• 2 days ago
In his tariff announcement, President Trump claimed that his tariffs would greatly increase growth.

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Transcript
00:00They will give us growth.
00:01These tariffs are going to give us growth like you
00:03haven't seen before.
00:05And it'll be something very special to watch.
00:08I am so looking forward.
00:10And, Brian, it's going to happen even faster than you said.
00:12You know, you might say, but it's already started.
00:15It's already started.
00:18Work has already begun on plants all around the country.
00:21And you see that as before.
00:22These are big, rich companies.
00:24We have $61 billion started on a big plant
00:29going up.
00:30It's going to be announced over the next two days.
00:32And they already started work.
00:34Many of these biggest, the biggest companies in the
00:36world, they've committed to build, build, build.
00:39We're going to build, build, build, sir.
00:41And they came here to see me and they came, wanted
00:44to know if they could have a press conference.
00:45I do as many as I can.
00:47I'm pretty busy trying to stop Russia and Ukraine
00:49and the Middle East.
00:51We got to stop that.
00:52We're going to stop the Houthis, which were
00:54making tremendous.
00:56They like shooting ships down and out of the water,
00:58seeking ships.
01:00They get a kick out of it, but they're not getting
01:01such a kick out of it now, are they, Mr. Secretary?
01:05They're not getting such a kick out of that now.
01:08But here are just a short list of some of the
01:11companies that have already announced and
01:13committed to investment.
01:15And this is a company that built its factories and
01:19its plants in China.
01:21Apple is going to spend $500 billion.
01:26They never spent money like that here.
01:28They're going to build their plants here.
01:30SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle, great, great
01:35companies, are investing $500 billion almost
01:39immediately.
01:40Nvidia, a hot company, is investing hundreds of
01:43billions of dollars.
01:45They just announced.
01:46TSMC, the biggest, most important company in the
01:49world of chips from Taiwan, with no investment
01:53from us, is investing $200 billion.
01:56And they said the reason was, number one, the
01:58election of November 5th, and number two, the
02:01tariffs.
02:01They don't want to pay the tariffs.
02:03And the way they're not paying it is to build
02:05their plant here.
02:06So we're going to go from almost no percentage.
02:08We used to have 100 percent of the chip
02:10market.
02:10Now it's all in Taiwan.
02:12Almost all of it's in Taiwan.
02:13A couple of other countries, but mostly in
02:15Taiwan.
02:16And think of it, we had 100 percent.
02:19We lost it because of people in that office
02:21that didn't do their job.
02:22They allowed it to be stolen from us.
02:25Johnson & Johnson, great company, $55 billion.
02:28Eli Lilly, $27 billion.
02:31Meta is investing $500 billion.
02:35Wow.
02:36Demac is investing $20 billion.
02:41CMA, CGM, $20 billion.
02:44And then you have Merck and Clarios, Stellantis,
02:48General Motors, GE Aerospace, Honda, Nissan.
02:52Hyundai are all putting in billions and billions of
02:55dollars, and they're committed 100 percent.
02:57So — and we have never had — we've never had —
03:00and this is after two and a half months.
03:03This is not — this is after just a short — this
03:05all took place as soon as we came out with what
03:09everybody wanted to do.
03:10You know, I watched a gentleman today on
03:12television.
03:13He used to work with Lee Iacocca, a very respected
03:16automobile person.
03:17And he said, you know — because they're asking
03:20people, they try and get as many negative people as
03:22they can, but they can't find them too much.
03:24It's pretty hard to find, in terms of what we're
03:26doing, especially when they see all this
03:27investment.
03:28They said, so tell me, what do you think of what
03:31Trump is doing from the automobile standpoint?
03:33He said, I can't believe it.
03:36Somebody is finally — he's an older guy, real
03:39pro, really top guy.
03:41With Lee Iacocca, he said, I never thought I'd see
03:44the day when this would happen.
03:46Where somebody had the courage to go and do what
03:48has to be done.
03:49This is transforming our nation.
03:51Our entire nation is going to be transformed,
03:54not only with the cars, but on every single other
03:57item that's built.
03:59We're going to become an industrial powerhouse.
04:01And he said that so beautifully today.
04:03In fact, I'm going to find out — I'm going to get a
04:06tape.
04:07And, Bruce, I'm going to get that tape, and I'm
04:09going to send it to you out in Long Island, and
04:10you're going to play it for the people and all
04:12your union workers and your non-union workers
04:15out there.
04:16You got a pretty even split.
04:18But we have — so far, it looks like we're going to
04:22have about $6 trillion of investments.
04:24And you wouldn't do that in years in this country
04:28over the last number of years.
04:30Six trillion dollars, it's — and that's going to
04:32be much higher by the end of the year.
04:34And think of what $6 trillion is.
04:37You wouldn't have even a small percentage of that
04:41under this other system.
04:42We're going to be an entirely different country,
04:44and it's going to be fantastic for the workers.
04:46It's going to be fantastic for everyone.
04:48There will never have been a transformation of a
04:51country like the transformation that's
04:53already happening in the United States of America.
04:56It's an incredible thing to watch, and it's
04:58incredible to meet with the top people — people
05:00that you read about, very wealthy people or people
05:03that are great managers and executives and
05:06presidents of big public companies — and to watch
05:09the enthusiasm they have now that they didn't have.
05:12They gave up on our country.
05:13They went to foreign countries and they built
05:16companies that are pouring into our country at levels
05:19never seen before, with jobs and money to follow.
05:22And it's really beautiful.
05:24In the coming days, there will be complaints from
05:26the globalists and the outsourcers and special
05:29interests and the fake news.
05:31Always — the fake news will always complain.
05:33But never forget, every prediction our opponents
05:37made about trade for the last 30 years has been
05:39proven totally wrong.
05:41They were wrong about NAFTA.
05:43They were wrong about China.
05:45They were wrong about the Trans-Pacific Partnership,
05:48which would have been a disaster if I didn't
05:50terminate it.
05:51If I didn't turn that — terminate that, United
05:55Auto Workers, you would have had no jobs in this
05:57country.
05:58You would have had no jobs.
06:00It was all going to other countries.
06:03In my first term, they said tariffs would crash
06:08the economy.
06:08Instead, we built the greatest economy in the
06:10history of the world.
06:11And again, I have great respect for President Xi
06:14of China.
06:15I have great respect for China.
06:16But they were taking tremendous advantage of
06:19them — of us.
06:20And I commend them for that.
06:22I say, hey, if you can get away with it, that's
06:24okay.
06:25But, you know, they understand exactly what's
06:28happening.
06:29And they probably — most of them are saying it's
06:31about time they did something.
06:32But — and they're going to fight, and they're
06:34going to fight fair.
06:35Everyone is going to fight.
06:36You know, it's like — I say to the leaders, look,
06:39you got to take care of your country, but we have
06:41to start taking care of our country now.
06:43We can't do what we've been doing for the last
06:4550 years.
06:46From the day of my election, the stock market
06:49went up, in my first term, 88 percent, with NASDAQ
06:53going up 155 percent — more than any President
06:57has ever had in any term in office, by far.
07:01And I think we're going to blow that away.
07:05And maybe the numbers won't show, but I think
07:08they're going to show much better than even those
07:10numbers.
07:11But what you're going to see is you're going to
07:12see activity that — empty, dead sites, factories
07:15that are falling down.
07:17Those factories will be knocked down, and they're
07:19going to have brand-new factories built in their
07:21place.
07:22They're not only talking about renovating, they're
07:23talking about brand-new — the best anywhere in the
07:26world, the biggest anywhere in the world.
07:28I have a friend who builds car plants, and I said,
07:30I want to see the biggest and the best.
07:32He said, Well, we have to go to Mexico.
07:35I said, No, I want to see it in the United States.
07:36He said, We're not building them in the
07:38United — this is a year and a half ago, during
07:40the campaign.
07:41He said, We're not building.
07:42You'd have to go to Mexico.
07:43When I was starting to decide to run, and I went
07:47to number one in the polls — very rapidly, I want
07:49to say.
07:50I want to say.
07:50Like, let's say, in the first — in the first
07:53hour.
07:53And then, shortly thereafter, it looked like
07:56I was going to win, and the fake news was saying,
07:59Oh, no, don't do this.
08:00What they don't know is if I didn't win, they would
08:02have really been in trouble because nobody
08:05wants to read them anyway.
08:06But I tell you what, when I — when it looked like I
08:09was going to win, I announced that I was going
08:12to be doing exactly what we're talking about today.
08:14Great consistency, actually, because I've
08:16been talking about it for 40 years.
08:19But — because I saw what was happening 40 years ago.
08:21If you look at my old speeches when I was young
08:24— very handsome — my old speeches, and then
08:28people would say — it'd be on a television show
08:31— I'd be talking about how we were being ripped
08:33off by these countries.
08:34I mean, nothing changes very much.
08:36The only thing that changed were the
08:37countries, but nothing really changes.
08:40But, you know, it's why it's such an honor.
08:42It's such an honor to be finally able to do this.
08:46If you look at China, I took in hundreds of
08:49billions of dollars in my term.
08:52Hundreds of billions.
08:53They never paid 10 cents to any other President,
08:57and yet they paid hundreds of billions.
08:59So much so that Biden couldn't do anything.
09:02They wanted to try and terminate it because he
09:05had a very special relationship with China.
09:07You know what their relationship was?
09:09He had a special relationship.
09:12But the numbers were so big — the numbers were so
09:16big that they couldn't do it.
09:18So they did ease it up.
09:20They did things that they shouldn't have done.
09:22They made it a lot more comfortable for them, but
09:25they couldn't do it because the numbers were
09:27hundreds of billions of dollars.
09:29And I did that.
09:30And we were on our way to doing something, like,
09:33incredible.
09:35And then we had a very bad election happen.
09:37A very bad election.
09:38A lot of bad things happened.
09:39So when I said, we got to do it again, I said, we
09:42have to make it too big to rig.
09:43And we made it too big to rig, and we won in
09:45records.
09:46And it was a monumental win.
09:48And it was such an honor to see so many of you, like
09:52Brian and your friends, here with us to celebrate
09:56and to, more importantly, celebrate what we're
09:58doing.
09:59Because that wouldn't be a full celebration if we
10:00didn't do this, because this will be an entirely
10:03different country in a short period of time.
10:06It'll be something the whole world will be
10:07talking about it.
10:08The critics made the very tired predictions earlier
10:13this year, but in February, core inflation
10:15dropped to the lowest rate in four years.
10:18And the price of eggs, as you know, just in a
10:20couple of — in a month and a half, we were there
10:23for four weeks.
10:26And the first week, I got blamed for eggs.
10:29I said, I just got here.
10:30They said, eggs have gone up at, like, 250 percent,
10:34and you can't get eggs.
10:36And they were going crazy.
10:38And I said, I just got here.
10:41And then we got to work on eggs, and we got to work
10:45on everything.
10:45And our great Secretary of Agriculture, you did a
10:48fantastic job.
10:50Brooke Rollins, you did a fantastic job.
10:52And, as I said before, the price of eggs dropped
10:56now 59 percent, and they're going down more.
10:59And the availability is fantastic.
11:01They were saying that, for Easter, please don't use
11:03eggs.
11:04I said, you use plastic eggs.
11:05I said, we don't want to do that.
11:07We want to — and you really came through.
11:09It's an amazing job.
11:10Thank you very much, Brooke.
11:11You did great.
11:12But, likewise, an old-fashioned term that we
11:14use — groceries.
11:14I used it on the campaign.
11:16It's such an old-fashioned term, but a
11:18beautiful term — groceries.
11:19It sort of says a bag with different things in it.
11:22Groceries went through the roof.
11:24And I campaigned on that.
11:26I talked about the word groceries for a lot.
11:28And energy costs now are down.
11:30Groceries are down.
11:32Gasoline is way under $3, and people are beginning
11:35to be able to buy things and live again.
11:38We brought prices way down.
11:40We created 10,000 already in a few weeks — new
11:43manufacturing jobs.
11:45And it was — that took place in one month.
11:48Numbers that they haven't seen in a long time.
11:50We had virtually no inflation under my term.
11:52We had virtually no inflation for four years.
11:56But after transitioning over to Sleepy Joe, it
12:00went from almost nonexistent to the highest.

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