Photo: Agence France-Presse
The US Department of State has published a conversation between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra during the ASEAN Summits in Vientiane, Laos.
Blinken attended the Summits on behalf of US President Joe Biden. The US Department of State’s website mentioned that the conversation took place prior to their meeting.
Secretary Blinken: Well, we just – we just arrived, as you all know, and spent a little bit of time at our embassy. But it’s a great pleasure to see you with the whole team. And let me just say to our colleagues here, we have an alliance between Thailand and the United States that, of course, goes back many years.
There’s a powerful shared history, a foundation of shared values, and I think also a commitment both bilaterally and also our work through ASEAN to focus on things that we can do to better the lives of our people. And whether it’s inclusive economic growth, whether it’s making sure that we work together where we have joint security challenges –
PM Paetongtarn: Yes.
Secretary Blinken: – whether it’s dealing with climate change, the clean energy transition, in all of these areas the partnership that we have is really designed to produce results for our people, and that’s what we’re determined to do.
But particularly between us, our countries have such an extraordinary history together, and we simply want to build on that.
PM Paetongtarn: Yes, indeed. I believe that USA and Thailand has a very long-term good relationship, and of course, like, anything you want to do, and we just can talk and then – but (inaudible) have something together just very, like, future-forward, something like that.
And so we can invest or we can just do some project together that can help a lot of people (inaudible). The problem right now that Thailand is facing, the main – the main problem that we – like, in the country, so the north of Thailand is flooding every day.
Secretary Blinken: Yes.
PM Paetongtarn: You heard of it already.
Secretary Blinken: Yes.
PM Paetongtarn: So yes, but right now it’s getting better. Just it’s in recovery stage right now.
Secretary Blinken: Well, we look forward to talking about that and many other –
PM Paetongtarn: Yes.
Secretary Blinken: – subjects we have. Thank you.
