In "The Week at State," Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska, co-hosts a virtual COVID-19 Global Action Plan Foreign Ministerial Meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa, releases the 2022 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report and honors the 2022 TIP Report Heroes for their anti-trafficking work, and co-hosts a virtual Supply Chain Ministerial Forum with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. For the latest, visit https://www.state.gov and subscribe to our newsletter at http://ow.ly/diiN30ro7Cw.
---------- Under the leadership of the President and Secretary of State, the U.S. Department of State leads America’s foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and assistance by advancing the interests of the American people, their safety and economic prosperity. On behalf of the American people we promote and demonstrate democratic values and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world.
The Secretary of State, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, is the President's chief foreign affairs adviser. The Secretary carries out the President's foreign policies through the State Department, which includes the Foreign Service, Civil Service and U.S. Agency for International Development.
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We launched the Global Action Plans to try to accelerate progress across six key lines of
effort that were focused on the areas of the greatest need, where we identified the biggest
gaps. Getting more shots into arms, strengthening our supply chains, closing information gaps to
try to increase confidence in vaccines, providing more support to frontline workers, increasing
access to treatments and therapeutics, and finally, building a stronger, more effective
global health architecture for the future. All of these efforts will help us tackle
other outbreaks happening around the world, like monkeypox and other diseases.
The health of our people is simply more secure when we're doing this, when we're working together.
We have to continue to marshal commitment to ensure that ending COVID-19 remains a top focus
for our governments and for our citizens. And we've got to continue to coordinate relentlessly
with each other, because this is the definition of a challenge that no country can solve alone.
There are nearly 25 million people currently victims of trafficking, 25 million people.
The United States is committed to fighting it, because trafficking destabilizes societies,
it undermines economies, it harms workers, it enriches those who exploit them,
it undercuts legitimate business, and most fundamentally, because it is so profoundly wrong.
Trafficking in persons violates the rights of all people to be free,
free to do what you want, be who you want, make the life that you wish.
The president signed a new executive order which provides the U.S. government expanded tools to
deter and to disrupt hostage-taking and wrongful detentions. This executive order,
among other actions, creates a comprehensive sanctions program as a tool to bring U.S.
nationals held hostage and wrongfully detained home. Today, in a parallel effort, the State
Department is introducing a new risk indicator to our travel advisories, what we call the D
indicator. This new indicator warns U.S. citizens of the risk of wrongful detention by a foreign
government. We are adding this indicator to highlight elevated risk of wrongful detention
in particular countries that have regularly engaged in this practice.
There are two main goals, I think, that we've agreed that we need to focus on. The first is
to identify other immediate steps that we can take to reduce disruptions that are most affecting
people's lives and commit to taking those steps. The second is to build the long-term foundation
that makes us less vulnerable to future shocks, whether they come from natural disasters,
from pandemics, from wars, or some other crisis.
Climate change is run by the private sector, fundamentally run by the private sector,
so governments alone cannot solve the challenges. We need to, and we're committed to, engaging
private sector partners, local communities to together envision new ways of forming public-private
partnerships, innovating, and I join Tony in sharing the excitement to hear from each and
every one of you today around how we can work together to solve these problems.
