Rubio, Santokhi Hold Joint Press Availability
MODERATOR: Good afternoon, President of the Republic of Suriname, His Excellency Chandrikapersad Santokhi; His Excellency Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United States of America, Mr. Marco Rubio. Welcome, everybody, dignitaries, ladies and gentlemen of the press. A warm welcome to this press moment in the context of the visit of the Secretary of State of America.
President Santokhi, I give you the floor.
PRESIDENT SANTOKHI: Thank you, Madam. Good afternoon to all of you. May I once again extend my warm welcome to the Secretary of State, His Excellency Marco Rubio, and his delegation. And I wish to acknowledge the accompanying media from the USA and also the Surinamese and other international media, and I thank you for being here for this opportunity.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have warmly welcomed the Secretary of State of the United States of America Marco Rubio and his delegation to the Republic of Suriname. And I may add that this is his first visit to the Caribbean, specifically Jamaica, Guyana, Suriname, and within a very short time after taking office.
Secretary of State Rubio, your visit provides a good momentum and opportunity on the way forward for our bilateral relationship. Suriname has a longstanding and strategic partnership with the United States of America. During our meeting, we have discussed opportunities for strengthening and expanding our bilateral relation and cooperation and furtherance of our partnership regionally. In the interest of further expanding the relationship, mainly in the field of trade and investment, we will work together to attract American investors to Suriname.
After all, cooperation with America and American business leads back to the beginning of the 19th century, and we currently have significant investment from the American companies, particularly in the oil and gas industry but also in the gold sector. And I look forward to the participation of the U.S. delegation in the upcoming edition of the Surinamese Energy, Oil, and Gas Summit and Exhibition, SEOGS, which will be held in Paramaribo in June of this year.
The importance of energy security in the Caribbean region was also addressed and discussed with Suriname, but also with Guyana, which are playing a crucial role. Both countries will become important partners for the Caribbean and the Western Hemisphere.
My thanks to Minister Rubio for including my country, Suriname, in his first visit to the Caribbean and for the support he has promised Suriname regarding the energy security and further intensifying the relationship, which will be in benefit of both our countries and both our people. Thank you.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you, Mr. President. We first of all thank you for the very warm greeting. And I just began my 10th week as the Secretary of State, so I am happy to be able to make this visit so quickly. I want to extend my gratitude for the invitation, for the hospitality, and for the chance to interact with you – such a closer partner the country is, and you in particular have been, for the United States, and that’s a partnership we want to build on.
Let me begin by extending my congratulations to your minister of foreign affairs, who will also be secretary general at the Organization of American States. It’s an important organization that we want to see take on new vibrancy and new energy, and we look forward to working with you. It’s something that the country should be very proud of. I think it signals the growing importance, relevance, the growing presence that as a nation you have on the regional stage and beyond. And so I wanted to extend that congratulations.
I also want to acknowledge the foreign policy of the United States, I think, over the last 20 years needs revision. It has largely ignored opportunities. When we have found close partners, we have often in our foreign policy neglected those opportunities, and we spent a lot of time on problems instead and on countries and leaders that give us a hard time. We’re going to change that. We want to change that. President Trump wants to change that.
President Trump wants to make it clear that if you are a friend and ally, a partner of the United States, there are benefits for your country and for your people in doing so, and we want to enter it in terms of partnership. That’s the way we view it. And so we wanted to take a particular interest in visiting and reaffirming our ties to both leaders and countries who have been strong partners, and you have been a very strong partner of the United States.
We recognize the difficulties you faced not so long ago when you came into office and had to take on a large debt, an economy that was underperforming. And these things take a little bit of time, but now you’ve reached and are reaching a point of stability, and now the exciting moment is ahead. Now is the opportunity to build upon that, build upon the pillars of successful nation-states, which is security and stability, so then you can reach prosperity.
And that’s the path you’re on, and I know it’s a difficult path. I know it’s a path that requires a little bit of patience, but it’s an important path and the path you’ve put your country on and that we want to help you sustain and be on for the years to come, because you have an opportunity to do something very special here. You really do.
You have – most countries, when they experience growth in a mineral sector or in the energy sector, they often don’t plan for it. They plan for generating the revenue, but they don’t plan how that revenue is going to benefit the people. And you have taken the time, and your government has taken the time and put in the time, to construct a plan so that these things aren’t just going to generate revenue; they’re going to generate prosperity; they’re going to generate opportunity.
That is the role of government. That is the role of forward thinking. That is the role of planning for the future. And you’re doing that, and you’re doing it in a way that, if done correctly and sustained, you stay on this path, you’re going to have a country that’s going to transform in this generation, and it’s going to mean something extraordinary for future generations. And we just want to be a partner. We discussed in our private meeting that, unfortunately, we are witnessing in the region how oftentimes insecurity, instability, and poverty becomes contagious; it spreads and it impacts other countries.
But the reverse is true as well: Stability, security, and prosperity can also become contagious, and you have an opportunity not simply to change the destiny of the people of your country but in other ways and in direct ways really help impact the security, stability, and prosperity of the region. And we just want to be helpful. We believe it is in our national interest to have a Caribbean region that is safe and stable and prosperous, and you’re at the vanguard of that in what you are doing.
And so we are just here to encourage you to continue to do that because we are going to do everything we can to ensure that American companies and American firms and investors who are looking for opportunities understand there’s real opportunities here with the work you’ve put in to take on corruption, to take on – to establish strong rule of law and stability, so companies know if we invest in a sector it’s going to generate revenue, jobs, and opportunity for the people of Suriname, but we also know that 5, 10, 15 years from now we’re going to be safe in our investment because we have a country that has a strong democracy, has a stable rule of law, and has welcoming leaders who understand its importance for the people and for the future.
And that’s what we commit to doing, for looking to opportunities to build on all of this. We’ve spoken about such – some of the mechanics of preventing drug trafficking organizations from ever getting a foothold here, of preventing these transnational crime gangs from ever getting a foothold here. We want to be your partner in stopping that from ever happening so you never, ever – now or in the future – face the problems that some other countries are facing.
And we’ve also talked about responsible ways, because you don’t just want to – and you have the right vision for this. You don’t simply just want to access the natural resources of a country. You want to do it in a way that’s responsible, that protects the natural beauty of the land and preserves it so that future generations can enjoy it as well, and you have a unique and golden opportunity to do it. We’re excited by your vision for it. We encourage the people of the country to sustain that vision, and we look forward to being your partner. We thank you for everything we’ve done together already and what hopefully we’ll be able to continue to do in the years to come, certainly as long as I’m in this role.
So I thank you for this very warm welcome and I’m excited about the opportunity. And my understanding, Mr. Ambassador, I am only the fourth Secretary of State to visit?
AMBASSADOR FAUCHER: That’s correct. Yeah.
SECRETARY RUBIO: But how many have visited twice? (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT SANTOKHI: That’s up to you.
SECRETARY RUBIO: All right, so we have a new – we’ve just set a new goal. We’ve set a new goal, and hopefully we can come back again and reaffirm that. It – I am – I look forward to doing that.
PRESIDENT SANTOKHI: Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Your Excellencies. I give now the floor to Ivan Cairo from De Ware Tijd.
QUESTION: Good afternoon.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Good afternoon.
QUESTION: Thank you for this opportunity.
Mr. Rubio, you just brushed on the topic of security. What can Suriname expect in regards to drug trafficking and combatting drug trafficking? Because for years there has been discussions that DEA will put up their office again in Suriname. Is this discussed?
And also in regard to security, there was an agreement between Suriname and the United States, the Shiprider Agreement. Will that – will that be revitalized – the police cooperation with the police of Las Vegas? How is that in your policies? And the cooperation between the National Army of Suriname and the South Dakota military enforcements, how will that be or will that come into play the next coming years? Maybe the president could also chime in to that. Thank you.
SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you. Well, on the first, I can’t speak for the South Dakota National Guard, but I can tell you it’s very cold in South Dakota, and so I think they’d probably like coming here and being helpful. How much does it snow here?
PRESIDENT SANTOKHI: Well, we can import it. (Laughter.)
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, they’re trying to get away from the snow. (Laughter.)
But you mentioned the DEA office. That’s something we’re going to take back as well. But here’s what we want to do. Let me explain. The goal – we’re having this debate in the United States about foreign aid, and this is one of the reasons why I wanted to come to the Caribbean because – and meet with all these countries.
For too long, our foreign aid has been driven by what we think you need. We tell you, okay, these are the five things we’re going to do for you. Well, those aren’t the five things you want. We’re changing that. We want to make sure that we’re providing the assistance that the countries need, and we want this power back over to our embassies under the State Department so we’re providing the assistance you need.
Let me tell you the second. The best foreign aid programs are the ones that come to an end because they have achieved their purpose. The purpose of foreign aid is not for the United States to be here for 25 providing law enforcement. The purpose of the United States is to help you build the capacity so you will be able to do it sustainably forever. Our job is to help you become self-sustained in this regard; and not only self-sustaining, but the goal is ultimately to help you be able to do this so well that you’re now teaching other countries how to do it. You now become the country that helps others do it as well, and we think we can help with technology, with personnel, with best practices. We’ve talked about some of this already. We want to continue to build on that, because what we don’t – what you don’t want to see for a country is a place where drug trafficking organizations and gangs say that’s a place where we can run guns, that’s a place where we can move drugs, because they don’t have the resources available to stop us.
Then you become a magnet for that sort of activity, and nothing will set you back on economic growth and prosperity faster than that. When these vicious gangs get into a country, they start shooting each other and anyone who’s standing in between, and it destabilizes society. You never want to reach that point, and we want to help you prevent that. We want – when these drug dealers look at the world, we want them to say I don’t want to go through Suriname because their police departments and their law enforcement is so strong they’ll catch us; let’s go somewhere else, or let’s go into another line of work. And that’s what we want to see.
So we are open to any programs we can do to build the capacity – which is already extensive; this partnership’s very close. I mean, we cooperate on all of this already. We just want to keep building on it so that you can build a capacity where not only do you do it for yourself, but you’re maybe helping other countries in the future do it because you’ve become so good at it. That’s what we want to focus on; that’s what we want to do.
https://www.state.gov/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio-and-surinamese-president-chandrikapersad-santokhi-at-a-joint-press-availability/