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Secretary Rubio Remarks to the Press in Manila on the Xi Visit and Cuba, Jul. 23, 2026

July 23, 2026 · U.S. Department of State · 0:34:29

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Secretary of State Marco Rubio took questions from the press in Manila, Philippines, on July 23, 2026 — the second of two availabilities he gave that day, paged separately on this site. This one led with his long meeting with his Chinese counterpart: the length, he said, was translation, not tension, and the subject was groundwork — “we talked a lot about the visit in September.” “I think President Xi will have a very positive visit when he comes to Washington,” he said. The two most powerful countries in the world “have to have a relationship”; their differences will persist, and the work before September is to identify areas of potential cooperation “so that they never get out of control.” Election interference, he said, was not discussed.

Asked about Cuba, he rejected expectations of a quick collapse — “global affairs are not like — we’re not a miniseries, like, you get in three episodes and it’s over” — noting the regime’s historic foreign sponsors, the Soviet Union and Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, are gone, and that Cuba matters to the United States “because it’s 90 miles from our shores, and it has a direct impact on our national security.”

Why it matters

Six weeks before the September state visit this site chronicles, the Secretary fixed the administration’s pre-visit China framing in his own words: a relationship to be managed, cooperation areas to be identified in advance, and a positive visit predicted on the record — the baseline against which the September 22-24 visit pages can be read.

Sources: U.S. Department of State, “Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to the Press” (official upload, embedded above; Manila, Philippines). Remarks as delivered; transcript reviewed in the site’s private research store; full transcript at state.gov.