SECRETARY BLINKEN: Good afternoon, everyone. Let me start by thanking Prime Minister Sonexay, Foreign Minister Saleumxay for their very warm hospitality and also for their terrific organization of ASEAN, with Laos in the lead over the past year.
But let me also start, more appropriately, with saying that, of course, our attention, our focus, our hearts are also with the many Americans across the southeastern United States who've been affected by, first, Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. Many people in the region still recovering here from the typhoon last month, and we're thinking about them as well. But I think it only underscores our common humanity. We have so many people in this region who've been affected by the typhoon, so many people back home affected by the hurricanes. And there were many mutual expressions of sympathy and support between us today.
I've now taken 20 trips to the Indo-Pacific in this job, and I've gone to 8 of 10 ASEAN countries. I'm here in Laos because - as President Biden often says - so much of our future will be written in the Indo-Pacific.
Recognizing that reality, almost three years ago now, the United States set out an ambitious strategy to advance a shared vision for a free, open, prosperous, connected, secure, and resilient Indo-Pacific region. Today, because of a lot of diplomacy over these last three and a half years, the United States and our Indo-Pacific partners are closer and more aligned than ever - and that's certainly the case with ASEAN.
In 2022, President Biden pledged what he called a "new era" in U.S.-ASEAN relations. Together, we've elevated our relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. We've expanded our collaboration on longstanding priorities like economic issues and defense, but also launching many new initiatives in many new areas - from public health to clean energy to women's equality - reaffirming at every step the central role that ASEAN must play.
Here in Laos, our Comprehensive Partnership continues to deliver for our people: improving maternal and child health, supporting sustainable development, healing the wounds of war, investing in the potential of - and ties between - our people. That focus on the needs and on the aspirations of our combined one billion people is what animated our work today with the United States and ASEAN and at the East Asia Summit.
The remarkably robust economic ties between the United States and ASEAN, these have long been central to our relationship. The United States is ASEAN's number one provider of foreign direct investment, and that's - that's very meaningful, because what it tells you is there's tremendous trust and tremendous confidence in the future. People don't make investments if they don't have that confidence in the future. And it also is, of course, a tremendous generator of jobs and opportunity. We have more than 62 - excuse me, 6,200 American companies operating in the region, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs locally but also in all 50 states back in the United States.
In our meetings today, we committed not only to growing this partnership but to continue to modernize it. So for example, we're working to implement the ASEAN Single Window. This is a one-stop portal that will make regional trade faster, cheaper, more reliable. Already, we've got innovations - for example, innovations that make it easier to exchange customs forms and other documents electronically. That initiative alone has cut transaction times by four days and saved more than $6.5[1] billion.
With the ASEAN digital economy projected to top $2 trillion by 2030, we're equipping professionals, we're equipping students in the region with the skills that they need to succeed in this 21st century economy. For instance, we've created an online education platform that's enabled tens of thousands of students and people to complete courses, earn credentials in subjects like science, technology, entrepreneurship.
Recognizing the power of artificial intelligence to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals - ending poverty, eradicating hunger, bringing health care to more people - we've adopted today a U.S.-ASEAN Leaders Statement on AI, so that our countries together can help shape the development, the use, the governance of safe, secure, and trustworthy artificial intelligence.
And through a new five-year compact, a partnership between ASEAN and the U.S. Agency for International Development, we're helping to empower ASEAN to identify areas where the region could use more capacity - for example, planning infrastructure projects - so that we can ensure that we're meeting the region's most pressing needs. One of the things that I've heard from our colleagues is the importance of focusing on skills - on re-skilling, on up-skilling, on helping to build human capacity as well as practical - infrastructure and technological capacity.
Fundamentally, that underscores the point that the foundation of the partnership between the United States and ASEAN is our people. This year marks a decade of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative. I remember being there at the founding during President Obama's administration. We now have a remarkable partnership that involves over 160,000 young people.
So to sustain that momentum, we're doubling the YSEALI program as well as the number of ASEAN Fulbright students who'll be studying in the United States. We've established already an ASEAN Center in Washington to help foster greater economic and cultural ties between our nations.
We're also working to unleash the potential of all our people. Building on last year's first-ever ASEAN high-level dialogue on disability rights, we're working to make ASEAN's economy and infrastructure more accessible, more inclusive for people with disabilities.
All of these investments - in our economies, in our health systems, in our infrastructure, in climate, in people - all of these investments are good for people in ASEAN countries and for Americans back home: creating jobs, powering innovation, addressing challenges that we can only effectively meet when we're working together.
Now, that's also true when it comes to regional and global issues of shared concern. We continue to underscore the importance of upholding freedom of navigation and overflight in the South and East China Seas, as well as the need to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
We're intensifying our efforts to chart a more peaceful, inclusive, democratic future for Myanmar and address the DPRK's dangerous and destabilizing behavior. We're standing for the sovereignty, the independence, the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and the ability of people everywhere to chart their own course, to choose their own future free from force, coercion, aggression.
We also discussed the conflict in the Middle East. This week marked one year since the horrific October 7th attack on Israel, where, among other things, citizens of ASEAN nations were among the hundreds brutally killed or captured by Hamas, including six Thai citizens who remain hostages to this day. We continue to engage intensely to prevent broader conflict in the region, to bring all the hostages home, to get assistance to Gazans who so desperately need it and end the conflict, to reach a diplomatic solution in Lebanon, to support Israel's right to defend itself against Iran and its terrorist proxies, to find a path to halt the cycle of violence and move toward a more integrated and prosperous Middle East.
I'd also note that, even as the United States and our Indo-Pacific partners have drawn closer together these past three and a half years, we've also worked to deepen the connections between partners in this region and partners around the globe - particularly in Europe. ASEAN and the EU held their first-ever summit in 2022, and they've expanded cooperation on everything from cyber security to counterterrorism to climate change, reinforcing our own efforts in these areas.
This increasing collaboration across regions reflects the fact that our fates are intertwined. Making life better for our people requires us to coordinate in novel ways, to build new coalitions, to reinvigorate and reimagine existing partnerships. Today's meeting again showed the power and possibility of those partnerships, and I'm grateful to all of our ASEAN friends for their continued efforts to advance a common vision for the region and for our shared future. Thank you.
