U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris assured Asian leaders Friday that “the United States is here to stay” as she pitched Washington as a reliable economic partner committed to the region and its prosperity.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris assured Asian leaders Friday that “the United States is here to stay” as she pitched Washington as a reliable economic partner committed to the region and its prosperity.
Harris told leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that the U.S. is a “proud Pacific power” and has a “vital interest in promoting a region that is open, interconnected, prosperous, secure and resilient.”
“The United States has an enduring economic commitment to the Indo-Pacific, one that is measured not in years, but in decades, and generations,” she said. “And there is no better economic partner for this region than the United States of America.”
Harris postponed the start of her speech after receiving news that North Korea had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed near Japanese waters, convening an emergency meeting of the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada in which she slammed the missile test as a “brazen violation of multiple U.N. Security resolutions.”
“It destabilizes security in the region and unnecessarily raises tensions,” she said.
“We strongly condemn these actions and again call on North Korea to stop further unlawful destabilizing acts,” Harris said. “On behalf of the United States I reaffirmed our ironclad commitment to our Indo-Pacific alliances.”
Her remarks at the broader APEC forum capped a week of high-level outreach from the U.S. to Asia as Washington seeks to counter growing Chinese influence in the region, with President Joe Biden attending first the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cambodia, then the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia.
