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Quest Means Business
Trump To Unveil Sweeping U.S. Tariffs; Trump Announces 10 Percent Base Tariff And Reciprocal Tariffs On Other Nations. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired April 02, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:13]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": Closing bell ringing on wall street on tariff day, Liberation Day, whatever you want to
call it. The market has rallied quite considerably over the course of the session, all three indices are higher. A sea of green on the market. And
everybody now waits for the President in the Rose Garden as we see.
Those are the markets. The main events of the day.
Tonight, all eyes on that Rose Garden as we await the tariff announcement.
In this program, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS tonight, We will examine the trade war from all perspectives, the macroeconomic and geopolitical. You're going
to hear from the former U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Ron Kirk, and you'll hear the corporate impact. And you'll hear from the CEO of MGA
Entertainment, Isaac Larian, and we will give you the local perspective as we visit the birthplace of Canadian hockey, the great Wayne Gretzky.
We are live from New York. Wednesday, April the 2nd. Liberation Tariff Day. I'm Richard Quest. I mean business.
Good evening.
The only liberating I will be doing in the next hour is liberating you the facts of what has been announced and what it all means, because President
Trump will likely announce sweeping tariffs that he hopes will reshape the global trading environment in the U.S.' favor.
The President calls it Liberation Day. The White House Rose Garden is the scene of the setting or the setting of the scene. It is the first event
that has been held here since the President returned to office.
Mr. Trump is claiming the tariffs will bring manufacturing back to the United States, and in the meantime, will bring many billions, maybe
trillions, arguably of dollars, back to the U.S. Treasury.
There are several possibilities.
First of all, Donald Trump may impose a blanket tariff or put reciprocal duties on all countries. He could also target goods, sectoral tariffs --
pharmaceutical microchips -- or indeed specific nations with high trade barriers or he could actually do a combination of all of this, which would
make it extremely complex to unpick.
Whatever that means, every single country watches, waits and has no idea how it is likely to affect them until they get the details.
Kevin Liptak is at the White House.
Well, what do you make of it? What's going to happen?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, I mean, I think now that the President has made his decision and we should say this was
something of an 11th hour decision, the President is still debating this with his team early this morning, it does seem clear that what he will do
is some combination of all of those things that you listed, a universal, essentially baseline tariff, additional reciprocal tariffs, which he has
been talking about for the last six weeks or so, trying to target specific countries for the duties that they apply on American exports.
You're right that this will take a lot of unpacking to determine what exactly the effect and the impact will be, not just in the United States,
but in these individual countries and it will certainly start off this scramble by these nations to try and negotiate these rates down.
We heard from the White House earlier this week that this would take effect immediately, but that isn't necessarily going to stop the leaders of these
countries to come to Trump to try and figure out a way around some of these tariffs. And so this is really just the starting point.
I think the other way to look at it is essentially the culmination of a lifelong effect for tariffs by the President. This is obviously the most
onerous application of them in his political career, but this is really kind of punctuating what has been an animating feature of his entire
political and business life now taking place in the Rose Garden. And you see in there, Cabinet members, you see elected officials, but they have
also invited workers from industries that they say will benefit, whether it is steel workers, whether it is pipefitters, whether its other types of
industry who will have a real role in this going forward -- Richard.
QUEST: Kevin, you'll help me understand what happens once we get the details. I am grateful to you.
Now, even before the tariff announcement, Donald Trump's trade war had been pushing some companies to move manufacturing out of China. The California
based toymaker MGA Entertainment is behind the hit toys like Bratz and LOL Surprise Dolls. More than half of its goods are made in China.
As a result of the last lot of tariffs, many companies moved to Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and India.
[16:05:10]
Now the goal is to go from 10 percent to 40 percent of its production. The question is where? Because if it is reciprocal tariffs around the world,
Isaac Larian, chief executive, Isaac, you're running out of world where you can move production because you're going to get hit wherever. I guess, it
is forcing you to the United States.
ISAAC LARIAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, MGA ENTERTAINMENT: Richard, thank you for having me. First and foremost, MGA owns Little Tikes, which makes the
number one selling car in America called Cozy Coupe. In fact, we have a factory, and the factory is located in Hudson, Ohio for the past 60 years.
So we know about manufacturing and there are certain toys, it is impossible to bring to USA no matter what.
For example, we have this product, Cartuned. It is sold for $5.00. You cannot make it in the USA or if you make it in USA, it is going to cost
$15.00 and the consumer is going to get hurt.
Toys are essential for physical --
QUEST: Sir Isaac -- Isaac, I need to interrupt you. Will you forgive me, sir? I am going to bring this to a close because the President -- we will
talk again. Don't worry. We will come back to you.
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, is now walking out to -- hail to the chief, obviously, and he is in the Rose Garden. He is moving
forward to welcome those people who have come to hear what he is calling liberation day. At the moment, he is standing on his own as you can see,
the President of the United States with this major shift in policy on U.S. trade.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you very much. Thank you. Nice crowd. What a good looking group of people.
Well, we have some very, very good news today and a lot of good things are happening for our country. Please sit down.
My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day. I've been waiting for a long time.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: April 2nd, 2025 will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day
that we began to make America wealthy again.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We are going to make it wealthy, good and wealthy.
For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike. American steelworkers,
auto workers, farmers and skilled craftsmen, we have a lot of them here with us today. They really suffered gravely. They watched in anguish as
foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful
American Dream.
We had an American Dream that you don't hear so much about. You did four years ago, and you are now, but you don't too often. And for many years and
decades even, you didn't hear too much about.
Our country, and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years, but it is not going to happen anymore. It is not going to happen.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: In a few moments, I will sign a historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs on countries throughout the world. Reciprocal -- that
means they do it to us, and we do it to them. Very simple. Can't get any simpler than that.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: This is one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history. It is our Declaration of Economic Independence.
For years, hardworking American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our
expense. But now it is our turn to prosper, and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt
and it will all happen very quickly.
With today's action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again, greater than ever before.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country, and you see it happening already. We will supercharge our domestic industrial base.
We will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers and ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and
lower prices for consumers. This will be indeed the Golden Age of America. It is coming back. We are going to come back very strongly.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
[16:10:24]
We are pleased to be joined on this momentous occasion by Vice President J.D. Vance. J.D., thank you.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you very much. Where are you, J.D.? No, that's -- that wasn't too hard to find.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: I was looking, you know, he likes to take a low key attitude. So he'd usually be sitting right in front. He is gaining a lot of confidence,
Mike, isn't he? And nearly my entire Cabinet is here, as well as Speaker Mike Johnson, who has done an amazing job.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Thank you.
And with the great success we had last night in Florida, we have a majority of seven and seven is like a lot where we had it at one, right? You've done
a fantastic job and many of the members of the House and Senate are with us. Senators, congressmen, thank you all for being with us. We appreciate
it.
For decades, the United States slashed our trade barriers on other countries, while those nations placed massive tariffs on our products and
created outrageous, non-monetary barriers to decimate our industries, and in many cases, the nonmonetary barriers were worse than the monetary ones.
They manipulated their currencies, subsidized their exports, stole our intellectual property, imposed exorbitant VAT taxes to disadvantage our
products, adopted unfair rules and technical standards, and created filthy pollution havens. They were absolutely filthy, but they always came to us
and they said, we are violating. We should pay for it.
It is all detailed in a very big report by the U.S. Trade Representative on foreign trade barriers and I will just hold it up for you. It is available,
and you don't have to pay too much as I understand it, you pay nothing. It is a lot of work, a lot of work for something, actually, because it is a
special -- it is a special book. It is very -- frankly, it is very upsetting when you read it, when you see what people have been doing to us
for 30 years.
This all happened with no response from the United States of America, none whatsoever. But those days are over. Let me offer just a few examples of
the vicious attacks our workers have faced for so many years.
The United States charges other countries only a 2.4 tariff on motorcycles. Meanwhile, Thailand and others are charging much higher prices, like 60
percent. India charges 70 percent, Vietnam charges 75 percent, and others are even higher than that.
Likewise, until today, the United States has for decades charged a 2.5 tariff. Think of that -- 2.5 percent on foreign made automobiles. The
European Union charges us more than 10 percent tariffs, and they have 20 percent. That's much, much higher. India charges 70 percent. And perhaps
worst of all are the non-monetary restrictions imposed by South Korea, Japan and very many other nations as a result of these colossal trade
barriers.
Eighty-one percent of the cars in South Korea are made in South Korea, 94 percent of the cars in Japan are made in Japan. Toyota sells one million
foreign made automobiles into the United States, and General Motors sells almost none. Ford sells very little. None of our companies are allowed to
go into other countries. And I say that friend and foe, and in many cases the friend is worse than the foe in terms of trade.
But such horrendous imbalances have devastated our industrial base and put our national security at risk. I don't blame these other countries at all
for this calamity. I blame former presidents and past leaders who weren't doing their job. They let it happen, and they let it happen to an extent
that nobody can even believe. That's why effective at midnight, we will impose a 25 percent tariff on all foreign made automobiles.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Thank you.
Brian, I'd like to have you come up here for a second. Okay. I just see him sitting. He has been a fan of ours and he understands this business a lot
better than the economists, a lot better than anybody.
Brian, say a few words, please, would you?
BRIAN PANNEBECKER, AUTOWORKERS FOR TRUMP: Thank you.
Thank you.
TRUMP: It is a great honor to have you.
[16:10:07 ]
PANNEBECKER: Thank you, Mr. President.
I grew up just north of Detroit, Michigan, in Macomb County, known as the home of the Reagan Democrats.
My first vote for President was for Ronald Reagan. I thought that was going to be the best president I ever saw in my lifetime, until Donald J. Trump
came along.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
PANNEBECKER: I have watched -- my entire life, I have watched plant after plant after plant in Detroit and in the Metro Detroit area closed. There
are now plants sitting idle. There are now plants that are underutilized, and Donald Trump's policies are going to bring product back into those
underutilized plants. There is going to be new investment. There is going to be new plants built, and the UAW members and I brought 20 of them with
me, they are sitting right over here, we support Donald Trump's policies on tariffs 100 percent.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
PANNEBECKER: So, Mr. President, we can't thank you enough. And in six months or a year, we are going to begin to see the benefits. I can't wait
to see what is happening three or four years down the road.
Thank you, Mr. President.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: What a great guy. He got it right from the beginning. He got it before almost anybody else. This group over there, they got it, too.
And you know, we won the state of Michigan. We won almost all of them, but we won Michigan by a lot and I want to just thank you all, the auto workers
were fantastic. The Teamsters were fantastic.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Everyone was pretty good, I will tell you. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. You're going to be very happy very soon and you probably see
what is happening with all of the -- not only car companies, but car companies in particular, we see it with all of the ones, they are moving,
they are announcing day in, day out, you're seeing it. Nobody has ever seen anything like that.
With today's actions, we are also standing up for our great farmers and ranchers who are brutalized by nations all over the world, brutalized.
Canada, by the way, imposes a 250 to 300 percent tariff on many of our dairy products. They do the first the first can of milk. They did the first
little carton of milk at a very low price, but after that, it gets bad, and then it gets up to 275 to 300 percent. So when they are figuring what is
Canada charging, they say, oh, about two percent, three percent.
But take a look at what happens down the road when you look a little bit. It is not a pretty picture and we don't like it and it is not fair. It is
not fair to our farmers, it is not fair to our country, and with countries like Canada, you know, we subsidize a lot of countries and keep them going
and keep them in business.
In the case of Mexico, it is $300 billion a year, in the case of Canada, it is close to $200 billion a year. And I say, why are we doing this? Why are
we doing this? I mean, at what point do we say, you've got to work for yourselves and you've got to -- this is why we have the big deficits. This
is why we have that amount of debt that's been placed on our heads over the last number of years, and we are really not taking it anymore.
Through non-tariff barriers, the European Union bans imports of most American poultry. You understand? They say we want to send you our cars, we
want to send you everything, but we are not going to take anything that you have.
Australia bans and they're wonderful people and wonderful everything, but they ban American beef. Yet, we imported $3 billion of Australian beef from
them just last year alone. They won't take any of our beef. They don't want it because they don't want it to affect their farmers. And you know what? I
don't blame them. But we are doing the same thing right now, starting about midnight tonight, I would say.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: And China charges American rice farmers an over quota, it is called, a tariff rate of 65 percent. South Korea charges 50. Actually, they charge
different from 50 percent to 513 percent, and Japan, our friend charges us 700 percent. But that's because they want us selling rice and other things.
Who can blame them, Madam Secretary of Agriculture. Great job you did on eggs, by the way. The egg prices came down 50 percent. You got them down 50
percent.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Once we got involved, they were going through the sky, the egg prices. They were going through the sky. And you did a fantastic job. Now
we have lots of eggs and they're much cheaper, down about 59 percent now and they are going down further.
We charge 2.8 percent for so many things that other countries are charging 200 percent, 300 percent and 400 percent for. If imposing tariffs and
protective barriers made nations poorer, then every country on earth would be racing to eliminate these policies, and China would be the first on
line, they run a very strong country, but they're not first in line and the American people are paying a very big price from 1789 to 1913, we were a
tariff backed nation and the United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been.
So wealthy, in fact, that in the 1880s, they established a commission to decide what they were going to do with the vast sums of money they were
collecting. We were collecting so much money so fast, we didn't know what to do with it. Isn't that a nice problem to have? What do you think, Marco?
Good problem? Marco would love that problem.
But, we don't have that problem anymore. But we are not going to have it very much longer, I will tell you. But they collected so much money, they
actually formed a commission to determine what they were going to do with the money, who they were going to give it to, and how much.
Then in 1913, for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens rather than foreign countries would start paying the
money necessary to run our government. Then in 1929, it all came to a very abrupt end with the Great Depression, and it would have never happened if
they had stayed with the tariff policy, it would have been a much different story.
They tried to bring back tariffs to save our country, but it was gone. It was gone. It was too late. Nothing could have been done.
It took years and years to get out of that depression, far longer than even FDR had that office right over there for a long period of time. The ramp
system, it is rather intricate, it was built because of him and every time you walk up, you think of him and he did a great job in many ways, but it
lasted long beyond his terms, as you know.
But, it is not too late any longer, and we are going to start being smart and were going to start being very wealthy again. We are going to be
wealthy as a country because they've taken so much of our wealth away from us. We are not going to let that happen. We truly can be very wealthy.
We can be so much wealthier than any country. It is not even believable. But we are getting smart.
Nearly a century later, in the face of unrelenting economic warfare, the United States can no longer continue with a policy of unilateral economic
surrender. We cannot pay the deficits of Canada, Mexico and so many other countries. We used to do it, we can't do it anymore.
We take care of countries all over the world. We pay for their military. We pay for everything they have to pay, and then when you want to cut back a
little bit, they get upset that you're not taking care of them any longer, but we have to take care of our people, and we are going to take care of
our people first, and I am sorry to say that.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: And today we are standing up for the American worker, and we are finally putting America first.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: In Sleepy Joe Biden's last year in office, the United States hemorrhaged 100,000 manufacturing jobs, and the number was going through
the roof at levels never seen before and our trade deficit reached a record $1.2 trillion, which is unheard of.
Since the beginning of NAFTA, the worst trade deal ever made, it was a horror show. I was able to determine it. They all said you'd never be able
to get it out. We had to get approval from Congress to get it terminated.
We had to live with that deal. It was the worst deal, worst trade deal ever made by far. But since the very beginning of NAFTA, our country lost 90,000
factories. Think of what that is, 90,000. Think about putting a map up and putting tacks on it. You wouldn't have enough room, 90,000, I said, is that
possible? We had it checked four different times and it was actually somewhat higher than that -- and five million manufacturing jobs were lost
while racking up trade deficits of $19 trillion. That was the worst trade deal ever made.
As a result of these gigantic losses, foreign nations now own $26 trillion more of American assets than Americans, think of this, than the Americans
own of their own foreign assets or other foreign assets.
The United States can no longer produce enough antibiotics to treat our sick. We have a tremendous problem. We have to go to foreign countries to
treat our sick. If anything ever happened from a war standpoint, we wouldn't be able to do it.
We import virtually all of our computers, phones, televisions and electronics. We used to dominate the field and now, we import it all from
different countries.
A single shipyard in China now produces more ships every year than all of the American shipyards combined, think of that, and it was a business that
we used to dominate. We used to dominate it totally. In short, chronic trade deficits are no longer merely an economic problem. They're a national
emergency that threatens our security and our very way of life.
[16:25:09]
It is a very great threat to our country, and for these reasons, starting tomorrow, the United States will implement reciprocal tariffs on other
nations. It has been a long time since we even thought of that. We used to think about it a lot, we didn't think about it for many decades and you see
what's happened.
For nations that treat us badly, we will calculate the combined rate of all their tariffs, nonmonetary barriers and other forms of cheating and because
we are being very kind, we are a kind people, very kind, you're not so kind when you got ripped off with your salaries, my auto worker friends and my
Teamster friends and all of the unions that typically voted Democrat, they're not voting Democrat anymore because worker, whether union or non-
worker, they're for the Republicans now.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: That's what happened.
But we will charge them approximately half of what they are and have been charging us. So the tariffs will be not a full reciprocal, I could have
done that, yes, but it would have been tough for a lot of countries. We didn't want to do that.
I'd like to see the chart if you have it. Could you bring it up, Howard? This is our great Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: So if you look at that, China first row, China, 67 percent. That's tariffs charged to the USA including currency manipulation and trade
barriers, so 67 percent, I think you can for the most part see it. Those with good eyes, with bad eyes we didn't want to bring -- it is very windy
out here. We didn't want to bring out the big charts because it had no chance of standing.
Fortunately, we came armed with a little smaller chart, so it is 67 percent, so we are going to be charging a discounted reciprocal tariff of
34 percent, I think, in other words, they charge us, we charge them, we charge them less. So how can anybody be upset?
They will be, because we never charge anybody anything. But now we are going to charge. European Union, they are very tough, very, very tough
traders. You know, you think of European Union, very friendly. They rip us off. It is so sad to see. It is so pathetic, 39 percent. We are going to
charge them 20 percent. So we are charging them essentially half.
Vietnam, great negotiators, great people. They like me, I like them. The problem is they charge us 90 percent. We are going to charge them 46
percent tariff.
Taiwan, where they make -- they took all of our computer chips and semiconductors. We used to be the king, right? We were everything. We had
all of it. Now we have almost none of it except the biggest company is coming in. They are going to have -- we are going to end up with almost 40
percent. Lee Zeldin is working to get their approvals, and it is an amazing company. Mr. Wei of one of the great companies of the world, actually,
they're coming in from Taiwan and they are going to build one of the biggest plants in the world, maybe the biggest for that. But 64 percent, we
are going to charge them 32 percent.
Japan very, very tough. Great people. And again, I don't blame the people for doing it. I think they are very smart in doing it. I blame the people
that sat right in that Oval Office right over there, right behind the Resolute Desk or whichever desk they chose.
Japan, 46 percent. They would charge us 46 percent and much higher for certain items like cars, you know, little items like cars, 46 percent, we
are charging them, 24 percent. India very, very tough, very, very tough. The Prime Minister just left and he is a great friend of mine. But I said,
you're a friend of mine, but you're not treating us right.
They charge us 52 percent. You have to understand, we charge them almost nothing for years and years and decades, and it was only seven years ago
when I came in, we started with China with charging -- we took in hundreds of billions of dollars from China in tariffs, and they understood,
honestly.
President Xi understood. He said, look, I understand and the other countries -- and they all understand -- we are going to have to go through
a little tough love, maybe, but they all understand. They are ripping us off and they understood it.
The Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo -- was Shinzo Abe. He was a fantastic man. He was unfortunately taken from us, assassination. But I went to him
and I said, Shinzo, we have to do something in trade, it is not fair.
He said, I know that, I know that, and he was a great gentleman. He was, a fantastic man, but he understood immediately what I was talking about.
I said, Shinzo, we have to do something. He said, I know that and we've worked out a deal and it would have been a much better deal. But frankly,
there were many years left in the deal that was made previous to my getting there, but it was it was something.
If you look at Switzerland, 61 percent to 31 percent. Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia -- oh, look at Cambodia, 97 percent. We are going to bring it down
to 49. They made a fortune with the United States of America.
[16:30:27]
United Kingdom, 10 percent. And we'll go 10 percent. So we'll do the same thing. South Africa, oh, 60 percent, 30 percent. And they've got some bad
things going on in South Africa.
You know, we're paying them billions of dollars. And we cut the funding because a lot of bad things are happening in South Africa. The fake news
ought to be looking at it. They don't want to report it. Brazil, 10 percent, 10 percent. Bangladesh is 74 percent. So you see what's going on.
Pakistan, 58 percent. Sri Lanka, 88 percent. So what we're doing is we're taking not the full, we could take the full 88 percent.
Thanks a lot. He's doing a very good job. How is he doing? All right. I think you better take it with you. It's not going to last very long. He's
going to put it -- it's going to follow you down with the wind. I brought a hat just in case it got too windy. But here's -- would anybody like a hat?
I'm giving giving it to a Cabinet. I'm giving it to the auto workers. Come here.
Thank you, fellas. Get it, that's it. That's it. They deserve it more than our Cabinet. Our Cabinet has plenty of hats. But you see the -- you see the
numbers. The numbers are so disproportionate. They're so unfair. At the same time, we will establish a minimum baseline tariff of 10 percent. You
notice that on the chart. And that will be on other countries to help rebuild our economy and to prevent cheating.
So we're going to have a minimum of cheating, and we're going to be very severe on the people that at the gate that watch the tariffs and watch the
product coming in, because there's been a lot of bad things happening at the gate because the money is so enormous that you're talking about.
There's never been probably anything like it in terms of the enormity. And there are a lot of bad things happen at the people that do the check in,
and they're looking at 10-year jail sentences if they do -- we're going to treat them so good. But if they cheat, the repercussions are going to be
extremely strong.
Foreign nations will finally be asked to pay for the privilege of access to our market. The biggest market in the world. We're right now the biggest
market in the world. We had a great country four years ago in terms of the economics. We were doubling up on China. We were doing so well. Nobody was
going to catch us, but so much of it slipped away over the last four years under Biden. I campaigned on this policy throughout last year and today
that promise was made, and it was also a promise, as you know, that was kept. Promises made, promises kept.
To any company that objects to our commonsense, reciprocal tariffs, again, reciprocal, back and forth, back and forth. And we were -- I call this kind
reciprocal. This is not full reciprocal. This is kind reciprocal. But what we do is we cut it in half. We charge them. My answer is very simple. If
they complain, if you want your tariff rate to be zero, then you build your product right here in America because there is no tariff if you build your
plant, your product in America.
And we've seen companies coming in like we've never seen before. Likewise, to all of the foreign presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens,
ambassadors and everyone else who will soon be calling to ask for exemptions from these tariffs, I say terminate your own tariffs, drop your
barriers, don't manipulate your currencies. They manipulate their currencies like nobody can even believe, which is a bad, bad thing and very
devastating to us. And start buying tens of billions of dollars of American goods.
Tariffs give our country protection against those that would do us economic harm. And many people were looking to do us economic harm. Maybe not so
obviously, but they were doing tremendous economic harm. But even more importantly, they will give us growth. These tariffs are going to give us
growth like you haven't seen before. And it will be something very special to watch. I am so looking forward.
And Brian, it's going to happen even faster than you said. You know, you might you, might say but it's already started. It's already started. Works
already begun on plants all around the country. And you see that it's before these are big, rich companies.
[16:35:02]
We have $61 billion started on a big plant going up. It's going to be announced over the next two days. And they already started work. Many of
these biggest, the biggest companies in the world, they've committed to build, build, build. We're going to build, build, build, sir. And they came
here to see me and they came, wanted to know if they could have a press conference. I do as many as I can. I'm pretty busy trying to stop Russia
and Ukraine and the Middle East.
We got to stop that. We're going to stop the Houthis, which we're making tremendous -- they like shooting ships down and out of the water, sinking
ships. They get a kick out of it, but they're not getting such a kick out of it now, are they, Mr. Secretary? They're not getting such a kick out of
that now. But here, just a short list of some of the companies that have already announced and committed to investment.
And this is a company that built its factories and its plants in China. Apple is going to spend $500 billion. They never spent money like that
here. They're going to build their plants here. Softbank, OpenAI and Oracle. Great, great companies are investing $500 billion almost
immediately. Nvidia, a hot company, is investing hundreds of billions of dollars. They just announced. TSMC the biggest most important company in
the world of chips from Taiwan with no investment from us, is investing $200 billion. And they said the reason was, number one, the election of
November 5th. And number two, the tariffs. They don't want to pay the tariffs. And the way they're not paying it is to build their plant here.
So we're going to go from almost no percentage. We used to have 100 percent of the chip market. Now it's all in Taiwan. Almost all of it is in Taiwan.
A couple of other countries, but mostly in Taiwan. And think of it, we had 100 percent. We lost it because of people in that office that didn't do
their job. They allowed it to be stolen from us.
Johnson and Johnson, great company, $55 billion. Eli Lilly, $27 billion. Meta is investing $500 billion. Wow. DAMAC is investing $20 billion. CMA,
CGM $20 billion. And then you have Merck, and Clarios, Stellantis, General Motors, GE, Aerospace, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai are all putting in billions
and billions of dollars, and they're committed 100 percent so, and we have never had, we've never had. And this is after two and a half months. This
is not -- this is after just a short. This all took place as soon as we came out with what everybody wanted to do.
You know, I watched a gentleman today on television who used to work with Lee Iacocca, a very respected automobile person, and he said, you know,
because they're asking people, or they try and get as many negative people as they can, but they can't find them too much. It's pretty hard to find in
terms of what we're doing, especially when they see all this investment. They said, so tell me, what do you think of what Trump is doing from the
automobile standpoint, he said, I can't believe it. Somebody is finally -- he's an older guy, real pro, really top guy with Lee Iacocca, he said, I
never thought I'd see the day when this would happen, where somebody had the courage to go and do what has to be done.
This is transforming our nation. Our entire nation is going to be transformed, not only with the cars, but on every single other item that's
built. We're going to become an industrial powerhouse. And he said that so beautifully today. In fact, I'm going to find out. I'm going to get a tape.
And Bruce, I'm going to get that tape and I'm going to send it to you out in Long Island, and you're going to play it for the people and all your
union workers and your non-union workers out there. You got a pretty even split.
But we have, so far, it looks like we're going to have about $6 trillion of investments. And you wouldn't do that in years in this country over the
last number of years, $6 trillion. And that's going to be much higher by the end of the year. And think of what $6 trillion is. You wouldn't have
even a small percentage of that under this other system. We're going to be an entirely different country, and it's going to be fantastic for the
workers. It's going to be fantastic for everyone.
There will never have been a transformation of a country like the transformation that's already happening in the United States of America.
It's an incredible thing to watch, and it's incredible to meet with the top people, people that you read about, very wealthy people or people that are
great managers and executives and presidents of big public companies. And to watch the enthusiasm they have now that they didn't have, they gave up
on our country. They went to foreign countries and they built, companies are pouring into our country at levels never seen before, with jobs and
money to follow. And it's really beautiful.
[16:40:01]
In the coming days, there will be complaints from the globalists and the outsourcers and special interests and the fake news always. The fake news
will always complain, but never forget every prediction our opponents made about trade for the last 30 years has been proven totally wrong. They were
wrong about NAFTA. They were wrong about China. They were wrong about the transpacific partnership, which would have been a disaster if I didn't
terminate it. If I didn't turn that, terminate that, United Autoworkers, you would have had no jobs in this country. You would have had no jobs. It
was all going to other countries.
In my first term, they said tariffs would crash the economy. Instead, we built the greatest economy in the history of the world. And again, I have
great respect for President Xi of China, great respect for China. But they were taking tremendous advantage of them, of us. And I commend them for
that. I say, hey, if you can get away with it, that's OK. But, you know, they understand exactly what's happening. And they probably, most of them
are saying it's about time they did something, but -- and they're going to fight and they're going to fight fair.
Everyone is going to fight. You know, it's like, I say to the leaders, look, you got to take care of your country, but we have to start taking
care of our country now. We can't do what we've been doing for the last 50 years. From the day of my election, the stock market went up. In my first
term, 88 percent, with Nasdaq going up 155 percent, more than any president has ever had in any term in office by far. And I think we're going to blow
that away. And maybe the numbers won't show, but I think they're going to show much better than even those numbers.
But what you're going to see is you're going to see activity that empty dead sites, factories that are falling down. Those factories will be
knocked down, and they're going to have brand new factories built in their place. And not only talking about renovating, they're talking about brand
new, the best anywhere in the world, the biggest anywhere in the world. I have a friend who builds car plants. And I said, I want to see the biggest
and the best. He said, well, we have to go to Mexico.
I said, no, I want to see it in the United States. He said, we're not building them in. This is a year and a half ago. During the campaign, he
said, we're not building. You'd have to go to Mexico. When I was starting to decide to run, and I went to number one in the polls very rapidly, I
want to say, I want to say like, let's say in the first -- in the first hour and then shortly thereafter, it looked like I was going to win. And
the fake news was saying, oh, no, don't do this. What they don't know is if I didn't win, they would have really been in trouble because nobody wants
to read them anyway.
But I tell you what, when I -- when it looked like I was going to win, I announced that I was going to be doing exactly what we're talking about
today. Great consistency actually because I've been talking about it for 40 years, but because I saw what was happening 40 years ago. If you look at my
old speeches when I was young, very handsome. My old speeches, and that people would say I'd be on a television show, I'd be talking about how we
were being ripped off by these countries. I mean, nothing changes very much. The only thing that changed were the countries, but nothing really
changes.
But, you know, it's why it's such an honor, it's such an honor to be finally able to do this. If you look at China, I took in hundreds of
billions of dollars in my term, hundreds of billions. They never paid $0.10 to any other president, and yet they paid hundreds of billions. So much so
that Biden couldn't do anything. They wanted to try and terminate it because he had a very special relationship with China. You know what their
relationship was? He had a special relationship.
But the numbers were so big. The numbers were so big that they couldn't do it. So they did ease it up. They did things that they shouldn't have done.
They made it a lot more comfortable for them, but they couldn't do it because the numbers were hundreds of billions of dollars. And I did that,
and we were on our way to doing something like incredible. And then we had a very bad election happen, a very bad election. A lot of bad things
happened.
So when I said we got to do it again, I said, we have to make it too big to rig. And we made it too big to rig. And we won in records. And it was a
monumental win. And it was such an honor to see so many of you like Brian and your friends here with us to celebrate and to more importantly
celebrate what we're doing, because that wouldn't be a full celebration if we didn't do this, because this would be an entirely different country in a
short period of time.
It will be something the whole world will be talking about it. The critics made the very tired predictions earlier this year, but in February, core
inflation dropped to the lowest rate in four years. And the price of eggs, as you know, just in a couple of, in a month and a half, we were there for
four weeks, and the first week I got blamed for eggs.
[16:45:06]
I said, I just got here. They said, eggs have gone up at like 250 percent and you can't get eggs. And they were going crazy. And I said, I just got
here. And then we got to work on eggs and we got to work on everything. And our great secretary of agriculture, you did a fantastic job, Brooke
Rollins. He did a fantastic job. And as I said before, the price of eggs dropped now 59 percent. And they're going down more. And the availability
is fantastic. They were saying that for Easter, please don't use eggs. Could you use plastic eggs? I said we don't want to do that. We want to.
And you really came through. It's amazing job. Thank you very much, Brooke. You did great. But likewise an old fashioned term that we use groceries. I
used them in the campaign. It's such an old fashioned term, but a beautiful term. Groceries. It sort of says a bag with different things in it.
Groceries went through the roof and I campaigned on that. I talked about the word groceries for a lot and energy costs now are down, groceries are
down. Gasoline is way under $3, and people are beginning to be able to buy things and live again.
We brought prices way down. We created 10,000 already in a few weeks. New manufacturing jobs. And it was, that took place in one month, numbers that
they haven't seen in a long time. We had virtually no inflation under my term. We had virtually no inflation for four years. But after transitioning
over to Sleepy Joe, it went from almost nonexistent to the highest in the history of our country. They had the highest inflation in the history of
our country, brought up by energy and bad spending and bad policy. And a lot of bad things happened.
How about allowing millions and millions and millions of people to pour into our country with open borders, where the -- it's so sad to see even
now, and I see our great secretary of, you have done -- stand up, please, Kristi. Stand up. Kristi Noem. And Tom Homan. These are people that are
doing a great job, but gotten them out in records, and we have problems with judges that don't want them to go out.
They want Tren de Aragua, and they want MS-13, the most vicious gangs ever. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. Absolute killer gangs. They kill
people. They don't even think about it. And we put them out. And we have judges now. Radical left judges that want to -- they don't want them to go
out. They want them to even be brought back. Let's bring them back. You've done a fantastic job. And please thank everybody, Homeland Security, thank
you, everybody. Appreciate it.
And we now have a border that's the best border that we've ever had. Even better than it was my first term. My first term we did good. But this one
we really specialized in. We've done really well. And we had records then we had the best, safest border four years ago. We had the best border that
ever was. And now we have, you've actually matched it and done even better. And we're going to get it down the right way.
And we want people, by the way, to come into our country, but we want them to come in through a legal process. We want them to come in legally. We
need more people. We need people to run these plants and to help the autoworkers and the Teamsters and the non-union people and everybody else.
But we need people. And the farmers, and we're going to let people come in, but they want to come in. We want them to come in legally. They have to
have the capability of loving our country, not people that hate our country. We don't want them in our country.
And now we're going to pass the largest tax cuts in American history. And that's where we're relying on Mike and John Thune. And we will not cut
Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits. And the Democrats will, because if they got in, the entire economy would collapse. This country was
heading for a collapse under the people that you saw. They were horrible. I think one of the reasons people like the job, I had my highest approval
ratings because I think they're comparing me to the worst administration in the history of our country. So I appreciate that at least.
But speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Senate majority leader, appreciate it, Mike. John Thune have been fantastic, by the way, but
they've been working tirelessly on taking the next step to pass the plan for our one big, beautiful bill. I like to name it that, if you can. One
big beauty. I made that statement about six months ago and everybody calls it one big beautiful bill. And it will be that, it will have everything,
the big tax cuts and every incentive there is. And it will be fantastic.
And by the way, for the cars, we're asking for an interest deduction on a loan. So if you build the car only in America, we do it, Brian, if the car
is not built in America, you don't get the interest rate deduction.
[16:50:05]
But if you build the car in America, if you buy a car, if it's built in America, then you get an interest rate deduction, tax deduction. And that's
a big thing. It's going to be a big thing. I think that's going to pay for itself very quickly. That deduction. Never happened. We've never had
anything like that before. Somebody said where do you get the idea. Because it's so basic. You would think that would have happened a long time ago. It
never did.
And I'm very happy it didn't, because now I can say that was my idea, but we're going to get us closer to the debt extension. We have to get the debt
extension passed. And I know you're going to be able to do that, Mike. And it's very important that you do that and all of the other things that the
Senate budget plan gives us along with working, because I know they're working together, John and Mike, and the two bills are going very well
together.
We need to get our shared priorities done, including certain permanent tax cuts. We want the tax cuts to be permanent, spending cuts, energy and
historic investments in defense, border and so much more. We're covering everything. These will be phenomenal. There'll be no bill like this. It's
going to straighten, one bill is going to straighten out our country for many, many years to come. And we said, let's just do it and let's get it
done. And some guys will love it, and some guys will like it a little bit less because they're not getting what they were exactly looking for.
But they're getting a lot. They'll never. If we get this done, it will be the most incredible bill ever passed in the history of our Congress and
Senate. And congressmen, the senators and the congressmen, many of whom are here today, will be very proud of themselves. I really believe that. It's
going to set us on a whole new, prosperous path. We're going to cut spending and right size the budget back to where it should be. We're going
to do that very strongly.
Thank you, Rick. Thank you, John. Thank you. Oh, look at all of our senators over there. Oh, boy. That's a nice group of people. But I won't
like them so much if they don't get this bill done. That's a great group. And Congressman, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Tremendous people.
The Senate plan has my complete and total support. And the House plan likewise is very similar. They're moving along pretty much at the same
clip. And as soon as you're ready, you'll show it to me and I'm sure it will have my support, Mike. Every Republican congressman and senator must
unify. We have to unify. We can't be separated. We have to get it done. We have to get absolutely everything we can, and we have to take care of the
American people. That's the only thing that matters.
We have to take care of the American people first. We need to pass this bill immediately, get it done, including debt extension. From this day on,
we're not going to let anyone tell us that American workers and families cannot have the future that they deserve. We're going to produce the cars
and ships, chips, airplanes, minerals and medicines that we need right here in America. The pharmaceutical companies are going to come roaring back.
They're coming roaring back. They're all coming back to our country because if they don't, they got a big tax to pay. And if they do, I'll be very
happy. And you're going to be very happy and you're going to be very safe.
We're going to build our future with American hands, with American heart, American steel, and we're going to build it with American pride like we
used to. We're approaching our 100th day as president and have been given credit by a lot of people actually, even some of the fake news. Can you
believe it? Which in this case hopefully isn't fake for having done more in that time than any other administration in the history of our country.
In the first 100 days, I think we've had an amazing in terms of what we've done, what we've gotten accomplished. I'd like to see if we can get that
war ended. And another war from not starting in the Middle East. We have to get Russia. They're losing 2,000 on average, 2,500 people a day. Young
people, soldiers, Russians, think of that. 2,500 through some days. And -- but on average, probably over about a one-week period, it's 2712. They say
they're losing those soldiers. They're dying. They're being decimated.
And they're not from our country, but they're from other countries. But they're human beings. They're from Russia. They're from Ukraine in this
period, most of them. And we're going to get it stopped. It's a senseless war that would have never happened if I was president. And it shouldn't be
allowed to go on. And I think we're being given good cooperation by Russia and by Ukraine. But we have to get it stopped. It's humanity. It's
humanity. It's a terrible thing. This will be a very big moment. I think you're going to remember today. It's going to be a free nation that we're
dealing with.
[16:55:02]
We're going to have a very free and beautiful nation. It's going to be liberation day in America, and it's going to be a day that hopefully you're
going to look back in years to come and you're going to say, you know, he was right. This has turned out to be one of the most important days in the
history of our country.
God bless you and God bless America. Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.
QUEST: The president announcing his trade policy, which I can sum up for you in just a few words.
The president of the United States confirming 25 percent auto tariffs on foreign automobiles coming into the United States. And now about to sign
the executive order. And this executive order, we'll listen to see if he says anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To documents prepared for the president's signature today. One closes what's referred to as the de minimis loophole with
respect to imports.
QUEST: But essentially these two documents are the auto tariffs and it is the reciprocal tariffs that the president is going to be announcing on
other countries. The idea is that there has been a long study. They have come up with the various numbers of what they believe the tariff and the
non-monetary tariffs are on each individual country. And the United States will now impose a half of that number on other countries.
So China, 40 percent, the E.U. 20 percent, Japan 24 percent, and a new basic tariff of minimum tariff of 10 percent on all trading partners. 10
percent is the new minimum tariff from the United States, with many countries being hit much, much harder. The analysis of that in the hours
ahead in terms of the economy. The president has now changed America's trade policy. Tariffs are the word of the day.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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