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  • 4/25/2025
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, President Trump defended his economic record.
Transcript
00:00Mr. President, on the economy, there was a slowdown as it relates to home sales in the month of March,
00:06the slowest pace since 2009.
00:08Is that an economic indicator, and perhaps the Treasury Secretary can weigh in on this as well,
00:13is that an economic indicator that concerns you about the broader U.S. economy?
00:17No, they have very good numbers on housing today, extremely good numbers,
00:21and that's despite interest rates, because, you know, if you look at what happened,
00:25everyone said, oh, I said I was going to get prices down.
00:28And I did. Energy just hit $1.98 in a couple of states.
00:32It's way down. Energy is down, and we're about $64 a barrel.
00:37When I came in, and we were looking at $89, $90, $95.
00:41And, by the way, that helps us solve the war, too.
00:43Having those energy prices is a big incentive for Russia to also agree with solving the war problem.
00:52Groceries are down.
00:53When I was with you two months ago, you were complaining about eggs.
00:59I said, I just got here.
01:00I've been here for — I was here for about a week when the press started saying about eggs have gone through the roof.
01:06I said, I just got here. Tell me about eggs.
01:08And they have been.
01:09They went through the roof, and you couldn't get them.
01:11So we just had a big Easter egg hunt at the White House, thousands and thousands of eggs.
01:18And the price was down 87 percent.
01:20So we did a great job.
01:22Housing is doing very well.
01:24We should lower interest rates.
01:26That's the Fed.
01:27I hope they lower interest rates.
01:29That's a smart thing to do, be ahead a little bit, although already it's a little bit late.
01:33But in the end, we just have a great country.
01:36We have a very strong country, and we have every other country.
01:39I can't think of one country that doesn't want to negotiate a deal.
01:43And they either negotiate a deal or we set a deal that we think is fair.
01:48Because we don't have to go through all of these — it would be physically impossible.
01:52You know, you have so many people that really understand it, which is a very small group of people here.
01:58And we are going to, at some point, just set prices for deals.
02:04Some will be tariffed.
02:06Some treated as very unfairly.
02:08They'll be tariffed higher than others.
02:10But we've been ripped off for many, many years.
02:12The United States has been ripped off like no country probably in the history of the world has been ripped off for 45, 50 years.
02:19And countries have gone rich by doing that with the United States.
02:24We've taken care of their militaries.
02:26And military is another subject we talk about.
02:28We're not going to make that subject to any of the deals.
02:31But, you know, you know the same countries that I do where we virtually take care of their military and then don't get treated fairly on trade.
02:38So the people — and I don't blame those countries.
02:41I blame the people that sat at that beautiful desk right behind you.
02:45Because those people didn't do the job for this country.
02:49And they let us lose $4 billion a day on trade.
02:54We were losing $4 or $5 billion a day on trade when I got here.
02:58And now we're going to be much better than breaking even.
03:02And we're going to be making $4 or $5 billion a day on trade.
03:06So — but the — I don't blame any country.
03:09Not the worst of them.
03:11And we were abused by countries.
03:12I blame the President of the United States that happened to be sitting when these deals were made.
03:19Disgraceful.
03:20When I was here, we had a great four years.
03:22We had the most successful economy in the history of our country, my first term.
03:26And we were very tough on trade.
03:28And with China, as you know, they paid hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs.
03:32But nobody else ever did that.
03:34China paid not 10 cents to any other President.
03:37And they — but not only China.
03:40Virtually every country got away with murder.
03:44And we just can't let that happen.
03:47Thank you very much, everybody.
03:48Thank you very much.
03:49Appreciate it.
03:51Thank you very much.
03:51Head out.
03:55Head out.
03:56Please start reading.
03:57Thanks, everybody.
03:58Thank you, press.
03:59Head out.
04:00Let's go.
04:02Thank you, guys.
04:03Keep it going.
04:05Thank you, guys.
04:06One little mistake.
04:07It's over.
04:07It's over.
04:08It's over.

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