Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The speech of US Secretary of State Description Michael Pompeo at a press conference held on 5 August this, during which the head of the foreign policy department raised the following main issues, received a wide response in the media.

1. The US is stepping up its international campaign to remove "untrustworthy" Chinese apps. In particular, M. Pompeo announced the expansion of the government program "Clean Path" with a new plan "Clean Network", which extends to telecom operators, app stores, cloud services and submarine cables.

The program started on 29 April 2020 as the Clean Path Initiative, which aims to ensure the security of data flowing over 5G networks to US diplomatic facilities abroad and domestically.

As the US Secretary of State noted, the program consists of 5 initiatives:

a) Under the Clean Carrier project, the US government will ensure that Chinese carriers do not connect to US telecommunications networks;

b) Under the Clean Cable initiative, the US side will prevent China from collecting intelligence from submarine cables “on a hyper-scale”;

c) Washington will launch the Clean Cloud application to prevent the storage and processing of the "most sensitive" information of American citizens and businesses on cloud platforms "accessible to foreign adversaries" such as Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent;

d) In the direction of "Clean Store", the authorities will remove unreliable applications from US app stores;

e) According to the new "Clean Apps" line, Chinese smartphone manufacturers do not have the ability to download critical applications through their stores.

According to Pompeo, today the initiative is gaining momentum and now more than 30 countries of the world, and many of the largest companies have pledged to use exclusively "reliable" suppliers in their networks.

2. Regarding the Middle East issue, M. Pompeo said that in connection with the "terrible tragedy" in Beirut, the United States will announce concrete measures to assist Lebanon in the coming days.

Moreover, the US Secretary of State said that Washington will soon put forward a draft resolution on the extension of the arms embargo against Iran, which expires in October this year. According to M. Pompeo, "if the resolution is vetoed, the United States will unilaterally seek to extend the arms embargo."

3. The head of the US Department of State, during his conversation with journalists, commented on the progress of negotiations with the Russian Federation on strategic stability. As he stressed, “the parties have made progress, since two meetings took place. M. Pompeo expressed hope for another meeting with the Russian Federation on this issue.

At the same time, paying special attention to proxy sites, he announced the release of a special report by the Center for Global Engagement of the State Department on Russian disinformation and propaganda. In this vein, M. Pompeo stated that "the US authorities are ready to pay a reward of up to US$10 million for information about persons who, according to Washington, are trying to interfere in the American elections."

4. The head of the US Foreign Office noted that Washington’s global efforts to combat the pandemic continue. According to him, in the near future, the State Department and USAID will allocate an additional US$53 million in humanitarian and economic assistance to help vulnerable countries combat the consequences of the coronavirus. As a result, the total amount of American assistance in this direction will exceed US$1.6 billion.

Also, in order to invest in promising new sectors of the economy, markets and ideas, a Fund for Interaction and Partnership with the Private Sector is launched in the amount of US$10 million.

In general, according to experts, M. Pompeo’s statements show that the White House will increase pressure on the listed foreign policy issues, at least until November of this year. This is primarily due to the presidential election campaign entering the United States in a decisive phase, and also reflects the growing confrontation between Democrats and Republicans.

This development of the situation, along with the pandemic and its negative socio-economic consequences, further aggravates the domestic political situation in the United States and tensions in international relations.