SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you.
Thank you, Foreign Secretary Hunt.
This is my first trip to the United Kingdom as Secretary of State, but Jeremy and I have
met many times at many different places in the world, and we talk frequently by phone.
You’ve truly become a great friend and I know that you’re a great partner to our
collective desire to keep our two countries safe.
It was my privilege to meet with you and with Prime Minister May.
President Trump is very much looking forward to his visit here next month and commemorating
D-Day with our great allies.
It was evident in my conversations both with Jeremy and with Prime Minister May that the
Special Relationship doesn’t simply endure; it’s thriving, despite what you might read
in the papers, and we’re ready to meet new challenges and face them together and seize
on new opportunities together as well.
Brexit has obviously been a hot topic here.
I reiterated to the prime minister as well as to Foreign Secretary Hunt that it’s the
United Kingdom’s sovereign and democratic choice on how it will proceed, but also that
no matter what happens, the United States will continue our strong relationship with
both the United Kingdom and the EU.
Our great hope is that Brexit can be resolved soon because President Trump is eager to strike
a bilateral trade agreement that expands on our number-one trade relationship.
I’ve had the privilege as both CIA director and now as the Secretary of State to observe
how the UK has been amongst our most reliable partners on a broad range of security issues.
We are grateful for your support of our diplomacy and pressure against North Korea, your eagerness
to contribute to the strength of the NATO alliance, and your leadership to resolve crises
in Syria and in Yemen.
The United Kingdom also has contributed mightily to the Coalition to Defeat ISIS and, as the
attacks in Sri Lanka showed, we need to keep up that fight against radical Islamic terrorism.
A key part of that fight is that every coalition member must take back terrorist fighters captured
on the battlefield.
Our nations have also stood side-by-side in confronting Russian aggression.
We jointly held Russia accountable for the chemical weapons attacks in Salisbury of last
year, and together we will continue to disrupt the hostile activities of Russian intelligence
networks, uphold the prohibition of chemical weapons use, and defend our peoples against
all forms of Russian aggression.
The United States and the UK cooperate a great deal on regional security in Asia as well.
That cooperation will be all the more necessary as China tries to shift the global balance
of power in its favor.
As a historic maritime power, Britain has shown leadership in standing up to China’s
unlawful behavior in the South China Sea, and we urge the British Government to be equally
vigilant and vocal against a host of other Chinese activities that undermine the sovereignty
of all nations.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative is just one of these problems.
China peddles corrupt infrastructure deals in exchange for political influence.
Its bribe-fueled debt-trap diplomacy undermines good governance and threatens to upend the
free-market economic model on which so many countries depend, and which has lifted up
hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
If China can’t conduct BRI with maximum transparency, it shouldn’t do it at all.
We hope the UK will insist on the same.
We also discussed at some length the importance of secure 5G networks.
I’ll have a little more to say on that this afternoon, but I’m confident that each of
our two nations will choose a path which will ensure security of our networks.
Elsewhere in Asia, the United States unequivocally supports UK sovereignty over the British Indian
Ocean Territory.
Its status as a UK territory is essential to the value of the joint U.S.-UK base on
Diego Garcia and our shared security interests.
We also had a forthright conversation on the Islamic Republic of Iran, and as Jeremy said,
we share the same perception of the Iranian threat and we are together trying to find
new ways to work closely to combat that threat.
Finally, and following up on the roundtable discussion that we had with faith leaders
this morning, the foreign secretary and I discussed the importance of religious freedom.
This is just one example of the commitment to shared values on which this historic relationship
depends.
We will continue to cooperate to protect the God-given right of human beings in all parts
of the world to believe what they want to believe.
We look forward to seeing the UK at the second annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom,
which I’ll host in July.
Thank you again, Foreign Secretary Hunt, for your hospitality, and I look forward to continuing
to meet the challenges of our time together.