The following are excerpts of Secretary Tillerson's April 6 remarks on China and Syria that are available on the State Department's website.
SECRETARY TILLERSON: Good afternoon, all. Well, first I want to thank President Trump for hosting these very important discussions on – and facilitating opportunities for members of his Cabinet to join him here in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, to spend time with our Chinese counterparts. It’s going to be very useful to all of us. It is an honor to receive the Chinese delegation at Mar-a-Lago and build on the dialogue that I began last month in Beijing with President Xi and other leaders in China.
In the past 40 years, the United States and China have developed deep ties, and this administration is committed to ensuring these ties endure for the next 40 years. We do desire to establish policies that maintain a constructive, cooperative, and results-oriented trajectory. High on the list of our priorities is an economic relationship that is fair on both sides.
Today will be a time to exchange candid views on the nature of the U.S.-China relationship, and we look forward to additional discussions in the future on topics of mutual importance. As President Trump has said, the chief goal of our trade policies is the prosperity of the American worker. To that end, we will pursue economic engagement with China that prioritizes the economic well-being of the American people.
