Secretary of state mike pompeo discussed Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Relations at a Virtual Summit posted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He talked about the west relationship with china, warning about that countries influence and their handling of the coronavirus pandemic and treatment of hong kong. Good morning. Good afternoon from brussels. Welcome back to 2020 and today we are very pleased and honored to welcome u. S. Secretary of state Michael Pompeo for a special conversation. We hosted the secretary in brussels and we are pleased to have him back again for what is sure to be a closely watched conversation on typical challenges facing less than Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Relations. As always, let me say a word of thanks to our part Founding Partners in the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and deloitte and supporting Knowledge Partners we are grateful to all of you. Let me say a very special thank you to u. S. Missions European Union and all three for their consistent partnership and support. Let me also say a word about our forum today for secretary will make brief remarks to begin with and we will turn this over for a conversation to [inaudible] whose germany correspondent for the wall street journal. He will have that conversation with the secretary and then secretary has agreed to take a few questions from our virtual audience as well. Once again, mr. Secretary, thank you for being with us in brussels and thanks to all of you for joining and over to you. Welcome, secretary of state. Welcome to our viewers. I think we will just let the secretary of state after offer opening remarks, what is on his mind and then we will proceed with the discussion and will take some questions from the audience for secretary of state. Please, go ahead. In queue. And, thank you for inviting me to be with you all. Sorry we cannot do this in person britt hello to everyone who logged in to watch today. A few brief remarks. Eighteen moons ago in brussels i made the case to you all that multilateral institutions are in demand of themselves and we have to honestly assess what they do or dont achieve. We have to see them for what they are not what we wish them to be. I dont think that was a favorite among the European Press and you should know that privately any of our counterparts told me they agreed with me. They are realistic about the state of these institutions and they too want to fix them. Im sorry to see more realism on the continent as it relates to the threat of the communist party in china. We should address that challenge together as transatlantic partners have met many challenges and that is what i want to focus on today. First data, we need to acknowledge what is happening and i spoke this month with Foreign Ministers and last friday at an audience in copenhagen in both places i listed to a lot of feedback about the communist party and i laid out a series of facts and i talked about the Peoples Liberation army for the military action and that included congressional at the South China Sea, Deadly Border confrontation in india and opaque Nuclear Program and threats against peaceful neighbors. No one the ccp has broken multiple national commitments, wto, United Nations and the people of hong kong. I talked about the predatory economic practices such as trying to force nations to do business with huawei and an arm of the chinese, and his Party Surveillance state. They talked about many of its violations of european property including its [inaudible] of hsbc. We talked about beijings human rights abuses which continue to shock us all. Just the facts but they lead to a conclusion in our judgment and the United States is not forcing europe to choose between the free world or chinas authoritarian vision china is making the choice between rita and democracy. In the United States we are slow to recognize this reality of the rising authoritarian regime and the authority [inaudible] europe was slow to but the ccps coverup of the coronavirus an outbreak that began in wuhan, china which is now killed tens of thousands of our people and hundreds of thousands of people across the world and it has accelerated everyones awakening. Europeans like americans starting to find their voice in the commission and the external Action Service last spring i did buy china as a systemic rival and very important acknowledgment. We will let the weightings National Threat identified china as a potential thought for the first time in 2019 and did so here again in 2020. The g7 is targeting hong kong and i greatly appreciated how the u. S. Called out china for the Disinformation Campaign surrounding a endemic. Its also not words known on [inaudible] to crush hong kong economy and the Czech Republic has led the charge in to adopt prince wells secure networks, cleaning networks and 5g and my friend secretary welcome call to nato to make china a greater part of the alliances focus. Clearly, there is a transatlantic awakening to the truth about what is happening. Concerns are rightly growing about the c pcps exploitation of multilateral bodies to give you a single example, chinese leaders in the international tillich medications union and the International CivilAviation Organization have leveraged their position to advance chinas narrow interests and certainly the United States and many of our friends have multilateralism but we can always agree these institutions should be rooted in Democratic Values due to their missions and collect the interests of all member states. Look, weve done work the spring and weve led a global [inaudible] knots on behalf of china. The transatlantic world has thrived like no other part of the world since world war ii and so much in part because our countries attacked intellectual property right i want to thank our friends in the uk with whom we work closely for their efforts at securing that important and good outcome. We should keep protecting multilateral bodies and transatlantic partners for my message today in the message today is we have to Work Together to continue the transatlantic awakening to the china challenge and in the interest of preserving our free society, and our future. Particularly in our business communities they make money in china to say we must call attention and simply accept increasingly belligerent ccp. That is nonsense. We dont accept that argument for it there is no comp or mice between freedom and authoritarianism. I dont want the future to be shaped by the ccp and i wager no one on this call wants that either. To that end today i am pleased to announce the United States has accepted high representative proposal to create a u. S. Eu dialogue on china and im excited about this. A new mechanism for discussing the conservatives [inaudible] i look forward to kicking that off with representative [inaudible] as soon as we can pull it together it my invitation is to defend these values in our time but they may shape the world for the good of the future just as theyve done in the past. We will defend these values together and with on that im happy to take questions from you and others as well. Thank you very much. An exciting piece of news and i know that [inaudible] how will it work . Could you tell me what dialogue you and indirectly it will be linked by brussels to include bilateral communications as well. How will that work . Youre right, its new in the sense that the proposal came from my representative in the last handful of days but you should know that we were very interested and we put a big team and working together to begin to outline the shape of what this would look like and im very hopeful i will be able to travel to europe here in just a handful of weeks to go kick that off but we will certainly start at the senior level and we will outline the mission sets and while i dont know exactly what shape im confident we will set up a structure that will enhance our collective shared knowledge and our collective responses to ensure we protect freedom for every democracy on both sides of the atlantic. Is there a timeframe with this . Where do you expect it to kick off and start operating . I am hopeful because its real. Just in the next few weeks. Its a little more difficult because we are stuck in terms of our capacity to travel but i would expect that we will have a team in place identified in the next weeks and then well work can begin. It is something that has a starting point that we want to kick off but i dont know theres an endpoint that will go on for extended time because the challenge that we are trying to solve for is how to preserve freedom and democracy in the atlantic and protect our citizens. [inaudible] knowing the European Union, i myself have cover this for over a decade and i know that these people love a good committee. Are you considering that this might bog down the real action on the pressing challenges and throw out this lengthy debate which will become technical and so on and the eu loved these things . It has shown in the past a tendency towards more discussion and little action. Do you fear that could be the outcome . Im realistic and you should know that people in america love committees and government is not immune to that bureaucratic phenomenon. We are guilty to of that from time to time. Very helpful that this will be different from that. Indeed what i am hopeful is well, lets back up. The first thing we all have to do is make sure we have corrective data separate cant take collective action unless you have a shared understanding of the core facts. I dont think anyone would dispute what i just laid out. We should build on that. Once we are confident we have a shared understanding of the threat that is posed by the Chinese Communist party then we can begin to take action. There is a lot of work that has been done in information and sharing that has taken place but what we are counting on is this dialogue and it will the resistance or as you described an outlet for energy with no action or rather a catalyst for action. On our side we will work to make sure we have a shared threat of practices and then a proposals were things that we can do together. We know known that everyone will share and there will be 2000 different views and this was through many issues but i believe that by doing this we can perform a collective judgment and find a set of places where there is a significant overlap and then begin to execute the correct responses and the same way Transatlantic Alliances have always preserve democracy and freedom and a set of collective responses that will preserve and protect those freedoms that the chinese Commons Party wants to undermine each and every day. I think and outlining this you make two very important points in that there is an awakening in europe about the rule of china and how it shapes the global order today and a lot of people are making a lot of money in china and there is this tension between these two awareness and two issues. China is responsible for much of the growth in the European Union, especially in its biggest economy in germany. I remember last year when President Trump was at the height of the negotiation with china over a new trade arrangement and they trump traveled to beijing with ceos in tow and it was seen in some american circles as trying to undermine the american argument when europe is doing business with china and trying to reconfigure the old relationships. Mr. Burrell himself said quite recently he [inaudible] he explained the Foreign Policy as we have it our way and one will be the chinese way but we will try to travel the line and want you are saying is basically i thank you cant do that. At one point you have to wake up to the reality of things. If europe continues to attempt [inaudible] as the divide widens and people fear that its happening over covid and so on is there a contingency plan on your behalf on half behalf of the administration . We have big trade relationships with china too. The markets of a billion plus people and that is important to the United States economy. It is not necessarily an either or what is required is that the rule set on which that trading gauges has to be reciprocal and house to be fair for europeans notice this to, make no mistake, chinese has stolen a lot of german secrets and the german people are worse off for that. Billions of dollars of little extra property stolen by the chinese, and his Party Outside of germany and hardworking german people created that intellectual property and worked hard and build that, protected that system in the chinese came and stole it. Theyve done it all across europe and they continue to do it. They are doing it in the United States as well. That is the place where we can work very closely together and it is not they have to choose business over confronting the Chinese Communist party but indeed confronting the chinese, and his party creates opportunity for increased Wealth Creation in europe and in the United States of america. The last thing to say about this is we are called that china needs markets to print this is what President Trump figured out that frankly no president has been willing to undertake before was china needs access to western knowledge, western knowhow and we need to make sure they do that through the system of rules based order and [inaudible] so, i think the people of europe will demand the same thing that the people of the United States of america are demanding. We no longer allow the Chinese Communist party to dictate the rules, terms and conditions of those relationships when they are not fair and equitable to our people. That is what President Trump has been seeking and im confident that is what the european leaders will seek from their leaders as well. Thank you. It goes beyond the issue of china and move on to other issues which is crucial for the Transatlantic Relationship. You yourself have served during the cold war in germany when i think there were around 300 u. S. Troops on the ground there and President Trump has announced he will pull out around 10000 of those troops because of a number of issues including germanys economic ties and the energy with russia and germanys failure to reach 2 budget payments for nato et cetera. What do you how to explain this strategic decision because we know that u. S. Strategy to pending on everyone else has concluded in 2014 russia did pose a threat to europe and the United States interests. How would you explain this to your counterparts in europe who were surprised, i think, we even saw the polish president do that yesterday who visited the white house in the country stands to gain from this in terms of getting troops over to poland and he himself pleaded with the president not to do this and not to pull the troops out. What would be your strategic Analysis Year and how does this help the american interests . Several thoughts. First, we do consider russia to be a serious threat, spending 1 of your gdp on defense as germany does acknowledge is that they may well not taken a serious threat as the United States of america takes it. But they need to. They need to live up to the commitment that the United States made on their behalf and that the commitment that the eu floated through them and equipment to germany made that it would [inaudible] and it has chosen not to do that. The president has been clear that that doesnt show the resolve that Vladimir Putin needs to see from germany. You reference briefly where your money will now have a significant piece of their energy connected to russian in such a deep and fundamental way that Vladimir Putin who appears to now will be in power for quite some time to have the capacity to have a, capacity to inflict real cost of germany if he chose to do so or threaten to do so. As for our decision President Trump has spoken to secretary esper will be in london today and brussels tomorrow and he will talk about our plan and how we are thinking about delivering it but you should understand this and i hope that our European Partners will understand this as well that when you ultimately see we conclude how we ultimately deliver on the statement the president has made that they are aimed squarely at what we believe to be democracies, fundamental interests. Americas most fundamental interest. It has been a long time since there has been a Strategic Review of our poor posture all across the w