To be charitable, in recent years, we are obviously participating in RIMPAC exercises. We sent a frigate through the Taiwan Strait with our American friends and others, but showing up for the occasional what I would call “naval cameo appearance”, and I don't mean to be overly sarcastic there.... We need to have more assets in the Pacific. We need, quite frankly, to decide which countries are going to be priorities in terms of developing deeper partnerships. My list would be Japan—that's an obvious one—South Korea, Australia and Indonesia. I think we can start by having more military attachés in the region, and as we start acquiring new equipment, we can start building those relationships.
On February 16th, 2022. See this statement in context.