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good afternoon everyone i'm valerie
hopkins i'm a correspondent
for the new york times and it is my
tremendous honor to be
here with uh matt under secretary of
state for political affairs victoria
newland who
seems to be having problems hearing me
can you hear me
are you there
no okay
it's all right we will wait to get
things
sorted out for a moment
thanks for your patience well and to all
those assembled here
okay great fantastic so once again
a very warm welcome to undersecretary of
state for political affairs victoria
nolan who i believe
can hear me um i was introducing myself
i'm valerie hopkins i am a new
correspondent for the new york times um
and it's a big pleasure to be here with
you today
because one of the major topics of
conversation here
at this globe sec has been what happened
yesterday in geneva there's been a lot
of speculation
and now we are joined by someone who i
believe was actually in the room
um still it's the third day a lot of
people stayed up late last night
reading about the outcome of the summit
so i thought we could start with a bit
of a role play
if you would just squint your eyes a
little bit uh and imagine that i'm
vladimir silenski
and i want to know if i should be
hopeful or a bit despondent
after yesterday's summit uh what would
you tell me is the biden administration
leaving ukrainians out to dry
well valerie first of all it's great to
be here with all of you at globesac
uh congratulations on a great conference
and i'm really
happy to be joining you again president
biden
as he always does stood by ukraine
as america has made clear to president
putin
that ukraine's uh sovereignty
independence
and territorial integrity are something
that we are profoundly committed to
and we will continue to support ukraine
as she works to strengthen
her own democracy work on issues of
economy security prosperity
anti-corruption and that this is one of
the areas where we do have a profound
difference with russia
interestingly though as you heard
president putin say
in his press conference
he did raise the minsk agreements
declared himself still committed to them
and said he would like to see the united
states participate
more actively in trying to see them
implemented again so we will obviously
take a look at that with our ukrainian
partners and friends
thank you so much and um what about mr
putin himself did you
per did you witness any willingness by
putin to engage
to change his behavior at all i mean i
think we came into the summit with
fairly low expectations but you know
have they been exceeded or not
well first of all i think you heard both
presidents say
that the summit and the three hours of
conversation that they had
half of it in one plus one format half
of it
with the rest of us joining was
business-like
was professional was constructive
our president as he said had three goals
to be first of all to meet leader to
leader
because he thinks that's the best way to
be absolutely clear
about where we stand and to have no
misunderstandings between us
but he made clear that what we would
like is a
stable and predictable relationship with
russia
that we are prepared to cooperate where
we can but we will push back
on areas where we disagree including
profoundly
with regard to issues of human rights
and values
and the president was very clear
about our concern about the treatment of
mr navalny
about his concern about election
interference and democratic interference
uh in the united states about locked-up
americans about the way the russians
treat rferl and many other issues
and and said very clearly to president
putin
that he will continue to speak out on
these issues
um president putin heard that he also
heard
that when our interests are threatened
uh we will take strong action
so you know the question is
does president putin want also
a predictable and stable relationship
with the united states
he says that he does he did yesterday he
said that he did yesterday
but as president biden said the the
proof of the pudding will be in the
eating
and we've set out a number of areas
where
we're going to try to cooperate and
we'll see what happens one is in the
area of strategic stability follow on
discussions about
nuclear and conventional weapons of
concern the other is in the area of
ransomware and cyber
so these will be early tests along with
whether we can cooperate on things like
humanitarian support to syria
afghanistan etc so we'll we will see
and but i will say that it was
constructive in the room
and and now we have to test uh how that
can convert
does that mean you're more than
confident that the pudding will at least
be edible
if not incredibly tasty
you know i think that's very much up to
mr putin we
started making a pudding we'll see if
it's edible
great thank you very much um we only
already have 20 minutes left for this
conversation so i want to remind the
audience that you can submit your
questions
uh via the globsec app you can also
if you have a really pressing question
um raise your hand
and i will come to you but we are here
in central europe and
a lot of my central european colleagues
have uh
really made me want to ask you or really
encouraged me to ask you
about how some of these themes are
reflected here in central europe
so you just mentioned president biden's
clear commitment to democratic
principles and human rights
according to a recent globsec poll
authoritarian tendencies or support for
the idea of a strong leader
um have increased in the region to about
42 percent
um you know in in a lot of these central
european countries were witnessing
um the democratic backsliding eroding
media freedom
and as we saw uh recently in the
hungarian parliament also increasing
hostility to to human rights
um do you think that that central europe
is part of the problem or part of the
solution
um and how will this uh this
some of these democratic backsliding
tendencies interact with
with the need for unity on issues like
china and russia
well i think we are concerned about
democratic backsliding anywhere in the
world but particularly
some of what we've seen uh within within
nato and eu space
and i say this with all humility because
we've had our own challenges
as you know and we are working on those
things at home as well
but if we as nations truly believe
uh that democracies are the better place
to live
and thrive than autocracies then we've
got to protect
and constantly tend our democratic
gardens
and that's true in the united states
it's true in central europe it's true in
other parts of europe
so that means for all of us we've got to
protect human rights we've got to
strengthen rule of law we've got to
allow for free and fair and competitive
elections we've got to support freedom
of the press
independent judiciaries we've got to
root out corruption which kills
democracies
we've got to protect civil society
and we've got to ensure that racial
injustice discrimination on the basis of
religion or
gender or sexual orientation has no
place in our societies
and if and we've all got to work on
these things so we have concerns in a
number of countries we will continue to
speak out about them privately and and
publicly
but but really i think for countries
that worked
so hard to meet the high nato standards
they really need to protect those levels
of standard at home um in their own
interest
uh unless they wanna have their
countries
increasingly look like russia and china
and be those kind of places to live
rather than the free democracies we've
all aspired to
thank you the the recent globsec poll
has some interesting data about that
uh but i wanted to go to actually a
different data point that they have
um which is that according to a recent
poll from march this year
only 35 of central european countries
see the us as the preferred strategic
partner
about 60 prefer germany and here in
slovakia
only 17 percent uh listed the us as the
top preferred strategic partner with 47
preferring russia uh is it a priority of
the new administration to improve these
numbers
what kind of strategy do you have as a
gardener do you need to sow new seeds or
just
add more water
well i'm not sure when those polls were
told were were taken
but as president biden said across
his first three summits of the week at
the g7 at nato
in the u.s eu summit
we are back we are back to working on
all of the great
challenges before us as nations together
with our allies and partners
and not trying to to go it alone and
that means
uh addressing everything from covid
to uh economic recovery to
fairness and transparency to ensuring
that we the democracy
set the rules of the road rather than
the autocracies
and so we've taken you know a number of
really significant steps across these
three summits to protect
our uh our health security the global
economy
our democracies our security and we've
taken them
together and what we want is for the
people of our countries to
start to see the benefit of that so you
know just one example
the uh g7 nations pledged
a billion doses of vaccine
of which the us is providing 500 million
and we're not
doing that you know
with any kind of um compellence we're
doing that because it's the right thing
to do
and it's the smart thing to do uh we're
going to work together
in the us and eu context to ensure
that if china invests in our economies
it's done in a transparent way and it
meets
high labor and environmental standards
and that none of us is getting ripped
off
so these are the kinds of things we're
trying to do together we agreed on a
15 global corporate tax
to ensure that we don't have an economic
race to the bottom
uh we've got a big fund now to compete
with china's belt and road and help
less developed countries on the nato
side we're going to work harder on
on cyber together and all of these
things so
you know it's been a while since the
united states made concrete investments
in our alliances and our relationships
with europe
uh but we are we are hopeful that this
uh very strong week that we have just
had
uh will now convert into a real feeling
of
of unity and greater prosperity and
security for all of us and uh those
numbers are to shift
thank you we'll check the polls next
year at globsec again
um i will actually go to an audience
question uh from my
colleague at politico sarah wheaton how
big a problem is very brazen russian
espionage activity in europe and what
can be done about it i noticed she
doesn't ask about the us but
let's focus on europe what do you think
is the solution
i mean espionage of any kind is is a
problem so
what's most important is that we uh
identify it that we call it out and that
we impose costs
as necessary and i think we've been when
been doing
some of that together we impose costs in
the u.s for
solarwinds we've seen the eu
increasingly
take steps and and now we're working on
things like cybercrime and ransomware so
this is an area we have to work on
together
thank you and in that vein we have
another question from somebody who's
mysteriously initial to wm
uh who wants to know what will the u.s
russia summit mean to the sino-russian
relationship
of which the russian president putin
described at being at its historical
peak
what will the u.s russian summit do
for russian chinese relations i think
that's what kind of symbolism i presume
is what mr
wm meant yeah or how do you think
i think that's you think this will
affect the sign of a russian
relationship
you know i think that's a question for
russians it's their relationship with
china
i do think that from our perspective
you know the president made clear that
um you know russia should be thinking
hard
about whether it wants to increase its
dependency
on china given china's global
aspirations
thank you
yes we have another question from well
we have two questions about belarus so
uh what was discussed about belarus
yesterday and
and what are the next steps the u.s are
taking i guess maybe we could ask you to
elaborate some of the
the real options uh that the real policy
options that the u.s administration
actually
can take regarding belarus
at this point belarus is one of those
areas where
in the context of the summit yesterday
president made
clear that we profoundly disagree with
russia i don't think that
either president disputed that we come
at belarus very differently
um and you know president biden made uh
made absolutely clear that what what
happened with
the uh downing of the aircraft and
pulling
pulling a dissident off the plane and
then later parading him with clear
bruises all over him was just lawless
uh and that we believe that the only way
to respect
the rights and choice of the belarusian
people is to have
a truly free and fair election and
that clearly mr lukashenka is afraid of
of doing that
we have already imposed as has europe a
number of sanctions
and i think you can watch this space
next week for more
thank you very much um i wanted to come
back as we mentioned china
and one day after nato leaders expressed
concern about china as a growing
security threat
and two days after the g7 pledged to
work together against china's non-market
economic policies and condemned to china
over human rights abuses
china flew an unprecedented 28 military
planes over taiwan's airspace
uh in one day uh the pentagon
spokesperson john supple doubled down
on america's support to taiwan but did i
want to ask you did the recent
escalation catch you and the state
department off guard
how worried should we be about a
potential miscalculation
that can escalate very quickly into a
situation that nobody wants to be in
yeah i mean china's intimidation of
taiwan has been
increasing steadily over over the recent
period
it's dangerous it's irresponsible we've
been trying to send
pop both public and private messages
about the dangers here and about our
firm commitment to uh to
taiwan under the taiwan relations act so
you know um this happens sometimes when
you're paying attention
at leader level to one part of the world
another part of the world
takes takes steps that seek to
to gain attention and not always in
positive ways so
it was uh unfortunate and highly
unwelcome
thank you so much i'm using all the
modern technology with the app and i
just want to do a scan in the room to
see if anybody does have a question that
they haven't submitted electronically
if not we see one we only have uh seven
minutes so i'll ask one question from
the app and then i can ask someone to
come with a microphone
to you um we have one maybe quick
question for you here
uh with president it's an anonymous
question with president uh biden's focus
on human rights and the lifting of
sanctions on bensouda etc
are promising signs will the u.s finally
join the icc
is that possibly in the cards uh
i don't i don't think so there are a
number of aspects of the icc that we
don't
think are um
produce the best uh judicial results as
you know our position on that is
is well known across both republican and
democratic
administrations thank you so much do we
have a microphone for
uh this person again please where time
is running we only have six minutes
please introduce yourself
very own in the largest independent
media hungary very quickly hungary and
parliament passed the law
two days ago and basically there is a
law striking
and banning gay communities and it's
gender equality it's even stricter than
the russian one
ursula for london uh published his con
her concerns
uh regarding the law but we haven't
heard anything from the us
do you plan something to do because it's
really it's an urgent matter
thank you thank you well thanks for
raising this i
think um frankly in the
in the helter skelter of of yesterday in
geneva
um i i personally didn't see that this
law had passed as i said
earlier in this conversation
discrimination of any kind
and particularly on the basis of sexual
orientation
should have no place in a modern
democracy we have not been shy about
speaking out about these issues anywhere
in the world
including in poland and hungary but
thank you for
calling attention to the fact that this
new law is passed it takes those
countries in the wrong
direction and i'm sure we'll be speaking
out from washington
thank you very much um i have another
question so
we witnessed actually in the last few
days or last week
uh kind of unprecedented use of
magditzky sanctions
on european union citizens uh in the
case of bulgaria
i'm just wondering i know that you have
a tough anti-corruption stance you've
now told us to watch the space regarding
belarus but is
is this something that we can expect
more of and a lot more of
uh under the new administration
well i think if you if you've paid
attention to what president biden has
been saying
for more than a decade including uh very
strongly when he was vice president
uh he believes that corruption is a
democracy killer
and that it it drains our strength
as democracies and you know sometimes
uh governments have difficulty
uh tackling these issues either they
don't have the law enforcement
strength or their judiciaries are also
infected etc
and so under the global magnitsky
statute which we've now had in the u.s
for
two or three years we can
go after folks who we believe
are abusing the
their positions to rot their countries
from the inside
and or participating corrupt practices
in and around the united states and
that's what you saw in the bulgarian
context
and interestingly the bulgarian
government was very welcoming of the
action that we took
because some of those actors have been
manipulating
uh the situation politically
economically
and corrupting the judicial system for a
very very long time in bulgaria
so i think you'll continue to see us
using global magnitsky sanctions where
they're appropriate both in the
transatlantic space and globally
thank you very much we have time for one
more question from the audience if there
is one
if not i will go to slido
um i'll be very curious to see if you
have an answer for this
uh but uh radhu carp is asking about uh
the 16 critical us infrastructures which
are off limits for interference for
cyber attacks uh and he's asking if you
could possibly develop
on this yeah this was a very important
part of the conversation yesterday as
you know
the u.s has experienced a number of very
serious ransomware attacks colonial
pipeline
one on our meat industry and
uh our information is that these
originate from russian territory so the
president's had
uh quite a serious conversation about
this yesterday
our president wants to see
president putin make very clear
that this is unacceptable to his own
people
we he wants to see law enforcement
action
against russian citizens who are
involved in ransomware in the united
states
and they also began a conversation
about these 16
areas that the u.s has identified as
critical infrastructure areas and the
importance
of preventing cyber attacks in these
areas and we've passed that list to the
to the russian government it's also
available on us government websites
it's everything from what you would
expect it's electricity sector
transport sector food sector health
sector
uh water these kinds of things and
civilized nations should not be
attacking each other's critical
infrastructure with cyber
or allowing uh criminals from their
territory to do that so
we're gonna initiate and deepen a
dialogue with the russian federation on
these issues and
and test whether they're willing to join
us
in preventing this kind of malign
activity and we'll see as i said that'll
be uh
a key piece of whether this pudding is
tasty or not
thank you so much thank you very much
for for being with us today
and uh thank you very much to the
audience for coming on the third day
um hope to see you again soon in person
thanks so much thanks
i would just like to remind the members
of the audience that the next
you