According to a report in Bloomberg, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson raised a question that surprised European diplomats on Tuesday. “Why should U.S. taxpayers be interested in Ukraine?” Tillerson reportedly asked during a discussion of Russian's intervention in the country at a Group of Seven gathering on Tuesday in Lucca, Italy. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that he responded to Tillerson by saying American taxpayers should want a European Union that is “strong politically, strong from a security point of view, and strong economically.” State Department spokesman R.C. Hammond responded to a request for comment from Bloomberg about the remark saying that it was a "rhetorical device.”
