SECRETARY OF WAR PETE HEGSETH: Â Well, President Ali, thank you for all your work and for â and welcome to the Pentagon. Your leadership across the region with key Caribbean partners has been indispensable to the ACCC, truly.
I mean, countries look to you. You've taken the lead. You've stepped out, as we talked about on the way here, laying the foundation for what we're doing in the hemisphere, is something that you laid out, long overdue. And President Trump's establishment of the Trump Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine and a focus on, first of all, our Homeland, homeland defense, but then working with our partners in our hemisphere to deal with â not just deal with, but attack and rid Central and South America of the narco-terrorism problem and then also foreign malign influence that, you know, this is â when we partner together, we can advance our shared interests in this hemisphere.
And I think we've, as we stated, this is â we've only just begun on that, on this project. And your investment has inspired confidence for us, and I hope you've seen that our investment has inspired confidence in you, in security forces, in our militaries, and the landmark â we're going to sign a landmark joint declaration, even today, to further elevate our defense cooperation on our all-domain partnership, obviously maritime critically important, but on land as well, sensing, seeing, the ability to do air interdictions, maritime interdictions.
And we've reviewed your request for U.S. military support in combined kinetic and lethal counter-narcotics operations. We take those requests very seriously. That's what we've put the ACCC together to do with partners. And so, where we can take the fight to enemies that threaten us both, we want to. We don't see this simply as a problem to manage. We think this is something that, if we get after it the right way, we can solve, and empowering your sovereignty, your people, your security, your prosperity along with ours on all of those echelons as well.
So, thank you for your leadership. You are welcome here at the Pentagon. We're honored to have you, Mr. President, and to partner with your great country. Thank you.
PRESIDENT DR. MOHAMED IRFAAN ALI: Thank you very much, Secretary. First of all, let me congratulate you and your team for enormous work that you are doing, the leadership that you're providing in this region, in the security of this region.
We have been speaking in this region about security and stability for a long time, and I think this is the era of action. This is the era of leadership. This is the era of determination and commitment, and we are very happy to be part of this partnership.
I want to also say that one of the things that is critical for stability in the region, economic stability and prosperity, sustainable, long-term prosperity and sustainability are the very things you're pursuing: a region that is free from narco-trafficking, free from international actors that are bad for a region, free from terrorism, and free from any thinking from any group or cell anywhere in the world that there is a â this is a region where they can find a home. We have to ensure that this region is built on a foundation and built with the protection that avoids such groups, negative actors in our region, from ever believing that they can find a home here.
And we want to thank you and the administration for the support, for the leadership. We look forward to working with you in a stronger way for not only the prosperity of our country, the sovereignty of our country, but also that of our entire region. We also thank you for the support in our own sovereignty, and we look forward to working with you closely.
SECRETARY OF WAR PETE HEGSETH: That's right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it.
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