Secretary of State Marco Rubio met today with Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu and ROK Foreign Minister Cho Hyun on the margins of the G20 in Atlanta to review progress across the trilateral partnership that advances security and prosperity in a free and open Indo-Pacific. The Secretary and Foreign Ministers signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) for a Trilateral Arctic Pacific Partnership (TAPP) to explore maritime cooperation and economic partnership in the Pacific Arctic.
The Secretary and Foreign Ministers reaffirmed their resolute commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and to full implementation of UN Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs), including the ban on supporting revenue generation for the DPRK's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. They commended the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team's (MSMT) work exposing the DPRK's violations and evasions of UNSCRs. They also emphasized the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. Secretary Rubio also raised China's efforts to assert control over the South China Sea, its coercive behavior in the East China Sea and Yellow Sea, and Russia-China cooperation that undermines peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.
The Secretary and Foreign Ministers stressed the importance of economic security and reaffirmed their shared opposition to economic coercion and the weaponization of supply chains. They reviewed implementation of the trilateral Memorandum of Cooperation on Small Modular Reactor Deployments, signed in Ankara July 7, leveraging our combined industrial strengths to advance global energy security. They also discussed areas of economic security cooperation identified at the October 15 trilateral economic security consultation in Seoul.
The Secretary and Foreign Ministers reaffirmed the commitments reflected in the U.S.-Japan-ROK trilateral joint statement issued on September 21, 2026 and committed to continuing trilateral meetings at all levels.
