Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked how President Trump's tariffs are affecting the United States' relationships with ASEAN states.
00:00I just wanted to know, what was your sense today after your meeting, the PMC meeting with the ASEAN foreign ministers about how big and irritant tariffs are to U.S. relations both with ASEAN as a bloc but individual countries?
00:14Well, I think, look, there are two things to understand. Number one is these letters that are going out and these trade changes are happening with every country in the world.
00:22I mean, basically every country in the world.
00:24The president's been very clear and he has been, frankly, if you go back to videos of him speaking in the 80s about his feeling that the state of global trade is unfair to the United States,
00:34that for far too long we allowed these imbalances to develop, we are the world's largest consumer, we're a huge market where people export things to us,
00:42and with these huge and unsustainable imbalances have developed with countries all over the world.
00:46And so this is a globalized effort to reset U.S. trade in a way that's beneficial to the United States, and not just in dollars and cents, but also in our own domestic industrial capacity.
00:58So this has been made clear to countries around the world.
01:01We were coming up upon June, upon the middle of this month, and the markets demand certainty, and so these letters set a baseline.
01:08Now, obviously, that does not foreclose the opportunity for individual countries to enter into negotiations that perhaps can adjust those numbers.
01:17But in the end, the president still remains very committed to a rebalancing of trade that's fair to America,
01:24and also at the same time protects our own industrial capabilities.
01:28Right, but you're here today meeting with ASEAN countries, and those countries, almost all of them, got letters.
01:35Yeah, but anywhere in the world, well, I guess my point to you is anywhere in the world I would have traveled this week, they got a letter.
01:42So everybody got a letter, and in some cases, some of these countries got a letter where their tariff rate is lower than some of their neighbors,
01:49or maybe a country somewhere else in the world, so it might even serve as an advantage.
01:52But of course it's raised, it's an issue, but I wouldn't say it solely defines our relationship with many of these countries.
01:57There are a lot of other issues that we worked together on, and I think there was great enthusiasm that we were here and that we're a part of this.
02:04A reminder that next week we'll have another high-ranking delegation, including Secretary Lutnik, Deputy Landau from the Department of State,
02:11will be traveling to Japan for the World Expo there, and will be involved in talks there as well.
02:18You know, my very first meeting, I don't know if you know this, but when I was sworn in, I went to the State Department,
02:24I gave a speech on these steps, and then my first meeting right out of the box was with Japan, South Korea, and India.
02:31And we've repeated that meeting numerous times since then with that group and our attention to others.
02:35We have a running internal joke with my counterpart from Japan.
02:38I have literally now seen him about 8 to 12 times, and our joke is that we see each other more than we see our own families.
02:45And so, you know, these engagements are very important to us, and we're going to continue to stay very committed.
02:51Because this, as I said to all of our partners, this notion or idea that the United States would ever be distracted by the Indo-Pacific
02:58or even Southeast Asia is impossible.
03:02You can't be, maybe it doesn't always, wars get more attention, but it's impossible to not be focused.
03:07This is where much of the story of the 21st century is going to be written.
03:10This is where two-thirds of economic growth is going to happen over the next 25 or 30 years.
03:15And many of the countries in Southeast Asia, not only are they some of the youngest countries in the world,
03:19but they're about to see an enormous expansion of their labor markets, their labor pool, number of workers.
03:25This is a historic, once-in-a-generation opportunity, not just for these countries to revolutionize themselves
03:31from an economic standpoint, but further strengthen our relationship.
03:35We have over 6,000 American companies that have invested heavily in these economies over the last 20 or 30 years.
03:41These are, we're not abandoning those relationships.
03:43On the contrary, we want to strengthen and build upon them.
03:46And there are a bunch of other issues, and certainly trade is part of it,
03:49but there are a lot of other issues that we work together on, and we continue to highly prioritize that.
03:55The story of the 21st century will be written in the Indo-Pacific.
03:59And the countries represented here today, along with others that have joined to be a part of this,
04:03represent some of, not just important markets, some of the most important partners we have in the world.
04:07Nice question.
04:09This is obviously a very quick trip.
04:11Do you intend to come back to Asia or the Southeast Asian area on a longer trip sometime in the future, near future?
04:17Sure, absolutely.
04:18This was a great trip because we got to see, you know, 12, 13, 14, 15 countries that are all here.
04:22So these forums, there'll be a leaders forum here in October, which we look forward to being a part of it.
04:27We've also engaged with many of our colleagues here at different forums, many of them, for example,
04:32not just at the G7 foreign ministers.
04:34They also attended on the sidelines of NATO at the foreign minister level and also at the leaders level.
04:39So we'll continue to engage with the region, both in Washington and other places around the world,
04:43and in our return travel here.
04:47And so we'll be back in addition.
04:49And it's not just me.
04:50The Secretary of Defense has been out here.
04:52The Deputy Secretary of State will be here next week.
04:55So we'll look for other opportunities.
04:59Obviously, the leaders forum will be here in October as well.
