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During a cabinet meeting Tuesday, President Trump spoke about tariffs.
Transcript
00:00Mr. President, on the first again, on August 1st, you've said it's the deadline.
00:04What incentives do countries have to negotiate?
00:07It seems that deadline keeps moving.
00:08It's April 2nd now.
00:10We didn't move, no, no.
00:11It's always been August 1st.
00:13That's why I'm paying.
00:14A statement was put out today, and I put it out, just to make it clear.
00:18It wasn't a change.
00:20It was August 1st.
00:21We don't change very much.
00:22You know, every time we put out a statement, they say,
00:24he made a change.
00:25I didn't make a change.
00:26Clarification, maybe.
00:27No, August 1st, they pay.
00:31And everybody pays.
00:32Everybody has to pay.
00:33And the incentive is that they have the right to deal in the United States.
00:36If they don't want to, they don't have to pay, and they don't have to deal here.
00:39But if they want to buy and make a lot of money and sell in the United States, they have to do that.
00:46You know, if you go back and look at some of the good presidents,
00:51our country was the wealthiest, proportionately the wealthiest, from 1870 to 1913.
00:56It was an all-tariff country.
00:59We didn't have income tax.
01:01That came due in 1913.
01:02That came in in 1913, we had tariffs.
01:04And we had so much money, we didn't know what to do with it.
01:07We had, I mean, we had a couple of presidents that were very, very strong.
01:13McKinley, I guess, more than anybody.
01:15But he was the tariff king.
01:16But he was very, very strong.
01:18It's sort of sad.
01:19He made a fortune for this country, became very rich.
01:24And then Teddy Roosevelt went out, and the vice president, and he spent the money.
01:30And they said Roosevelt was a great president.
01:33And let's say he was a great president, but the money was paid by McKinley with tariffs.
01:38Tariffs are charged by other countries at levels that are ridiculous.
01:42And, you know, I call those other countries to say, and every one of them is willing to give us everything now, by the way, just so you know.
01:50Sir, we'll charge you no tariffs, nothing.
01:52We'll give you everything.
01:53We'll give you access to our markets.
01:55We'll give you everything.
01:57Is that a correct statement, Scott?
01:58Yes, sir.
01:59Howard, would you say that's a correct statement?
02:00Exactly correct.
02:01It's like they just don't – because they're very spoiled, because for years they ripped us off, and we didn't have a president that understood it.
02:09Or a secretary of treasury or a secretary of – a lot of different secretaries are involved.
02:16But certainly commerce secretary was, you know, not doing their job.
02:20I don't know about Kelly.
02:21She's small business.
02:22We'll keep it that way.
02:23Okay.
02:24Her small business is bigger than almost all big businesses.
02:27But, no, they are –
02:30very respectful of our country.
02:33But the incentive is that they have the right to do business with us.
02:36Without that, they don't have the right to do business.
02:38And that would be okay, too.

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