Secretary Antony J. Blinken With Jorge Ramos of TelevisaUnivision & More News Here

QUESTION:  Gracias.  Thank you a lot for speaking to us.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you, Jorge.  It’s good to be with you.

QUESTION:  So the truth that 9 nations aren’t right here, is that difficult or questioning U.S. management within the hemisphere?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, first, really, these nations are right here.  For instance, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua – I met with representatives from all three nations from civil society, additionally human rights activists and defenders.  I might argue that they’re as – and possibly extra consultant of their respective peoples than the governments or regimes in place.  So they’re absolutely right here, they’re a vibrant presence on the summit, and that’s necessary.

Other nations are right here represented at completely different ranges, however we’ve got greater than 60 delegations.  We have 22, I feel, heads of authorities, heads of state.  And what we’re already seeing is an extremely vibrant dialog the place individuals are centered not on who’s right here or who just isn’t right here, at what degree, however they’re centered on what we’re really doing on the summit to reply some of the issues that folks throughout our hemispheres are going through, and the place we have to work collectively to resolve them.

QUESTION:  So let me insist on this:  So the truth that clearly the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, they’re not right here, but additionally neither are the presidents of Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Bolivia.  Are we seeing the creation of an anti-democratic bloc within the hemisphere?  Is {that a} concern to you?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  First, Jorge, relating to Mexico, we’ve had and I’ve had intensive conversations with my good friend and counterpart Marcelo Ebrard.  The President may be very a lot wanting ahead to receiving President López Obrador on the White House in July.  We have a really deep and ongoing collaboration on just about all the problems that concern each our nations.  We have a distinction of opinion on this explicit query of attendance on the summit.  Typically, the hosts make these choices.  We determined that it was necessary to give attention to the underlying democratic rules that convey our hemisphere collectively.  Back in 2001 on the Summit of the Americas, that gave rise to the Democratic Charter, and we wish to make it possible for nations proceed to look to these rules.

But we’re seeing – we’ve got – there’s an extremely vibrant hemisphere.  We have democracies of the left, of the appropriate, middle, however right here is the widespread denominator:  All of these governments are motivated by a have to exhibit that they’ll ship successfully for his or her folks.  And I feel there’s a rising consciousness that almost all of the issues that we face and challenges we face and alternatives we face on COVID, on local weather, on managing expertise, which is defining so many of our lives, on coping with migration, we’ve got to sort out them collectively if we wish to get outcomes.  And that’s the spirit that I’m discovering animates these conversations.

QUESTION:  Let me ask about Mexico.  Senator Menendez – I don’t know in the event you noticed his tweet.  He lately stated that López Obrador mainly tried to blackmail President Biden into insisting nations that aren’t democratic be invited to the summit.  Did President López Obrador blackmail President Biden?  Did he attempt?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  We had a really professional distinction of opinion on this.  We’ve had many conversations about it in excellent religion.  And as I stated, President Biden is wanting ahead to seeing President López Obrador on the White House in July.

QUESTION:  In a tweet, you stated you have been involved in regards to the killing of Mexican journalists. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, he says that he’s involved that drug cartels are controlling elements of Mexican territory.  Is the López Obrador authorities a safety concern for the U.S.?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  When it involves journalists, let me say two issues.  First, broadly, we’ve got deep considerations about threats being posed to journalists all through our hemisphere.  In the primary half of this 12 months alone, 17 journalists have been killed only for doing their jobs.  There could also be extra, however we are able to doc 17.  So this has been an necessary half of the conferences that we’ve already had and can proceed to have:  What measures can we put in place to guard and help media, impartial journalists doing their job in our hemisphere?  And there’s so much to be stated about that, however concrete steps are being taken.

In Mexico itself, President López Obrador has vowed to take even stronger preventive motion to make it possible for journalists are protected up entrance, to attempt to get at some of the foundation causes which can be sparking some of the violence being directed at journalists.  Mostly it’s as a result of they’re attempting to show prison gangs, corruption, drug trafficking.  So we’ll work intently with Mexico and some other nation within the hemisphere on this as a result of we’re decided to guard journalists.  This is – this free, impartial media are on the coronary heart of our democracies.  If we lose that, we lose our democracies.

QUESTION:  And let me simply say that it’s extremely harmful to be a journalist —

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Yeah.

QUESTION:  — in Mexico.  Let me end with this.  I wish to perceive your philosophy proper now between the U.S. and dictatorships.  In 2016, President Obama went to Cuba and he believed that extra contacts, extra tourism, extra diplomacy would promote democracy within the area.  You and President Biden appear to be going a distinct means, in all probability extra sanctions, isolating Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.  What’s the appropriate means?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  These are difficult, difficult questions that we face for a lot of, a few years.  Our focus in every of these nations is to take the steps we imagine are only in advancing and definitely defending the human rights of folks in these nations and their democratic aspirations, that are shared throughout all of these nations.

In the case of Cuba, we had the protests in July of final 12 months, and we noticed the extremely repressive response of the federal government: placing minors in jail, sentences of 30 to 35 years, most lately artists who’re variety of icons for these protesting final July being threatened now with sentences of ten and 6 years for merely expressing their views artistically.  So we’ve seen that.  We assume it’s crucial to face up for individuals who are being repressed, persecuted.  At the identical time, we’ve taken some restricted steps – in phrases of household reunifications, in phrases of journey, remittances, in phrases of investing in entrepreneurs – that we predict may also assist advance the Cuban folks in assembly their very own aspirations.

QUESTION:  Yeah, however possibly the query is:  If the U.S. is treating different dictatorships the identical means, why deal with Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua in a method and China and Saudi Arabia another way?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  I feel in every of these circumstances, there are a multiplicity of pursuits that come into play.  We must look out for all of the pursuits of the American folks, and hopefully the those who we’re engaged with.  And what President Biden has accomplished in every of these circumstances is to place human rights and democracy on the coronary heart of our overseas coverage, however it’s not the one factor that we take a look at.  We must convey every thing collectively in a means that advances the pursuits of the United States.  And one might undergo every of these on the similar time, however there isn’t – there are underlying rules, together with the precept that we must be standing up for the rights of folks once they’re being repressed in a method or one other.  But the query is:  How will we do that almost all successfully?  And the reply in a person case could also be a bit of bit completely different.

QUESTION:  Okay.  Should this be the final Summit of the Americas?  Some individuals are suggesting that sooner or later we must always have extra regional conferences.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  No, I don’t assume so in any respect.  To the opposite, what we’ve seen simply initially of the summit – we’ve got three days right here.  What will get misplaced generally is that as necessary as it’s for the governments to return collectively – and by the way in which, that is the primary time in additional than 4 years that the heads of state have come collectively —

QUESTION:  That is true.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  — at a time the place collective, coordinated motion is extra needed than ever.  But we’ve got civil society right here, we’ve got the personal sector, we’ve got younger folks right here.  And all of these teams are connecting in several methods collectively.  These are all of the stakeholders sooner or later of our hemisphere.  We have a strong shared future if we are able to work at it collectively.  This is a method of doing it.  But it’s three days; 362 days after the summit are much more necessary.  What we do popping out of right here in phrases of making good on what we’ve agreed to, implementing the varied initiatives that we’re taking – together with, for instance, simply to quote one, we’ve got a dedication and the sources to coach 500,000 well being staff, docs, technicians in our hemisphere between now and the top of 2024 – that may make an enormous distinction in lifting the well being take care of thousands and thousands of folks all through our hemisphere.  We must ship on it.

QUESTION:  Okay.  Thank you a lot.  Muchas gracias. 

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you.  Great.

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