FULL REMARKS: Secretary of State Marco Rubio Speaks at Joint Press Conference in Portugal

Department of State on X official account2026-10-08

FULL REMARKS: Secretary of State Marco Rubio Speaks at Joint Press Conference in Portugal

Posted on X 2026-10-08 by @StateDept · View on X →

The video says (transcribed automatically):

I almost look like I got very close because it's, very similar to Spanish and so, I almost turned this thing off but I said, no, let me just let me just finish it So anyway, but thank you I appreciate you having me here in your beautiful country and I'm glad to be here It's my first visit ever and I hope it will not be my last and I appreciate the welcome you've given us not just in this extraordinary setting but, but the opportunity to meet with you and obviously, of course, to, to, to meet previously with the before this meeting with the with the prime minister. You know our, our two countries have accomplished many things together in the past and we look forward to deepening and building that relationship in the future in the past, for example we've worked very closely on forging the arsenals of our allied forces We, we together built your F-16 fleet Strengthening not just our two nations' security and defense but frankly strengthening NATO as a result of it this is through decades of shared maintenance and training and joint operations and, and we know that that will continue We applaud you, by the way, on the work, and I know it's difficult but the commitment that you've made that you're living up to in in spending more and I don't even want to use the term spending more in investing more on defense and for being on track to meet all of the commitments that were made at The Hague in by the year 2035. And I I always highlight this because people sometimes view this call to invest more in defense as a hostile thing It is not a hostile thing On the contrary what we are arguing is that NATO is important For NATO to matter NATO has to be strong For NATO to be strong NATO's member states need to be strong And for members, for NATO's member states to be strong they have to have capabilities Now every country is of a different size and proportion. Some countries can contribute more than others But every country in NATO needs to be as strong as they can possibly be because the stronger the members of NATO are the stronger NATO is The stronger the alliances and the stronger the deterrence is NATO exists more than anything else as a defensive alliance that acts as a deterrent against hostility and it has served us well for decades And if we want it to continue to serve us we need to make sure that it is strong So we look forward to the burden to, to the, we look to to share the burden of defense in the future and we look forward to collaborating on constructing the next generation of weaponry that's going to be needed and advanced military technology that's going to be needed in order to deter the adversaries of the future I believe working together along with all of our allies and partners in NATO we can make our our nations and our continents safer from foreign threats and more secure for our people Now I don't want to focus this relationship solely on our defense qua- What happens between our countries goes far beyond that and I want to talk a little bit about the the economic realm where Portugal plays an integral role in fostering U.S. commerce and in delivering U.S. technology to the European continent and beyond As an example, Portugal's undersea cables, affordable energy, critical mineral reserves and hyperscale data centers make it the ideal gateway the ideal gateway from a geographic and economic perspective the ideal gateway for American technology companies to enter Europe I think it's also important to point to the amount of investment that's going on in our respective countries. Last year investors from the United States invested over twenty billion dollars in Por- in in Portugal and Portuguese companies invested over two billion dollars In the United States which is a big number for a country of this size. So if you think about that that's only going to grow and we have ideas on how that's going to continue to grow And so our governments are going to continue to make the necessary pathways for future investment in the critical industries things like superintelligence and aerospace and defense and other strategic sectors And one way we intend to do that hopefully very soon is through a CEO forum that I know our ambassador who's doing a great job has been working on It's a forum that gives businesses in our two respective countries a mechanism to cut through the red tape cut through any sort of bureaucratic impediments that exist and turn the existing connections into more investment into more jobs into more economic growth on both sides of the Atlantic Together we have many opportunities to expand the commercial diplomacy and relations between our two countries in ways that will bring not only profit and prosperity to our people but I think also bring resilience and the security that comes with resilience against future economic Technological risks I also want to point for a moment to the number of U.S. travelers that come here. The number's stunning And I and what I learned even earlier is that despite how many direct flights we have from the United States here if they added more flights they could fill more seats So, a lot of Americans want to come and visit here and, and, and, and not just to do business but to visit and to see the beauty of your country and all that it has to offer and the richness of its history and so forth and I hope that that will continue We also have a growing number of American retirees that are coming here as well and, and I hope that that that's an important component and I know our embassy does an excellent and hard it's a hard but excellent job of in consular services and responding to all of that Finally, let me say this I want to compliment Portugal something we don't talk enough about and that is on your growing and successful efforts to combat narco-terrorism not just in your country but around the world. In the last two years Portugal has seized nearly 200 tons of cocaine Including approximately just what is that a robot is that did you see that well okay sorry I'm easily distracted guys we're talking about cocaine so let's go back to that you know for nearly two years the so two hundred Portugal has seized two hundred tons of cocaine including approximately forty seven tons to date in twenty twenty six and we've done that in partnership with the drug enforcement agency of the United States and and in addition Portugal's been partnering with multiple countries in the western hemisphere to combat drug trafficking and transnational criminal drug organizations so we applaud you and we thank you for your serious response to these threats to national security we've been partners for a very long time as you pointed out our our consulate in Ponta Delgada has been there since seventeen eighty seventeen ninety five and that makes it the oldest continuously operating American consulate in the world In the world So I look forward to future centuries of American-Portuguese collaboration as we create more secure stronger transatlantic alliance and foster a more prosperous future for our people. Thank you

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Analyzed 2026-10-08 13:30 UTC.

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