← Videos · Foreign Policy & Defense

Secretary Rubio Holds a Joint Press Availability with Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel, Oct. 8, 2026

October 8, 2026 · U.S. Department of State · 0:32:04

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

What happened

Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a joint press availability with Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel in Lisbon, Portugal, on October 8, 2026, carried by the State Department. Rangel welcomed him by reaching back to the founding: Portugal and the United States are “historic allies” defending the rule of law and democratic values, he said, recalling the 250 years of American independence — marked, as he put it, with Portuguese wine from Madeira — and that Portugal was “the third country in the world which recognized the independence of the United States of America.”

Rangel pointed to the 1995 cooperation and defense agreement and its standing bilateral commission as the relationship’s privileged channel, alongside the U.S. military presence at Lajes air base, and to the growing two-way economic traffic — American visitors bringing in 11 percent of Portugal’s tourism revenue in 2025 on his figures, with U.S. firms strongly present in the Portuguese economy. Portugal, he said, champions the transatlantic relationship within the European Union.

Why it matters

Lisbon is the alliance-maintenance leg of the Secretary’s October European swing: a founding-era friendship, a working defense agreement anchored at Lajes, and a partner arguing America’s case inside the EU — the burden-sharing-era alliance as the administration wants it to function.

Sources: U.S. Department of State, “Secretary Rubio holds a joint press availability with Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel” (official upload, embedded above; Lisbon, Portugal). Remarks as delivered; transcript reviewed in the site’s private research store; full transcript at state.gov.