status of Taiwan. That's been our position since the late 1970s, and that continues to be our position, and that's not going to change.
And then the third is - and it's outside the purview of this department at State - but we have to have military capabilities that allow us to respond to the threat that China is posing, and we need to be concerned. We have our aircraft manufacturing, our ship manufacturers; they are not keeping pace. China can build 10 ships before we can build one. That's a very serious vulnerability that cannot continue. And obviously, I know Pete has a plan for that, and the President has a plan for that, and they're working on it.
QUESTION: And if there is - if you get woken up at 2 o'clock in the morning to - this morning, and we have reason to believe that China is taking Taiwan right now, what does America do?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, America has existing commitments that it has made to prevent that from happening and to react to it, and that would be executed on. And that's - those are the standing - and the Chinese are aware of this as well.
But again, let's hope that doesn't happen, and the best way to prevent that from happening is to have the capability - a strong leader in the White House, which we have, President Trump - and the capability, military capability, to respond. If the Chinese know we have the ability to respond, then they may do that. If they know we don't have the capability to respond or we have a weak leader, then they may test it. And we just don't want to get to that point. It would be a terrible thing for the world, and it would be a bad thing for China too, by the way.
QUESTION: And I know we've got to go, but your last - will you say that to your counterpart in China?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, we have and they know that's our position. They're mad that —
QUESTION: You've only had the job for 30 days.
SECRETARY RUBIO: I know, but I've spoken to their foreign minister one time, and I think we've made clear. What I said is China is going to - we have to have relations with China. We're not saying we don't. We have to. They're a nuclear power. They're the second largest economy in the world, the second most populous country in the world. So we have to deal with them. But that - maybe most populous. Maybe. I don't know. Them and India are pretty close. But we have to have a relationship with them.
However, it has to be a balanced relationship. It cannot be one where they become dominant, because then we are going to have a conflict, and we don't want that. It would be bad for the world. It would be bad for the world. And I think the best way to avoid that is a strong America, which is what we're getting under President Trump.
