00:00Thank you so much for taking my question, Mr. Secretary.
00:03I just want to circle back to John's question, Ari, the signal chat.
00:07Ah, the signal chat, yes.
00:08But of course, are you planning on making the Europeans pay for U.S. operations against
00:14the Houthis, given that their businesses seem to benefit more from opening up these shipping
00:19lanes, as discussed in that chat, and then moving to Russia and Ukraine?
00:23I was wondering if you could elaborate on the Black Sea ceasefire deal, and whether
00:29– how it's progressing.
00:31President Zelensky has already questioned Russia's seriousness, saying, quote, they
00:37are trying to distort agreements and, in fact, to see both our intermediaries.
00:43So on the first question about – look, here's the problem, okay?
00:46These guys, these Houthis, these are pirates, okay?
00:49This is a band of – it's a gang, in essence.
00:54It's gotten control of a certain part, but these are a religious fanatic gang.
00:58And these guys have missiles, and they've launched 174 attacks against U.S. Navy ships,
01:02150-something attacks on commercial vessels.
01:05They are literally saying they've controlled – they've set up a toll system at the
01:08Red Sea.
01:09These ships can go, these ships cannot.
01:11They don't blow up the Chinese ships, they don't blow up – but they blow up all the
01:14other ships.
01:15This is not sustainable.
01:16And so I think the point that I've made publicly is we are doing a great favor to
01:20the world.
01:21The United States is doing a great favor to the world, going after these guys' capability
01:25of doing this.
01:26How do we live in a world where a group like this has advanced weapons, okay, and can shut
01:32down a shipping lane and increase the cost of shipping that we're all paying for?
01:37Everything we buy, all the stuff is embedded in the cost and in the price of these things
01:40is how much it costs to ship it.
01:42And so that's just not a sustainable thing.
01:44We can't allow it.
01:45So I think the point I would make is not, you know, we're going to make everybody
01:47pay or – it's everybody should recognize we are doing the world a great favor going
01:52after these guys, because this can't continue.
01:53This is unsustainable.
01:54What's next?
01:56You know, some gang is going to show up somewhere else and shut off another shipping street,
01:59a shipping lane?
02:00That's not practical.
02:01It cannot happen.
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