Transcript: Secretary Of State Tillerson On Trump's Meeting With Putin

On Friday, President Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 international economic summit in Hamburg, Germany. After the face-to-face, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who also attended the meeting, spoke to reporters along with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and press secretary Sean Spicer. Here is the full transcript of the briefing, as provided by the White House.

SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Hi, everybody. I just want to highlight very briefly, and then Secretary Tillerson will go on, and then afterwards we'll both answer a few questions.

But President Trump has had a very, very significant few days. I think, as you know, we went to Poland on Wednesday. In Poland, he met with 12 different leaders. We had bilats with Croatia and with Poland, as well as 10 other leaders at the Three Seas Conference where we talked about energy — the importance of the energy markets, the importance of supplying independent energy, infrastructure and opportunities there. I think, as you know, the speech which was just incredibly well-received, is part of our "America First But America Not Alone."

Then coming here, the President has had very significant meetings at the G20 already. Yesterday, we had the opportunity to meet with Chancellor Merkel and her team. It was a very, very productive and friendly meeting. There were lots of areas for us to collaborate on that were very clear. We talked about economic issues, we talked about trade. We had a very productive dinner last night — Secretary Tillerson, myself, General McMaster — with President Moon Jae-in and Prime Minister Abe and their teams, discussing the importance of what's going on in North Korea and the issues there. And then today we've had, already, several other bilats, and tomorrow we have another six.

The President also participated in a very important session today on trade and an important session on the environment and the economy. So I would just generally say we've had very productive economic meetings. There's been very substantive issues discussed. The North Korea issue has been discussed very significantly, about the escalation in North Korea.

And with that, I