Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Kenyan President William Ruto Before Their Meeting

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, Mr. President, it’s wonderful to see you as always. Thank you for taking the time in this incredibly busy week for all of us. I think many of us in Washington are still basking in the state visit that you conducted, and I think that only underscored the breadth and depth of the ties between our countries and the work that we’re doing together on a bilateral basis but also on a regional and even global basis to try to help bring greater peace, greater security, greater opportunity to people in both of our countries but also in many others.

I just want to again thank you for Kenya’s remarkable leadership of the Multinational Security Support mission in Haiti. I was in Haiti a couple of weeks ago and saw for myself Kenya’s leadership on the ground. But there and in so many other regional challenges in Africa, Kenya is playing an absolutely essential leadership role.

For our part, we look forward to continuing our own discussions about how we can work together even more, particularly to help support your economic programs and economic growth, as well as the important work for the Kenyan people. So again, I thank you for taking the time today, and wonderful to see you again.

PRESIDENT RUTO: Secretary, thank you very much for this meeting. It’s immensely useful to us. And thank you, again, for the friendship between Kenya and the United States. It was a historic moment when I came for the state visit, and subsequent to the state visit I think so much is underway with Microsoft, with all the other agreements, with the CHIPS Act, and the discussions around investments and trade, and I’m very happy that we’ve made progress on our negotiations on the strategic trade and investment agreement.

And I was also in Haiti a few days ago, following in your footsteps, and again to see for myself firsthand what is the situation in Haiti. A lot of optimism from the people – cautiously, because I think they’ve been here for far too long. Listening to the commanders and the Haitian police on the ground, both from MSS and the Haitian police, significant progress made, the airport a lot more secure, their hospitals, the police academy, around the port, but with very big gaps of more additional personnel, more equipment, a lot more logistics required, a lot more resources required.

And I want to thank the U.S. for the immense support that we have received in terms of equipment and support at MSS and everything else you are doing around our continent, your support in South Sudan, what you are doing in DRC. And I will be looking forward to a conversation around those issues and to see how our partnership can help drive some of the solutions in those areas.

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you.