00:00Can I ask you, does all of this back and forth with the legal challenges,
00:06the on and off against tariffs, does it undermine negotiations with other countries?
00:10No, not at all.
00:11Because the bottom line is that we are very, very confident that we are going to get this positive result.
00:16And we're even more confident that we're going to win in the end.
00:19You've got to understand that Jameson Greer, the U.S. Trade Representative,
00:22is the smartest lawyer, trade lawyer on earth.
00:24And that he chose this as the best option because it works fast.
00:28It gets us to the table with our trading partners.
00:31And it's going to hold up in court.
00:33And so if, you know, heaven forbid, if it ever did have trouble in the future,
00:38we've got so many other options on the table that the president's policy is going to be there enduring
00:43and is going to make America great again, put America farmers first, and so on.
00:47Should we be expecting an announcement on those other options soon?
00:50Oh, those are well-known. They're well-studied.
00:53They're other options, parts of the trade law.
00:56But using them, actually?
00:57We won't have to use them because we're using this and it's been upheld in court.
01:00Okay.
01:01This guy gets go first, but I promise I'll take a couple.
01:05Given the uncertainty, obviously, that this is going back and forth with the courts,
01:09the first term, you know, you guys put in tariffs successfully using these other pathways.
01:13Why not just do those again the first time?
01:15What's the mistake to, you know, try this other new one,
01:18and now we're kind of back in a position where it may have to use the original pathway?
01:22This is a legal strategy that was designed by the best legal minds of the business,
01:26and the fact is that a lot of the stuff that happened in the previous term while I was here in 2017
01:31were challenged in court as well.
01:33And so this is a normal cycle of what happens when there's, you know, trade law changes,
01:38and we're highly confident in the end result of the way we chose because it's been so scrutinized carefully
01:44by the people at USTR and other lawyers in the government, career lawyers often, too.
01:48The Treasury Secretary said, I think, last week or a couple weeks ago that he –
01:51there were a number of deals in the pipeline.
01:52He expected that there would be agreements in the next couple weeks.
01:55And given this, is that still the expectation that in the next week or two he will have more years?
02:00That's the expectation.
02:01Yes, that's right.
02:02The – I've been briefed on three that I think are about to happen,
02:05but I'm not going to speculate which ones.
02:07I know that's your job to ask that, but I'm not going to speculate.
02:09Because in the end, the President decides.
02:11And so something that we think is close to the finish line, it could be he decides to go back to the beginning
02:15and add some more things and so on.
02:17So we'll wait and see.
02:19I'll get back to you, but I've got to go to the people here first.
02:22Can I ask a question?
02:23You had a question, too.
02:24I did.
02:25Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:26Hi, Amanda.
02:27I know there was a lot of stipulation that –
02:29or a lot of recommendation that India was going to be the next country when it came to a major deal.
02:34Any thoughts on that?
02:35Yeah, no.
02:36No thoughts on specific countries.
02:37But we've had lots of productive conversations with India.
02:40I had a wonderful meeting with their ambassador just recently.
02:44And so we're hopeful about that.
02:46But we're not going to put anybody ahead of the queue until the President decides to announce it.
02:51I'll let you go first.
02:52Okay, thank you.
02:53Yeah, thank you.
02:54Okay, fine.
02:55Mr. Husted, Larry Kudlow said on Fox that the bill that President Trump has awarded,
03:00the big municipal bill that's going to put online in America's pocket,
03:03can you name one way that will happen?
03:05I could name a whole bunch of ways, but if we don't tax tips, then when you have your tip income,
03:11then the government's not taking any away.
03:13If you don't tax overtime, then the way it's in the bill is if you get paid time and a half,
03:18then you get taxed on time, but not the half.
03:20And so that half is a lot of money.
03:22I met the President of the United Auto Workers at my office a couple of weeks ago,
03:26and he said that some of the plants that are really running all out,
03:29that there are people that are getting 20 hours a week overtime being paid 50, 60 bucks an hour.
03:34So it's real money for real people, especially real middle class people that need the most.
03:38When will no tax on tips go into effect?
03:41We'll see what the bill passes and what the final language is,
03:44but as soon as the bill passes, they expect it to happen.
03:47Kevin, you said this morning that there are no alternatives that you're working on to pursue
03:51when it comes to putting these tariffs in place,
03:53and that you believe the way you're doing it now will ultimately prevail.
03:55Peter Devarro just told us that they are looking at alternatives.
03:58Oh, no, if I said that, then I misspoke because there are so many ways to do it.
04:02But the point is we're highly confident in this way.
04:04But there are so many ways to do it with 301s in the past.
04:07Anyway.
04:08So why not implement those now while they're finding it out in the court?
04:11Because this is going to work. This is going to win.
04:13We're very, very confident this is the right approach.
04:15And so we're, you know, very adamant that this is the right approach.
04:19And so, you know, while we're ready for a backup plan that's never going to happen
04:22because this is going to work, then, yeah, we're confident this is the right approach.
04:26You've been talking about some of the other mechanisms that the administration could use
04:29to legally justify these.
04:30But one mechanism that couldn't face any court's violence is Congress, right?
04:34The Constitution ultimately grants Congress the power to rescue any trade.
04:37So with Republican majorities in both chambers, why not ask lawmakers to pursue your trade on that?
04:42Well, right now we're working on the big, beautiful bill and the trade policy we have the authority to do from the White House.
04:48And so we view this as a better approach.
04:51And in addition, what President Dunn has started a negotiation that's moving a lot of pieces.
04:56So what we're doing is we're opening up foreign markets to U.S. products in a way that's never happened before.
05:02And that's the kind of thing with all these moving parts that's best done through the authorities that we have,
05:07rather than trying to negotiate every nuance of what happens with, you know, U.S. beef in the U.K. and so on.
05:13So there's a lot of country-to-country relationship management for each trade bill.
05:18And that's the thing that we believe is best done at the executive branch, so that's why we do it that way.
05:23Do you have any concern about, you know, the impact on businesses, the impact on the economy of just the prolonged uncertainty,
05:30whether or not it's the court involved or whether it's IBM?
05:33The fact that this is just kind of dragging out now and businesses essentially don't know how effective a plan, you know, going forward.
05:41No, I'm not that worried about the uncertainty.
05:44In fact, if you look, we've had really strong job suffers.
05:47We had an explosion in capital spending in the first quarter, 20 percent equipment spending up, 10 percent overall capital spending.
05:53And so what's happened is that the belief, it's not the uncertainty, the belief, the high confidence that President Trump is going to land this plane
05:59is making everybody create jobs in the U.S., move factories in the U.S., and receive the data.
06:04And so I don't think that there's a heck of a lot of uncertainty where we're going to, like, maybe someone wonders,
06:08is the rate going to be this or that at the margin?
06:10But I think people are highly confident that President Trump is going to land this plane,
06:14and that's why there's so much activity coming to the U.S., why job creation is so high,
06:18and why, by the way, we just had one of the biggest increases in consumer sentiment that we've ever seen,
06:22because people understand, oh, now I understand what's going on.
06:24I see that this is going to happen, and I'm planning accordingly.
06:27Have you spoken with any of these groups in the chamber that has not been able to make decisions about how they're going to happen?
06:32Which decision? I haven't spoken with anyone today.
06:35But I speak every day in all sorts of groups. I've had the groups yesterday.
06:38Were you in the room today for the President's meeting with the Federal Reserve Chair?
06:41Yes, I was.
06:42And how would you describe how that meeting went?
06:44I think that the chair issued a statement about it, and I agree with the statement.
06:49No, but you agree with Jerome Powell's statement.
06:51Yes, yes.
06:52And did the President express his displeasure? How did he express his displeasure?
06:57If you look at True Social, the President's opinion that interest rates could be lower right now is very clear and very public.
07:03So he repeated his True Social quotes, basically?
07:05I won't talk about what happened at the Oval, but the President's views are very clear.
07:08Can I ask you this question?
07:09Do you have 32 investigations that were ongoing before this court ruling in the last 24 hours or so?
07:14Is keeping those up an option as this legal process plays out?
07:18Do we need to look at other avenues to enact the President's Tara Vincenna, or are those already at max basis?
07:25The pace of those legal questions is something that you have to ask James Greer about.
07:31I'm just an economist again.
07:32How are you thinking?
07:33The lawyers are moving too slow for an economist, but maybe much faster than is possible.
07:37I don't think we need a plan. I think plan A is going to work, but we're ready for everything that happens.
07:49Well, thanks guys. Thank you so much. Enjoy the beautiful day.
