US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo returned on Wednesday 8 April in an interview with eight European media outlets, including EUROPE, on the role of the United States in the fight against coronavirus and cooperation with the EU and Member States. (Interview by Camille-Cerise Gessant)
Do you expect a deepening of the cooperation between the European Union and the United States in the fight against COVID-19 in Europe, in the US but also at the international level ?
Mike Pompeo - We will have to work together and I fully expect that we will. I'm confident.
We'll receive help from European countries. We've watched good scientists, good technologists, working alongside us to battle the pandemic on a scientific and medical basis.
We've always had deep and important trade relationships that will continue and accelerate as we move out of this pandemic. So yes, I have every expectation that the EU and European countries will continue to build on the relationships that we've had for all these years.
It is the lack of transparency and openness that has generated many of the challenges that we're facing in this crisis. And it is these democratic ideas of the free press and open innovation and transparency, underpinning the United States and Europe, that will lead the world back to continued liberty, freedom and prosperity. I'm confident that the US and EU will work alongside each other to deliver that.
Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron have had two discussions, I believe, on the organisation of a meeting in the next few days with the permanent members of the Security Council. Given your relations with Beijing at the moment, are you still advocating such a summit?
The president has been in constant contact with leaders all around the world. There was a G20 meeting, he spoke to all the G7 leaders, I spoke to countless others too. I think it's because that there’s still a lot of work to be done. The challenge of the virus remains.
President Trump is willing to engage and cooperate with every country and that certainly includes China as we work together to solve this global pandemic.
The United States has and continues to be prepared to lead to helping the world move its way through the pandemic. It's upon all of us now.
Germany and the United States have always been reliable allies. What are your expectations of the German government in this crisis?
So we've been in close contact with our German counterparts at every level of the government, frankly. This is not only an interaction between the State Department and the German Foreign Office, but also, at the level of our Health Directors, our teams that are working on economic matters. That will be the next thing we'll all have to focus on together as we move out of this.
I spoke yesterday (Tuesday) with (Treasury) Secretary Mnuchin, who I know is working with his European counterparts to make sure that we work in a coordinated way to kickstart the global economy as we come out of this.
So our expectations with respect to Germany are that they'll continue to do the things that we've done together for decades and decades. So a coordinated response, a coordinated boost to the economy as we come out of the crisis.
And then with respect to things that we need in the immediate crisis, we're pretty closely connected to make sure that equipment is available for each of our countries as we work on therapeutics and vaccines that the United States and Germany will coordinate.
China is very active in helping Italy. Do you see other ways to help Italy by also sending a strong political message, for example, by lifting trade tariffs or simply by suspending the request for an increase in the contribution to NATO?
There is no country in the world that will provide as much aid and assistance through multiple forums as the United States of America. We will continue to provide assistance, we will announce direct assistance to Italy. I think that will be very significant.
It's not about the message. It's about real deliverable outcomes. America does it through the private sector (...), multilateral institutions (...), NGOs. This is not just government-to-government assistance that one needs in order to respond to a crisis like the magnitude of the one that has stricken Italy and Italians.
We'll be right there with the Italians and we will help them not only to battle this disease, but make sure that we're doing everything we can to get the Italian economy fired up again when this crisis passes.
President Trump said yesterday (Tuesday) that the United States could send respirators to other countries. If so, can Poland receive them?
We're doing everything we can. We're building out the tools and the systems we need to respond (to the crisis) and take care of our own people. Whether it's the need for PPE (personal protective equipment) or ventilators and all of the equipment, we have enormous demand here today. We're working our way to make sure we satisfy that.
But we are making it clear that we intend to do everything we can to help the world and make sure it has what it needs to protect its own people. And I fully expect Poland will be among those countries that are recipients of American assistance as quickly and as expeditiously as we are able to provide that.
What is your opinion on the lifting of sanctions against Venezuela and Iran related to the coronavirus?
There are no sanctions that prevent humanitarian assistance from going to either of those countries.
Sanctions do not apply to medical supplies and equipment or pharmaceutical products. And there's nothing that is blocking that aid from getting there. In Iran, in particular, I know that countries have been able to get humanitarian assistance. So we think that's perfectly appropriate.
The United States has offered humanitarian assistance to both Iran and Venezuela. That goes for North Korea as well. We understand the humanitarian crisis, we intend to address it that way, but it is also worth noting that the first responsibility of every country is that the leaders take care of their own people first.
In Iran, they're looking for cash, and that cash, if it's delivered, probably won't benefit the Iranian people. If history is any indicator, it won't go to biomedicine for Iranians. There is a long history of diverting funds allocated to humanitarian efforts.
Some Chinese officials have recently stated that the coronavirus may have been imported into China and have even pointed to a certain American origin. How much concern is there about this information coming out of Beijing?
We need transparency about the virus, where it is, how many cases there are, what the nature of those diseases are and how they're progressing, how we treat them with the therapeutics are the potential exposure moving forward. All these things require enormous transparency in all countries.
This game of disinformation is putting people's lives at risk, not only the lives of their own citizens, but the lives of citizens all across the world.
This is a pandemic that started in Wuhan, China, and we need to make sure that we understand that so that we can both handle the crisis.
But every country has the responsibility to share information. And we've tried for an awfully long time to get our team in to Beijing. We weren't successful at doing that. Each country must cooperate.
It's not about talking about cooperation, it's about real acts that deliver. This is about saving lives. This is about pushing back against this pandemic in a material way. And that means we need to make sure that journalists have the freedom to get the information. We have to make sure international teams have the ability to investigate the outbreak and how it has begun and how it's spread and how we're responding to it.