SECRETARY RUBIO:  So this morning we were made aware by Cuban authorities of an incident off the coast of Cuba.  We immediately began to look into it.  As it stands now, the Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard, others are involved.  The majority of the information we still possess is what Cuban authorities are providing both the public and the U.S. Government.  We have our embassy on the ground in Havana working this as we speak, asking for access to the people that were on those vessels, if they were American citizens or permanent residents.  According to the Cuban regime, that the boat was registered in Florida.  We’re tracking that down. 

We will know shortly.  We will know quickly many more facts about this incident than we know right now.  The majority of the facts being publicly reported are those by the information provided by the Cubans.  We will verify that independently.  We will – as we gather more information, then we’ll be prepared to respond accordingly.  I’m not going to speculate.  I’m not going to – I’m not going to opine on what I don’t yet know.  But we’re going to find out exactly what happened here, and then we’ll respond accordingly. 

Okay.  Any questions? 

QUESTION:  Have you been in touch with anyone in Cuba?  And I mean, what’s your contact with —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, the authorities in Cuba, the border guard, has constant contact with the Coast Guard, so they alerted them this morning.  I was made aware of it at that time.  So oftentimes in these incidents and things like this, the initial reports are incomplete, and then as the day has progressed, I think early this morning – certainly by 9:00 a.m. or 10:00 a.m. this time, maybe a little later our time here – I reached out and we began to look at it independently.  We have various different elements of the U.S. Government that are trying to verify elements of the story based on what’s been provided to us.

Now, I know that the Coast Guard has responded to the area, to the vicinity.  I’ll need to get more fidelity and understanding from them once I get on the airplane about what exactly they’re looking for.  I don’t know who has possession of the vessel, which is the first thing we want to have.  We obviously want to have access to these people if they are American citizens or U.S. residents.  But I’m not going to speculate now because right now, still a lot of the information that’s out there is information that’s been provided by the Cubans.  We are going to verify that information independently and reach our own conclusions.

QUESTION:  So this was not U.S. Government personnel?  There was no U.S. Government operation happening?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No, no.  

QUESTION:  Have you spoken to any Cuban officials about this? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No, we haven’t spoken —

QUESTION:  (Inaudible.)

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Directly about this now?  No, I’m not going to comment about any conversations we’ve had on this topic.  Suffice it to say what is important to be out there and everyone needs to know is that we’re going to have our own information on this, and we’re going to figure out exactly what happened.  And there are a number of things that could have happened here.  But I’m not even going to – I was about to say I’m not even going to speculate as to what it could have been.  It’s a wide range of things. 

Suffice it to say it is highly unusual to see shootouts on open sea like that.  It’s not something that happens every day.  It’s something, frankly, that hasn’t happened with Cuba in a very long time.  And – but we’re going to find out.  We’re not going to base our conclusions on what they’ve told us.  And I am very, very confident that we will know the full story of what happened here and we will know it soon, and then we’ll respond appropriately based on what that information tells us. 

QUESTION:  If these were American citizens or residents, what kind of retaliation might we expect from the administration? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah, I’m not going to speculate on what the U.S. will do.  I’m going to – what I’m telling you is that we’re going to find out exactly what happened, who was involved, and then we’ll make a determination on the basis of what we find out.  And we are going to find out.  We’re not going to just take what somebody else tells us.  We’re going to find out.  And I’m very confident we will be able to know the story and be able to independently verify the facts about it.

QUESTION:  And just to clarify, you found out prior to the post on X from the Cubans, didn’t you?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yes.  Well, and obviously there was an incident at sea, so they – we do have constant contact with them at the Coast Guard level where they notify the U.S. Coast Guard on a variety of things, including migrants and so forth, that there’s these mil-to-mil, I guess Coast Guard-to-coast-guard channels, that exist.  And this reporting early on was fragmentary about an incident, but not the details.  They provided more details in the social media post they put out as well as a notice they sent to the embassy, or from their embassy to the State Department. 

But in it is embedded all sorts of facts of things that they claim to be facts, which is where the ship came from, where the boat came from, who was on it, what happened, and so forth.  These are the things we’re going to – we’re going to independently verify.  And then we’ll present that to the policymakers in our country, including the President, and we’ll make determinations based on the facts.  Right now, we’re still gathering facts. 

QUESTION:  But do you have any reason to doubt their version, or is it just that your (inaudible)?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I have every reason to want our own information.  We don’t generally make decisions in the United States on the basis of what Cuban authorities are saying. 

QUESTION:  Can I ask you about the oil announcement today by the Treasury Department about Venezuelan oil to Cuba that for humanitarian reasons – for private companies?  Is this a shift in policy?  What is the motivation?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No, it’s always been legal to sell to the private sector in Cuba, okay?  These are – these would not be sales to the government.  These would not be sales to the military-owned GAESA, the company.  These would be sales to a very small private sector that exists in Cuba, and that’s always been legal.  I mean, there are people that have a license to do that now.  This would just expand to the numbers that could do it.  Again, it would go to the private sector.  The private sector in Cuba is quite small.  It exists, but it’s small.  And it certainly in and of itself does not have the capacity to deal with the scale and scope of the challenges they’re facing. 

But if the Cuban economy were a functioning economy, it would have a much larger private sector.  And so what’s clear is that – and I would say this, that the people of Cuba are suffering today.  They’ve been suffering for a long time.  They’re suffering now, perhaps more than at any time in recent memory, perhaps in the history since 1959.  This is the worst economic climate that Cuba has faced, and it is the authorities there in that government who are responsible for that.  They are the ones that have made decisions that have left Cuba vulnerable to the situation they’re now in. 

Understand that Cuba has largely survived on the basis of subsidies.  The Soviet Union gave them free things.  When the Soviet Union collapsed, they went into a special period which was disastrous for them.  And then along came Hugo Chávez and bailed them out for a long time.  When that sort of died off a little bit, the Maduro regime was providing them fuel – or they were providing them actually crude oil.  Some percentage of that was refined and used domestically, and a large percentage of that never even made it to Cuba.  It was sold in the open market for cash to fund the regime and to fund the military-owned company. 

So the reason why Cuba’s electricity grid was already in collapse – before Maduro was captured it was already in collapse – the reason why things are as bad as they are is because they have an economic model that does not exist, that does not work.  It doesn’t exist anywhere in the world.  It is not functional.  And the only way Cuba is going to have a better future is if it has a different economic model.  Now, if you go back to President Trump’s 2017 or 2018 executive orders on a new policy in Cuba, that policy was entirely designed in many ways to put the private sector and individual private Cubans – not affiliated with the government, not affiliated with the military – in a privileged position. 

The reason why those industries have not flourished in Cuba is because the regime has not allowed them to flourish.  So now that they’re in a crisis, there is an opportunity for them to import fuel – in small quantities, granted – through a private sector.  If we catch the private sector there playing games and diverting it to the regime or to the military company, if we find that they’re moving that stuff around in ways that violate the spirit and the scope of these permissions, those licenses will be canceled. 

But it’s the same reason why we’ve provided humanitarian assistance.  We’ve provided humanitarian assistance in Cuba in the aftermath of the hurricane; we provided it through the Catholic Church, not through the government.  And we’re prepared to do something similar when it comes to fuel through the private sector, the small private sector.  But that alone will not solve Cuba’s very dramatic problems that have been caused by 60-some-odd years of mismanagement, ineptitude, and a failed economic model. 

QUESTION:  There’s been some reporting that this was a boat, a private boat, that was trying to rescue or help some people escape Cuba.  I don’t know if you can comment on that and if you can say whether you would advise people to not do that.  What can you say about that?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  Well, first of all, I’m not going to comment about the specific boat until we have all the information.  So I just want to be clear I’m not going to speculate about whose boat it was, what they were doing, why they were there, what actually happened.  I’m not going to speculate on that because it’s not smart to do that until we have all the facts.

Now, separate from that, yes, there have been people in the past that have run into Cuba to bring people and so on.  It is illegal.  It is a violation of federal law to go and run people back and forth.  And we’ve caught people doing that in the past.  It doesn’t normally lead to shootouts, to be honest with you.  But I’m not claiming that’s what’s happened here.  I don’t know.  We don’t know.  And it would be unfair for me – and quite unwise – to sit here and speculate it might be this and it might be that when we’re going to know.  We are going to know.  And when we know, then we’ll tell you and we’ll do what needs to be done about it, depending on what it is.

QUESTION:  Secretary, do you have any expectation – can you share with us your expectation for – on the subject of Iran and the negotiations tomorrow, and your own plans in terms of Middle East and Israel?  What should we be looking  for next?  What are you expecting next?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I think tomorrow Steve and Jared will be there.  I think they’re on their way there now, actually.  And the President was very clear last night that he always prefers diplomacy, but I want you to understand and everyone should know that Iran poses a very grave threat to the United States and has for a very long time.  They are in possession – first and foremost, after their nuclear program was obliterated, they were told not to try to restart it, and here they are.  You can see them always trying to rebuild elements of it.  They’re not enriching right now, but they’re trying to get to the point where they ultimately can.

The other thing I would point you to, however, is that Iran possesses a very large number of ballistic missiles, particularly short-range ballistic missiles that threaten the United States and our bases in the region and our partners in the region, and all of our bases in the UAE, in Qatar, in Bahrain.  And they also possess naval assets that threaten shipping and try to threaten the U.S. Navy.  So I want everybody to understand that, and beyond just the nuclear program they possess these conventional weapons that are solely designed to attack America and attack Americans, if they so choose to do so.  These things have to be addressed.

The negotiations tomorrow and the talks tomorrow will be largely focused on the nuclear program, and we hope progress can be made because that’s the President’s preference: to make progress on the diplomatic front.  But it’s also important to remember that Iran refuses – refuses – to talk about ballistic missiles to us or to anyone, and that’s a big problem.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, last night the President said that Iran was working to build missiles that will soon reach the U.S.  Can you clarify if the U.S. assessment is Iran is actively seeking that capability?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Oh, yeah.  Yeah.  So in —

QUESTION:  And how far away are they from achieving it?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I won’t speculate as to how far away they are, but they are certainly trying to achieve – and this is not new.  They are trying to achieve intercontinental ballistic missiles.  For example, you’ve seen them try to launch satellites into space.  You’ve seen them increasing the range of the missiles they have now, and clearly they are headed in the pathway to one day being able to develop weapons that could reach the continental U.S.  They already possess weapons that could reach much of Europe already now as we speak.  And the ranges continue to grow every single year exponentially, which is amazing to me.  For a country that’s facing sanctions, whose economy is in tatters, whose people are suffering – and somehow they still find the money to invest in missiles of greater and greater capacity every year.  This is an unsustainable threat.

QUESTION:  There was a DIA assessment I think that said that if they chose to pursue this, that they would be able to develop these missiles that could reach the U.S. by 2035.  Is that still —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I won’t comment on assessments or anything that the Intelligence Community says.  Suffice it to say that it’s a threat.  We can see that it’s possible.  We saw North Korea do it.  We’ve seen other countries do it in the past.  And we would view that as a grave threat to the United States.  But already now they possess missiles that threaten American interests.  As we speak, they possess thousands of short-range ballistic missiles that can reach U.S. bases located in the region – in Saudi Arabia, in Qatar, in Bahrain, in the United Arab Emirates, throughout the region.  It’s a threat that exists already.

QUESTION:  Can I ask on Cuba?

QUESTION:  Is tomorrow the last chance for diplomacy, Mr. Secretary?  If you don’t reach a deal with Iran, is diplomacy off the table? 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I don’t think diplomacy is ever off the table.  The President wants diplomatic solutions.  He prefers them.  He prefers them greatly.  He wants that more than anything else.  So I wouldn’t characterize tomorrow as anything other than the latest in a set of conversations, and hopefully they’re productive.  But eventually, we’ll have to have conversations about more than just the nuclear program; but if you can’t even make progress on the nuclear program, it’s going to be hard to make progress on the ballistic missiles as well.  So I wouldn’t characterize tomorrow as anything other than the next opportunity to talk.

QUESTION:  Could you just clarify the President?  The President said Iran just has to say we will never have a nuclear weapon.  Is the question really them saying we will never have a weapon, or  is it saying we will never enrich?  They say they reserve the right to enrich uranium but they’re not going towards weapons.  So what (inaudible)?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, let me put it to you this way.  Let me put it to you this way.  If, in fact, what you’re interested in is a peaceful nuclear program, you can do it like most of the countries in the world do it, which is they have above-ground reactors and they import the fuel.  We have deals now to do that with countries.  If what they really wanted was energy from it, they could do small modular reactors, which is something that’s quite affordable and achievable for a lot of countries.

But when you say we want to enrich and we want to enrich deep underground, and you have a history in the past of enriching to 20 and even 60 percent, plus you’re building missiles that could potentially carry warheads, that doesn’t sound to me like someone who’s a country that’s not interested in building weapons.  So it’s not just the rhetorical; it’s the actions to back the rhetoric, which we simply haven’t seen.

QUESTION:  So you’re looking for a commitment to zero enrichment, just to paraphrase?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, they don’t need to enrich in order to have nuclear energy.  They don’t need nuclear energy, by the way.  They have plenty of natural gas.  But if they wanted nuclear energy, they could have it the way other countries have it.  The fact that they refuse to get it that way, the fact that they insist not just on enrichment but on enrichment in locations located inside of mountains, is – I think you would have to lack common sense to not know what that means or what that could mean.

QUESTION:  Democrats came away from the group of eight meeting kind of sounding alarmed by what they heard and saying that you guys needed to make more of a case for why the U.S. should go to war with Iran.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I don’t comment about Gang of Eight briefings.  There were various topics that were discussed.  I don’t comment on them.  That’s why we do them in a classified setting.  I don’t think anyone should leave those meetings talking about anything or even characterizing them.  At least that’s the way we handled it when I was on the Gang of Eight.  Perhaps that’s changed.

But generally, that said, just outside of the Gang of Eight briefing – yeah, what’s happening with Iran is very concerning.  It’s been very concerning for 40-something years, and it’s become increasingly concerning as they have increased their weapon capabilities.  So I don’t think that’s a mystery to anyone that Iran is of deep concern.  Multiple administrations have confronted this threat.  The threat has simply grown over time in terms of how they have been able to extend the reach of their missiles.  And their insistence – their blind insistence – on being able to enrich and enrich in these hidden locations make you even more uncomfortable.  But look, let’s see what happens tomorrow.  Maybe something good will come of it.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, can you confirm or comment on reports that you’ve spoken with Raúl Castro’s grandson?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I won’t comment on any conversations we’ve had.  Suffice it to say that the United States is always prepared for – prepared to talk to officials from any government that have information to share with us or viewpoints they want to share with the United States, and that’s my job to do that.  So whether it’s someone in Cuba or potentially one day someone in North Korea or right now in Iran, we are always open to listen.  That’s different from a negotiation obviously, but we’re prepared to listen to viewpoints that other people say. 

Cuba is a country located 90 miles off the coast of the United States.  It has a very severe and catastrophic economic crisis on its hands.  And if someone in their system has information to share with us about changes they’re open to making or moves they’re prepared to accept, we would certainly listen to that.  And I would probably do that not in a setting in front of the media because I think it would be more productive that way, but ultimately actions will be important in something like that.

QUESTION:  I mean, can they negotiate a new system in Cuba?  I mean, are you hopeful that there might be reformists inside who could have (inaudible)?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I mean, the status quo is unsustainable.  I had – we had a meeting here today with all the leaders of CARICOM, and it was one of the points I raised, and I think virtually everyone in the room agreed that Cuba’s status quo is unacceptable.  Cuba needs to change.  It needs to change.  And it doesn’t have to change all at once.  It doesn’t have to change from one day to the next.  Everyone is mature and realistic here.  We’re seeing that process play out, for example, in Venezuela.  Many in the – many of the countries represented at the CARICOM conference today were themselves countries that went through transitions at some point in their history.

But Cuba needs to change.  It needs to change dramatically because it is the only chance that it has to improve the quality of life for its people and not lose 15 percent of its population since 2021.  Fifteen percent of the people of Cuba have left since 2021.  That is not a system that’s working.  That’s a system that’s in collapse, and they need to make dramatic reforms.  And if they want to make those dramatic reforms that open the space for both economic and eventually political freedom for the people of Cuba, obviously the United States would love to see that.  We’d be helpful.  If they decide they’re going to dig in and just continue forward, then I think they’re going to continue to experience failure and the people of the country are going to continue to suffer.  It’ll be the regime’s fault.

QUESTION:  Going back to Iran for a moment, President Trump said that the nuclear sites have been obliterated under Operation Midnight Hammer.  What has changed since then?  Have you seen movement of material?  What is it that (inaudible)?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No, you have.  There’s been reporting.  I don’t know if your outlet has, but others have reported on it.  I think it’s pretty clear that they have not abandoned their desire to enrich again.  They’ve not abandoned that.  In fact, they have publicly insisted that they have the right to do so.  I won’t comment on the intelligence picture, but I can tell you that there’s reason to believe that they, given the opportunity, will return to enrichment one day.  They’ve been set back, so it’s – but they can – if they try to rebuild it, we’ll have to address it.  And – because that was made clear to them.

QUESTION:  And you said earlier this month that in order to achieve a meaningful agreement, that there would have to be discussion of ballistic missiles, of their actions —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah, I said that here today again, now.

QUESTION:  Yeah.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I said it again.  It’s important.  These ballistic missiles are a grave threat.

QUESTION:  So is there any way to walk away from Thursday’s meetings with something that is meaningful enough to stop U.S. military action?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, that’s for the President – the President made no decision on that, so it’s – I don’t know if Thursday’s the key date for that.  I think progress needs to be made.  It would be good if progress was made on Thursday.  And I would say that the Iranian insistence on not discussing ballistic missiles is a big, big problem.  I’ll leave it at that.

QUESTION:  You talked about elections in Venezuela.  I wonder what you’re thinking of timeline for that.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I don’t know if we’d set an artificial timeline.  The important part is just if you think about it logically, it’s hard to have elections where many of the people that may want to participate in have been in jail or are still overseas.  So I do think that as we enter this recovery phase, which we think – we – I think we’ve done a pretty good job working with the interim authorities on the stabilization phase.  You have not seen mass migration, you have not seen civil war, you have not seen violence; on the contrary, you’ve seen some real stability on the ground and you’ve seen a growing in productivity among their key sectors.

I think now you enter into this – we’re increasingly entering into this phase of recovery, and part of that is a national reconciliation.  So there have been very positive steps taken.  Hundreds of political prisoners have been freed, the infamous prison Helicoide has been closed.  You are – those are all very positive.  You’ve seen an amnesty law pass.  There was actually a real debate in their national assembly over the law and even amendments filed to it and so forth.  These are all very positive.  They’re not enough, but they’re positive, and I think that begins to create the groundwork for civil society there to function.

To have elections, you need to have a number of factors.  You need to have political parties that are formed.  You need to have political movements.  You need to have a media environment that allows people to campaign and get the word out.  All of these things have to be in place, and you need to have candidates that can run.  And so I think it begins by getting – a lot of the people that were in jail were in jail because they were candidates or they – because they were supporting candidates or because they were involved in their politics.  So you have to have a real civil, political society in order to have elections, and that begins, in the case of Venezuela, by the amnesty law, by the freeing of political prisoners, and by the ability of Venezuelans abroad who want to participate in the country’s political life to return.

There are other factors that people need to consider.  As an example, in order to have a real election, you will need to account for how Venezuelans living abroad can vote.  Are there consulates set up where they can come in and vote?  Because those were big polling places in the past, and in fact, Chávez prohibited consular voting at one point, and so did Maduro, because they were losing those votes big time, as you can imagine.

So there – there is a pathway here.  We’re not even nine weeks since Maduro’s capture.  I think life in Venezuela today is not good enough, but it is substantially better than it was nine weeks ago, where this could have gone in a very different direction.  And frankly, a lot of the so-called experts on many of your outlets were predicting this was going to be catastrophic and the whole thing’s going to fall apart and it’s going to descend into chaos, and that has not happened.  But we’ve got to key on top of it.  It has to keep moving in this direction.  The trend line is good, but it needs to be sustained.  This is still a process of recovery, and then you can move into that period of transition to something.

In the end, here’s the bottom line:  For Venezuela to achieve its potential, which means to attract the kind of investment it needs to truly rebuild its economy and achieve its potential, it will need to legitimize its government through an election.  They know that.

QUESTION:  Mr. – Mr. Secretary, yesterday was the four-year anniversary of Russia’s war against Ukraine.  There has been very little progress in ending that war.  This week it’s, we’ve been told, only bilateral discussions between the U.S. and Ukraine.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yes.

QUESTION:  Is there a point in which the administration will change tacks and increase pressure on Moscow, as has been called by Kyiv and others in the —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, the administration has continued to increase pressure on Moscow.  As an example, the President levied additional sanctions late last year on their oil company, on Rosneft.  The administration continues to sell weaponry to Ukraine.  We don’t sell weapons to Russia and we don’t sanction Ukraine.  We – the President values the fact that he is the only global leader that has any chance in the world of bringing these two sides together at a negotiating table.  We’re the only country or only entity on the planet that’s been able to achieve having Russian negotiators and Ukrainian negotiators sit at a table and talk to one another.

And for a war as horrible as this, this is a very important position for us to be in that we don’t want to forfeit because if we walk away or if we foreclose that, then who’s going to do it?  The United Nations isn’t going to do it.  France isn’t going to do it.  The EU isn’t going to do it.  The Russians won’t even speak to them.  So we don’t want to walk away from – we know that, at the end, that war in Ukraine does not have a military solution.  That war will be settled through a negotiation, and right now we are the only country in the world that can be a catalyst for negotiation.  If we forfeit that role, no one else can do it.

That said, do I believe the President’s patience is infinite?  I do not.  But I am not going to forecast for you when that runs out or at what point he decides not to do it any longer.  I can tell you, and I think you’ve heard him express, a deep frustration that this has not come to an end, because he sees it as a completely stupid and senseless war in which every single week 7-8,000 soldiers are being killed on the battlefield, numbers that would be staggering in the context of any other conflict in the world.  And that’s what’s happening, and it’s doing tremendous damage to Russia, but it’s also doing generational damage in Ukraine – every day that goes by, more and more destruction, and it could take a generation for that country to rebuild, not to mention the suffering of its people that they’ve gone through this winter has been horrific.

QUESTION:  But why is that frustration equally levied at both Zelenskyy and Putin when it is Moscow that is continuing to strike civilian infrastructure, civilians throughout Ukraine?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I – yeah.  No, I go back to the point I made to you, and that is that the reason why Ukraine’s been able to sustain this war is because the United States has provided and sold weapons to Ukraine and has also provided them with intelligence assistance and the like, and also we’ve imposed sanctions on Russia.  We’ve not imposed sanctions on Ukraine.  So in that sense, the U.S. has not been stagnant here with regards to it.

I think the President’s frustration is generalized, and you’ve seen that expressed from time to time.  He just doesn’t understand how two countries in such a vicious, horrific, and bloody war cannot reach an understanding on how to end it.  He wants to see it ended, and he’s done a lot. He’s invested a lot of political capital in this.  I mean, the easiest thing to have done is to just continue with the previous policies that was just ending into a protracted conflict.  The President’s invested a tremendous amount of political capital.  Steve has traveled I don’t know how many times on his own dime all over the world to try to bring this to a conclusion.  So we have a lot of people that have invested a lot of energy into this, and I think we’ve made progress on narrowing the issues, but I think some issues still remain that are very, very difficult, unfortunately.

QUESTION:  Secretary, the President has a trip to China scheduled the end of —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  March something to early April?

QUESTION:  Yes.  And last night at the State of the Union was the first time in two decades that China wasn’t expressly mentioned in the speech.  What’s your view on the competition for the U.S. with China and China’s access to things like cutting-edge Nvidia chips or other AI chips and things?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  So I think we’ve reached a point at least of sort of strategic stability in the relationship.  I think both countries concluded that having an all-out trade – global trade war between the United States and China would be deeply damaging to both sides and to the world.  There remain issues of disagreement.  There remain issues that we know in the long term are going to have to be confronted and could be irritants in our relationship.  We’ve not been bashful in saying that we don’t think the – we don’t think it’s sustainable to live in a world where we depend on some country for 90 percent of anything, whether it’s supply chains or critical minerals or the like, pharmaceuticals and the like.  And we have every intention of doing everything we can to ensure that our critical supply chains are diversified.  And that will continue to be a point of contention, I imagine, but that’s something that’s critical to our national security and that we’ve been working on and will continue to work on. 

I also think that from a responsibility standpoint, the two largest economies in the world who both possess nuclear arsenals have to be able to talk, have to be able to communicate, and have to be able to interact.  It would be reckless and irresponsible for the United States and China not to have meetings, not to have conversations, and not to have opportunities to – for our leaders to interact with one another.  I just think it’s – I don’t know anybody who thinks that’s a good idea.  It would be foolish, and frankly, dangerous for us not to have a relationship with them, even as our areas of conflict and disagreement remain. 

QUESTION:  Are you worried, though, about technology theft or that they’re getting access to chips that export controls should be preventing them from getting access to – Blackwells and other things —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  And every agreement the President’s made has all gone through a full national security review to minimize and mitigate against that.  And obviously, no measures are perfect.  They’ve also been developing their own native capabilities, oftentimes we would imagine by information they’ve garnered from other countries.  These are all well-established things, but as far as the advances they have made – but yeah.  I mean, that’s what will continue to be part of the dynamic in this relationship and in balancing all of this out. 

But as I said, I mean, we’ve reached the point of sort of strategic stability.  Both countries see value in that.  We’ve gotten them to schedule more fentanyl precursors, which is important.  Now we need them to act on it.  We’ve seen them increase their purchase of American agricultural goods, but there are other areas where we wish they were doing more, and we’ll continue to press on those.

QUESTION:  Are they going to take you off the sanctions list so you can go?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  We’ll find out when I go.  (Laughter.)

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, there were talks in Geneva this week between officials who deal with nuclear weapons from the United States, China, and Russia.  I wondered if you could characterize how those talks – what came of those talks, and whether there’s any sign that Chinese officials would consider some kind of trilateral nuclear nonproliferation treaty like the President has suggested he is seeking.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, we think ultimately, in the 21st century, for there to be a true arms control agreement it has to involve China.  Their stockpiles have increased dramatically. Their position, that they would argue that they’re still way behind the United States and Russia, we think that’s irrelevant.  They certainly have the capacity to catch up and are well on their way to doing so.  So we believe, the President strongly believes, that any – for any sort of agreement, a nuclear agreement, in the 21st century to be legitimate, it has to involve these three countries, the United States, Russia, and China, and we’re going to continue to explore their willingness to do so.

They have publicly said they are not willing to do it.  I’m sure you’ve heard them say that.  I’m sure they’ve reiterated it, and I know they restated that again very recently.  But we’ll continue to press on it because we think it would be good for the world if we could reach such an agreement.  The President would be in favor of that if we could do it, but it has to be all three countries.

QUESTION:  But how do you compel China to – if they’re saying it’s just not in our interest —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, then, we may not have a deal.  We can’t compel them.  They’ll just have to argue to the world why they need to keep building nuclear weapons, and that’s a sovereign choice that they can make.  You can’t compel anyone to make a deal.  You can certainly create incentives for them to do it, but you can’t compel it.  So we could pressure, we can guide, we can cajole, but we can’t compel.  So ultimately, if they want to make an arms deal with the three countries, we’re prepared to talk about it.  If they don’t want to do it, then we won’t have one.  We’ll just keep doing what we need to do. 

QUESTION:  Could I ask you about Haiti, your talks with the – with Prime Minister Fils-Aimé?  What – what’s the (inaudible) status there?  I mean, what are you looking for from CARICOM to – or from the prime minister?  Are you optimistic?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, yeah.  I mean, a couple things.  We had a rough patch there early this year when the transitional council said they weren’t going to leave.  We addressed it forcefully; they left.  So we’re where we need to be now.  The gang suppression force is building.  We are very happy with the commitments we have gotten in terms of personnel.  We feel like we’ve got more commitments than we have spots available for that gang suppression force.  We need to do a little bit better on the funding.  We’re still looking for donor countries to fill in gaps, but we think we’ll get there.  It’ll be under UN auspices, which is important for the UN to show that it can solve a problem. 

And the goal of this entity would be to get on the ground and allow the Haitian authorities to hold territory from these gangs so you can have a baseline of stability that allows you to do two things: number one, rebuild the country without having to go through roads that have checkpoints run by these criminal gangs; and number two, hold elections, perhaps later this year.  Maybe not in the middle of the summer when it’s rainy season, but later this year.  That’s the desire they have as well.  It’s hard to hold elections, however, when you still have gangs conducting checkpoints, and those aren’t going to be real elections. 

So that’s why the gang suppression force is so important and why I’m very proud of the role the U.S. played in forming that.  And I’m very happy at the role that countries like Canada and others have played.  They’re very forceful in helping us with this.  There are a couple other countries we wish would step up and do a little more, and we’ll be talking about that.  I’ve raised it at every G7 meeting and we’ve gotten good response.  Japan has now made contributions, and others.  We need to get a few more donor countries up to the plate here.

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary, in your meetings today, obviously a lot of these islands here have had good relations with Cuba.  A lot of them have had these medical missions that they rely on.  They send their own doctors, local doctors, to be trained in Cuban medical schools.  Is this something that came up today?  It obviously has been something that the U.S. is pressuring them to move away from.  But are there alternatives to a place like St. Kitts that is so small?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah.  Well, we’re providing alternatives to them.  We have medical missions that can provide an alternative.  And in fact, we’ve met some of those folks in the past.  The other thing with the Cuban medical program is the fact that these people are working – basically, it’s human trafficking.  I mean, they’re barely even being paid.  Their freedom of movement is tightly restricted.  And we want these countries to understand that that’s what they’re participating in.  They’re paying this money to the regime, which collects the funds.  They get paid for these medical missions.  Virtually none of this money goes to these doctors, who are in many cases – we think it’s like a version of human trafficking, labor trafficking, and we think it’s wrong.  Now, you’ve seen other countries that have decided, I’ll just pay the doctors directly, but the Cubans won’t allow it. 

So again, that’s sort of the point we’ve raised with them.  I mean, we’re not going to cut diplomatic relations with countries in the Caribbean because they don’t agree with us on it, but we make a forceful point about it, and it came up today.  It wasn’t the feature of the conversation, but it came up.

All right, let’s get out of here.  One more.  Are you guys all traveling?

QUESTION:  Yeah.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  All of you?

QUESTION:  Not all.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Not all, okay.

QUESTION:  Coming back to Cuba —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Sorry, the plane ain’t that big.  (Laughter.)

QUESTION:  To come back to Cuba, some of the countries you met today have raised concerns about spillover and instability caused by the humanitarian crisis there.  Is the move today on oil sales a sort of recognition that the humanitarian crisis is getting out of hand, that the U.S. blocking oil shipments —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  No – I mean, no, first of all, forget about today.  The humanitarian crisis is getting out of hand because the Cubans don’t know how to run an economy.  They’re incompetent.  They have a military-controlled holding company named GAESA which controls 40 percent of their GDP, and none of the money that that company has generated flows to the coffers of the government.  None of that money goes to schools.  None of that money goes to roads.  None of that money goes to feeding the population.  You have a country that has fertile farmland that imports sugar.  This was one of the world’s leading exporters of sugar; now they import sugar.  They import almost all their food.  They – it’s a dysfunction.  It’s just not even an economy.  It’s a total dysfunction.  That’s their fault.

As far as spillover effect, they’re not more concerned than we are.  We’re 90 miles away, and the U.S. has experienced mass migration from Cuba in the past, certainly in the early ’90s with the rafter crisis, but as recently as 2021 and ’22 we were having people show up in the Florida Keys and stranded in the Bahamas.  So we don’t want to see it, either.  And ultimately, as far as the move today with oil, this is existing – the law allows us to do business like fuel and even telecommunications with the Cuban private sector.  The problem is the Cuban private sector is very small.  If they want to open the gates and allow the Cuban private sector – independent of the military, independent of the government – to grow, that solution is there.

What the Cuban people should know is this: that if they are hungry and they are suffering, it’s not because we’re not prepared to help them.  We are.  It’s that the people standing in the way of us helping them is the regime, is the Communist Party. That’s who’s standing in the way.  If they move out of the way, we’re more than happy to work with individual Cubans so they can have an opportunity to feed their families and build their economy.  But we are not the impediment.  They are.

All right.  Let’s go home.