Excerpts from the interview of US Secretary of State which took place a few days ago.
QUESTION: But you have that military training that 99 percent of the country doesn’t have, and you served. You know that Pakistan is the problem. You know they’re training, arming, and equipping, and without them the Taliban are vapor. How much longer are we going to put up with this?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Well, we’ve taken actions against Pakistan that no other administration has taken. I do see this. I see this from – I’ve had friends killed. You have too, I’m sure. Lots of New Yorkers were killed when those towers came down. I’ve not forgotten the lesson from 9/11. We need Pakistan to do more. They have to stop harboring these terrorists. We saw what happened with India, the conflict that arose there as a result of terrorists that departed from Pakistan. We need the Pakistanis to step up. They need to stop harboring terrorists.
QUESTION: You told – going back to China for a second, you told the Poles, you told the Germans do not do a deal with Huawei. It’s about 5G, it’s about security. It looks like they’re going through it anyway. What would happen if both of our allies decide to go with a Chinese company to lead the way on 5G? And can you tell the American people why that matters so much?
SECRETARY POMPEO: I certainly can. Huawei and Chinese telecommunications equipment in one’s network, in a nation’s network, presents a real risk that the Chinese Government will have access to data that no American wants them to have. And so when you talk about this happening in countries like Poland or Germany or the UK, we’re very concerned about that – not only for American national security, because we have information stored there too, but for the security of their own peoples. We have urged these countries to reconsider those policies. We view this technology as being threatening to their security, and we’ve told them. If you put this technology in your equipment, it will make it incredibly difficult for the United States to work alongside you in some of these places.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, they’re not listening because Angela Merkel says we’ll handle our own intelligence, thank you, and they still have that natural gas pipeline coming from Vladimir Putin into their country. The President told them it’s not a good idea; you’ve told them it’s not a good idea. Why are our allies ignoring us?
SECRETARY POMPEO: So there’s more work to do. We’ve made progress on lots of fronts. We’ve had some places where we still have work to do, Brian. I agree with you. I wish Nord Stream 2 was something that the Germans would understand presented risk to the German people. While they’re asking America to support them, they’re handing resources and money to the Russians. They ought not to build it. We’re using American power everyplace we can to push back against these challenges.
QUESTION: Everyone’s talking about global warming and the threat to this country. When you look at the top five threats to this nation, where do you rank global warming or climate change?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Yeah, I wouldn’t put it in the top five.
QUESTION: Why?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Because I can count to five that get you to things that present more risk to the people I used to represent in Kansas and citizens all across America, whether it’s the threat that we’ve talked about today from China, the nuclear proliferation risk that extends from Pakistan, through all those folks who have these weapon systems – places like North Korea where they can sell these weapons. I think I’m at five already, but I could give you a whole list of threats that I think we can effect change on in a way that will really make a difference for the security of the American people.
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