Secretary of State Marco Rubio and European Union Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic, at the Signing of a Memorandum of Understanding for the U.S.-EU Strategic Partnership on Critical Minerals, Washington, D.C.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, let me just say a few words.  Thank you all for covering this.  Thank you for being here today. 

Obviously, this shows the growing awareness and commitment throughout the world, particularly with our allies in the West and in Europe, the importance of supply chains in critical minerals to the success of our economies, and to our national security for that matter.  The over-concentration of these resources and the fact that they’re dominated by one or two places is an unacceptable risk.  We need diversity in our supply chains, diversity in the places we get critical minerals.  And this Memorandum of Understanding, which isn’t just going to be a piece of paper – it’s going to be brought to life through real action.  These are going to be important for the economic vibrancy of all of our economies, the global economy really, but also to the security of our countries.

And so today is a very important gathering between – if you look at the buying power and the economic productivity power of the combination of the United States and the European Union, it’s extraordinary.  We are, combined, the largest customers and users of the world and have to ensure that these supplies and these minerals are available for our countries and in ways that are not monopolized in one place or concentrated together in one place.  We have to have reliable, affordable sources for this. 

And so this is a very important achievement, and we thank you for being a part of this today, and we look forward to working with you on it as we operationalize it with our Trade Representative and our Department of Commerce. 

COMMISSIONER SEFCOVIC:  Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary of State.  It is a pleasure to be here with you because what we are doing today, it’s very important.  It’s strengthening our relationship.  And with this Memorandum of Understanding, I believe that we’ll be even more strategic together, we’ll be delivering on our goals much faster than before, and we of course will be growing stronger together in this very important area.  And indeed, the Memorandum of Understanding is very important, and we’ll continue with Ambassador Greer to work on our action plan.  And I totally agree with Mr. Secretary that now the real test will be the execution of this project, how can we transform this agreement which we are signing into the concrete, tangible project to deliver for our business operators.

And the last thing I will say, I am very glad that we had this possibility and occasion today because I see this is a very concrete delivery on a very important basis we built over the last year, the European Union and United States temporary agreement, Mr. Secretary, because it proves that we are delivering and that it opens the new possibilities of our very fruitful and important cooperation.

So, Mr. Secretary, thank you very much.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Thank you.  All right, we’re going to sign.

(The Memorandum of Understanding was signed.)

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Thank you.

COMMISSIONER SEFCOVIC:  Thank you very much.