Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu and South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun on the margins of the G20 in Atlanta on Friday, and the three signed a Memorandum of Cooperation for a Trilateral Arctic Pacific Partnership, to explore maritime cooperation and economic partnership in the Pacific Arctic. The ministers reaffirmed their commitment to the complete denuclearization of North Korea and to full implementation of UN Security Council resolutions, and commended the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team’s work exposing North Korean sanctions violations. They emphasized peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and Rubio raised China’s efforts to assert control over the South China Sea and its coercive behavior in the East China Sea and Yellow Sea, along with Russia-China cooperation. The three also reviewed implementation of their trilateral memorandum on small modular reactor deployments, signed in Ankara on July 7.
US, Japan and South Korea sign Arctic Pacific partnership pact
The United States, Japan and South Korea signed a Memorandum of Cooperation for a Trilateral Arctic Pacific Partnership on Friday, covering maritime cooperation and economic partnership in the Pacific Arctic.
Why it matters: The pact adds an Arctic dimension to the trilateral partnership the three countries have been building since 2023, alongside small modular reactor cooperation and a shared stand against economic coercion and supply chain weaponization.
Data as of US Department of State readout of October 30, 2026, read in full in this run. Every fact is the State Department's own; the meeting's other participants have not issued separate readouts in the pool at judgment time.
Sources
- United States-Japan-Republic of Korea (ROK) Trilateral Foreign Ministers' Meeting - US Department of State, Office of the Spokesman - 2026-10-30