TRANSCRIPT: Donald Trump Speaks to Reporters on Board Air Force One - October 27, 2025
[Video]
Donald Trump: Hello, everybody.
Question: How are you doing, Mr. President?
Trump: How are you? Bumpy weather up in the -- we're way up in the air. We're a little bit bumpy. So what's the word? Do you have any Questions?
Question: Sir, could you tell us a little bit about how the meeting went yesterday?
Trump: We had a good meeting. We'll see what happens. I don't know if anything's going to happen, but we'll see. They'd like to do a deal. We'll see. Right now, they're paying, I guess 50 percent tariff, but we had a great meeting. It's happy birthday. I want to wish the president happy birthday. OK? It's his birthday today.
Trump: Did you know that?
Question: No.
Trump: He's a very vigorous guy, actually, and I was very impressed. But today's his birthday, so happy birthday. All right. Would you let him know, please?
Question: Mr. President, a couple more Questions on tariffs. Secretary Bessant and Jamison Greer –
Trump: He's right.
Question: -- have both said.
Trump: Where is he? He's right here, the handsome guy behind me.
Question: Hi, Mr. Secretary. You said you're near a framework –
Trump: Stand right over here. Wait, let me just give him a little room. We also have Marco here.
Question: Mr. Secretary, can you give us a status on the preliminary talks with the Chinese, and where that sets things up for Thursday's meeting?
Scott Bessent: So we had a very good meeting, Jamison and myself, with our counterpart, the Vice Premier. And we have a framework for President Trump, President Xi to decide on and we discussed a wide range of things from tariffs, trade, fentanyl, substantial purchases of US agricultural products.
Question: And rare earths, right?
Bessent: And rare earths.
Question: That's [Inaudible]
Trump: [Inaudible] but we feel good. I mean, we feel good. I feel better that this guy's got nice, broad shoulders. If the plane makes a big turn or something, I'm grabbing his shoulder.
Bessent: Please do.
Trump: You know what, stay over here. Marco, where are you? Come on over here. Want to move over here [Inaudible] more room [Inaudible] good team. This is the greatest team ever assembled. Do you know that if I weren't elected president, in my opinion, every automobile company in the United States would be either bankrupt or very close to it. And instead, they're hitting record highs.
Trump: Their stock is through the roof. You saw Ford and you saw General Motors, yesterday, go up big. It's all because of tariffs. If it weren't tariffs, it'd be just like it's been for the last 30 years where we lost about 52 percent of our automobile manufacturing business. In my opinion, whether it be now or very shortly, if it weren't for what I've done as president, every automobile company in America would be bankrupt.
Trump: Instead, they're doing phenomenal business. That's all because of tariffs. All right. Go ahead.
Question: On the flight yesterday, you sent out your Truth Social about the Canada tariffs. Can you walk through when you expect those to take effect? And can I ask why –
Trump: We're going to -- we're going to let them know. Ronald Reagan loved tariffs. He used them sparingly, which he probably would make a -- he made a mistake in that. And again, I was the biggest fan of Ronald Reagan. But on finance, on trade, it wasn't his strong suit, but he liked tariffs and they totally changed that to say that he didn't because they're catering to the Supreme Court, because Canada has been ripping us off for a long time and they're not going to rip us off anymore.
Trump: Canada has been ripping us off for a long time.
Question: Why?
Trump: One of the most difficult countries to deal with has been Canada. As much as I love Canada itself and the people of Canada, they've just had a lot of bad representatives. They did a fake ad yesterday. They were caught. The Ronald Reagan Foundation was the one that caught him and it was totally the opposite of what they said.
Trump: So I don't like that. That's dirty pool and you can't do that and –
Question: Why?
Trump: And let me just tell you, they shouldn't have done it. And they've apologized and they said, we're going to take the ad down. Well, they did it, but they did it very late. They let it play for another two nights and now they took that ad down. So I don't know when it's going to kick in. We'll see. But I don't really want to discuss it. Let's go.
Question: Mr. President, can I just add this? That was an ad run by a provincial government in Canada. Why are you mad at the federal government?
Trump: Because the -- whether it's provincial or Canada itself, they all knew exactly what the ad was. The prime Minister knew. Everybody knew. The prime minister knew what the as was before it went out.
Question: Will you see him in APAC? Do you want to meet with him?
Trump: I don't want to meet with him. No, I'm not going to be meeting with him for a while. No. I'm very happy with the deal we have right now with Canada. We're going to let it ride.
Question: Well, we have Secretary Bessent here, can we ask about the fed surge as well? Where are you on interviewing candidates for a new chair?
Bessent: We're down to five. We're obviously traveling a lot now. We're going to continue. We're going to do a second round and we hope to present a good slate to the president right after Thanksgiving. It will ultimately be his choice. I think he's got a very strong –
Trump: I'm thinking about him for fed. What do you think?
Question: You're thinking about Secretary Bessent?
Trump: I'm thinking about Marco. I'm thinking about Jamison. Would you like that? I'm thinking about a lot of people.
Bessent: I think Stephen Miller.
Trump: We do have a lot -- Stephen Miller. How about Stephen Miller? We have a lot of candidates that want the job.
Question: When do you think you'll make a decision?
Trump: I think it's the world's easiest job, but to get it right, you have to be very smart. And we have a person that's not at all smart right now, unfortunately -- he should have been much slower, much sooner. That's why we call him Jerome, too late, Powell. Let's go.
Question: Mr. President? Russia said this week that they've tested a new missile that can go more than 8,000 miles. Is that saber-rattling for you? What is that?
Trump: They know we have a nuclear submarine, the greatest in the world, right off their shores. So I mean, it doesn't have to go 8,000 miles. And they're not playing games with us. We're not playing games with them either. We test missiles all the time. But you know, we do have a submarine, a nuclear submarine.
Trump: We don't need to go 8,000 miles. And I don't think it's an appropriate thing to Putin -- for Putin to be saying either, by the way. You ought to get the war ended. A war that should have taken one week is now in its, soon, fourth year. That's what you ought to do instead of testing missiles.
Question: Mr. President? Mr. President, should the EU Use frozen Russian assets to help pay for defense of Ukraine?
Trump: You have to ask EU. I'm not involved in that. That's up to EU.
Question: Are you considering additional sanctions against Russia?
Trump: You'll find out.
Question: Mr. President, shipbuilding has been a big part of your trade deals with both South Korea and Japan. Why is it so important to increase our shipbuilding to counter China? Well, pretty obvious answer to that, because we want more ships.
Trump:We're going to be back in the shipbuilding industry. We have a lot of companies coming into our country now. They're going to start building. We have shipyards available. You know, in World War II, we were the biggest in the world in shipbuilding. And then over the years, we went woke-y and stupid and weak and we started buying ships from everybody.
Trump: And you know, we lost that industry, but we'll get that industry back. We were the best at it and we'll soon be very good at it, if not the best.
Question: What are you going to announce in Japan? Can you give us any preview?
Trump: We're going to just announce great friendship. I look forward to meeting the new prime minister. I hear phenomenal things. She was a great ally and friend of Shinzo Abe, who was my friend, former prime minister. And he was -- he was great. He was one of my -- he was one of the best and the group. He was one of the best, really best.
Trump: And I know they were very close and I think philosophically, they were close, which is good. It's going to be very good. That really helps Japan and the United States. I think she's going to be great.
Question: Would [Inaudible] going to come to your dinner tomorrow? Can you say what companies?
Trump: I'd rather not say. You'll see tomorrow.
Question: Are you planning to sign the final deal on TikTok on Thursday when you meet with –
Trump: We might. We might. That'll be one of the things we're discussing. Somebody reported. It's been approved recently. I mean, we got an original approval from President Xi. I expect we'll have an approval, but I'd rather wait till a couple of days to let you know.
Question: Is it part of the grand deal coming together for Thursday?
Trump: It's something we're going to talk about.
Question: [Inaudible] five percent tariffs on China. Is the understanding from both countries that that will remain regardless of [Inaudible]
Trump: I don't want to tell you what the understanding is because what we understood yesterday or two days ago or even today is not going to be necessarily what it's going to be in two days. We're going to have a great talk. I have a lot of respect for President Xi. I like him a lot. He likes me a lot, I believe, and respects me. And I think he respects our country a lot, and we're going to have -- I think we're going to have a successful transaction for both countries.
Question: Have you been briefed on the incident on the Nimitz? Both a fighter jet and a helicopter lost –
Trump: I've heard of that. Yeah.
Question: Do you know what happened? There was a –
Trump: They're going to let me know pretty soon. I think they should be able to find out. It could be bad fuel. I mean, it's possible it's bad fuel, very unusual that that would happen to both.
Question: But you don't think there was foul play or anything, or security threat?
Trump: No, no, they think it might be bad fuel. We're going to find out, nothing to hide. We'll find out.
Question: Sir, has there been a snag in terms of the South Korea trade talks? Is that -- how is that going?
Trump: No, I don't think so. Scott, is there?
Bessent: No, no, just a lot of details to work out, a very complicated deal and I think we're very close.
Question: Do you expect to finalize that on Wednesday or will it maybe not quite be done?
Bessent: I think not quite, but I think the overall framework is done. We're just getting the -- crossing the t's, dotting the i's. That's what Ambassador Greer's team does, and nobody's better at it than they are.
Trump: Do you want to say something?
Jamieson Greer: Sure. So with the Korea deal, there are a few parts to this. There's some, you know, national security related issues which are really, you know, not in my wheelhouse. Then we have some pure trade issues where they've had some non-tariff barriers to us for a long time and we've resolved a lot of those, so that's great.And then there's another piece which is really about investment going forward. The Koreans have a great plan to invest in US shipbuilding even more than they've already done it. And so they're talking right now, frankly, about how to implement Korean investment in the United States in the best way to make sure that we're –
Trump: And especially towards shipbuilding, we're very much involved in getting the shipbuilding going again, which really, we should have never lost. Years ago, they lost that, years -- many, many decades ago, but we were number one. We'll be either number one or right up around. No, China is making a lot of ships.
Trump: I take my hat off to them. Now they wouldn't if we had that situation where we charged, essentially a fee, but we're not looking to hurt the shipbuilding industry.
Question: [Inaudible] have the Koreans asked for any visa guarantees after that immigration raid in Georgia?
Trump: No. You know how I feel. I was very much opposed. Look, when they come in and they're making very complex machinery equipment things, they're going to have to bring some people in at least at the initial phase. In that case, it was batteries. Batteries are very complex and they're actually very dangerous to make.
Trump: You can't just pick people off an unemployment line and say, we're just -- you know, open up a $2 million battery factory. So we've got an understanding. And this is with the world. By the way, this is not just with South -- This is when they come into our country. We have a lot of factories being built by outside, by foreign interests.
Trump: When they come in, some of these factories make very, very complex, very highly-sophisticated equipment. They've got to bring people in with them for a period of time. They'll teach our people how to do it, but even for a fairly long period of time, they're going to need expertise to be successful. And we're going to let people know -- I'm letting them know right now that when they come into our country, we can expect to see them, bring in with them some very talented people that have been doing it for many years.
Trump: They'll teach our people how to do it. Our people will be just as good as they are within a period of time and it will be a phase out. But we want them to bring in experts and that's the way it is.
Question: Mr. President, what visa would they come under? And how long would those --
Trump: We're going to have that set. We're doing a whole new plan for that. But what you can expect, let's say they come in -- for instance, we have massive number of chip companies, in particular, one of the biggest by far the biggest in the world coming in. You can't expect them to make unbelievably complex chips and computers and other things and pick people off the unemployment line that haven't worked in five years. But we're going to -- so I want them to come in with talented people and they're going to -- it'll be a phase out, a slow phase out.
Question: Did I hear you right, that you said you were opposed to the way that raid in Georgia was handled?
Trump: I was opposed to getting them out. And in fact, before they got out, they were pretty well set. But before they got out, I said they could stay. They went -- they left and they're going to be coming back.
Question: Did you see the results from the Argentina election? It looks like Milei's party [Inaudible]
Trump: Wow. What a great Question: that is. I love that Question: because that was a big win in Argentina. I want to congratulate the victor. And he was a big victor and he had a lot of help from us. He had a lot of help. I gave him an endorsement, a very strong endorsement. And it was really unexpected to have a victory of that.
Trump: And some people thought it would be hard to win. And not only did he win, he won by a lot. So Argentina, that was a great thing. And I give Scott and I give Jamison, everybody, Marco, a lot of credit for that because, you know, we are sticking with a lot of the countries in South America. We're focusing very much on South America and we're getting a real strong handle on South America in a lot of ways, including the fact that we don't want their drugs.
Trump: We don't want drugs coming into our country and you're seeing that.
Question: You had suggest that you might not proceed maybe with the swaps plan or with the changes to beef purchases depending on the result of that election.
Trump: We'll, we'll see. We'll see. We're going to take care of -- look, we're going to take care of our ranchers one way, though. We have two situations. The ranchers for 35 years have done very poorly, the cattle people. They've done very, very poorly and now they're doing well, but the price is up. So what I can see happening is we're going to take some meat because I have to get the price down. I want to get -- most prices are down, if you look at energy and all the -- I have things down, but beef is high and the cattle ranches are doing good. They backed me from day one. What we're going to do is we're going to make sure that they don't get hurt, but we have to also make sure that I get the prices down. I want to get the prices down like I did with eggs, like I did with lots of others. We had a couple of them where when I first took over, eggs were double and quadruple what they were. That was Biden's fault. A lot of this is Biden's fault too. And we're going to get the price of beef down and I'm going to make sure the cattle ranches don't get hurt.
Question: Mr. President, you talked about North Korea on your way here. Have you heard anything back from Kim Jong Un?
Trump: I haven't mentioned it. I haven't said anything, but I'd love to meet with him if he'd like to meet. I got along great with Kim Jong Un. I liked him, he liked me. If he wants to meet, I'll be in South Korea.
Question: Would you extend your trip in order to try to meet Kim --
Trump: Say it.
Question: Would you extend your trip in Asia in order to meet with him?
Trump: Well, I hadn't thought of it, but I think the answer would be, yeah, I would. I would do that. Sure. It's our last stop, so it's pretty easy to do. Yeah, I would do that.
Question: When you do meet with him, sir --
Trump: With Kim Jong Un?
Question: Yes. What does the US have to offer here?
Trump: Well, I didn't say I was meeting with him, but if he'd like to meet, I'm around. I'll be in South Korea, so I can be right over there.
Question: But what could the US offer him at this point?
Trump: Well, we have sanctions. That's pretty big to start off with. I would say that's about as big as you get.
Question: Anything as like an inducement to do a deal?
Trump: I just had a good relationship with him. I would love to see him, if he wants to, if he even gets this message. We haven't mentioned anything, but he knows I'm going over there. If he'd like to meet, I'd love to meet him.
Question: Sir, are concerned about flights being halted at LAX due to shortages for air traffic controllers? Is there a way we could pay them?
Trump: Yeah, there is, but the Democrats should just do a simple extension. That's the best way. The Democrats are holding it up. They want $1.5 trillion for people that came out of prisons, for illegal aliens to come into our country. And we don't want to do that because that will really hurt the health care that we have in our country. And frankly, we'd like to see better health care, period. We're not looking to do that. The Democrats can solve that problem with air traffic control. All they have to do is say, the country is open. We only need five votes. The Republicans are with us. We only need five votes, so let's see what happens. I would imagine that gets taken care of, not only the controllers but other people too.
Question: How is your relationship with Elon these days? And is there a DOGE 2.0?
Trump: I think it's good. I mean, you saw that during Charlie's beautiful tribute. Elon came up. It's good with Elon. I like Elon. I've always liked Elon. Elon's good.
Question: Have you talked to him since the memorial?
Trump: On and off. A little bit. Yeah, very little, nothing much. Look, he's a nice guy and he's a very capable guy. I've always liked him. He had a bad spell. He had a bad period. He had a bad moment. It was a stupid moment in his life, very stupid. I'm sure -- I'm sure he'd tell you that. But I like Elon and I suspect I'll always like him.
Question: Sir, what are your thoughts on the continued protests outside immigration centers in Chicago?
Trump: Well, when people come into our country illegally, especially in terms of speed, the very bad ones, murderers, because we've had murderers came in through the Biden administration. We have very tight borders now, but we had open borders. Incredibly, we had open borders. What were they thinking? But we have murderers. Over 11,000 murderers came in. Many of them murdered more than one person. We want those people out. We want people that were in prisons, we want them to go back to their prison, not our prison. We want them out and we'll get them out. We'll get them all out.
Question: Do you think deportations are happening –
Trump: It was really a terrible mistake that was made. When you think of it, so much of our time -- our time is spent on that subject and it's a big subject because it's probably 20 or 25 million people, the real number. And of the 25 million people, it's -- you know, millions of people should not be here now. Now, all of them shouldn't be here if they came in illegally, but we have to get the criminals out. Washington, D.C. is doing great. Memphis is starting to do great. We just started there two weeks ago. Any place we touch is going to do well. If I were a governor, I'd say please get your -- get your people in, whether it's National Guard or the military, get them in. And as you know, we've been winning those cases.
Question: Is there a deadline for San Francisco to get their crime rates down before you send in –
Trump: Yeah. I mean, I'd like to do it, but you know I have a lot of very important people that are really into San Francisco that are really trying to do it themselves. I said, we can do it better because we have a strong group, a tough group, a group that has powers that other people don't have locally. You don't have the powers that the federal government has and we can do a better job of it, faster. But I listen to a few of the people, you know, Jensen, who's fantastic from NVIDIA, as you know. And Mark from -- he owns Time Magazine among a lot of other things, right? He's a good man and they would love to give it a shot. And I say go ahead and do it and I would have done that with Chicago, but Chicago is very far along the way. We have to do something with that. I have a lot of friends influential in Chicago. If they call me, maybe I'd do the same thing, but we have to save Chicago immediately. We can do that pretty easily, but we have to get it quickly.
Question: Can I go back to Argentina quickly?
Trump: Yeah.
Question: What do you think the state of the fiscal situation is there now? Do you think you'll have to do another deal?
Trump: Well, we have the all-time expert right here. I think right now we've made a lot of money based on that election because the bonds have gone up. Their whole debt rating has gone up. You know, that election made a lot of money for the United States. Now, we're not in that for money, per se, but if you look at the value of the bonds, the debt, Scott, you go ahead. Please.
Bessent: Yeah. I think the great victory in this election, President Milei, I think is going to expand his coalition, and they have some big refinancings next year, but the Argentinian people have spoken.
Trump: President Trump, they know that the US is their ally, thanks to President Trump. We're behind them. And then they're going to be able to fix their fiscal and keep on the road. He's working against 100 years of bad policies and he's going to break them, thanks to the support for the United States. And we're helping other South American countries also, as you know.
Question: Will they need more support or would you consider it if they need it?
Trump: They might. Yeah, we would consider it. I think they'll be in good shape.
Bessent: Yeah, we think the market's going to do it from here, now that he's gotten over this. As I always said, this was a bridge. We've bridged it. Thanks to President Trump's support, he did better than anyone ever expected. The corona said it wasn't a fair election because we were running against Trump: too. And now I think the market is going to take care of itself and it's going to have a lot of confidence in his policies as the way forward.
Trump: The polls were very wrong in that election. I mean, the polls really got it wrong. That was an election they said was going to be lost and not only was it won, but it was won by a lot. And maybe we did help. I hope we helped.
Question: Sir, for you or Secretary Rubio, over the weekend, Israel assassinated a military official of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. Does that violate the ceasefire law between Israel and Hamas or are they treated as a separate group?
Marco Rubio: Are you talking about the strike against the Palestinian jihad individual?
Question: Yes.
Rubio: Yeah, look, Israel didn't surrender its right to self-defense. Obviously, the cease fire is based on obligations on both sides. By the way, we'd also like to see Hamas speed up the return of hostage bodies. We still have 13 hostages, two Americans included, but we don't view that as a violation of the cease fire. They have a right [Inaudible] there's an imminent threat to Israel and all the mediators agree with that.
Trump: How transparent is the Trump administration? You got Scott, you got Jamison, you got Marco. We're not saying, please don't ask this Question:. You can ask anything you want. There's never been anything like this. Do you agree with that?
Question: Well, I just wanted to ask a clarifying Question: from my earlier thing. You said five fed candidates, that's a Waller, Hassett, Warsh, Rieder and Bowman, right?
Bessent: Rieder. Rieder. Rieder and Bowman. Yeah.
Question: Oh, sorry. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify. Thank you. Whether a surprise fifth and you've added a surprise six occasionally with Secretary Bessent.
Trump: He likes what he's doing too much. I don't think you could -- you couldn't pull him out of there no matter what. It's like Karoline. How's Karoline doing, good? Would you say she's doing good or just OK? Huh? I think she's good. [Inaudible]
Question: I'm the one who brought them all back here. You should be thanking me.
Trump: I wouldn't be here right now. She's doing great.
Question: When do you think you'll make a decision on the fed? Last fed Question:.
Trump: I'd say maybe by the end of the year?
Bessent: Before Christmas, right around --
Trump: I think by the end of the year, early next year. But by the end of the year. We want to get too late out as soon as possible. We want to be too early [Inaudible]
Question: Sir, Steve Bannon said in a recent interview that there could be plans for you to be able to run and potentially win a third term in 2028. Is that something you'd be willing to challenge in court to be able to do?
Trump: Well, I haven't really thought about it. We have some very good people, as you know, but I've had -- I have the best poll numbers I've ever had. I mean, I just solved eight wars and a ninth is coming. I believe Russia, Ukraine will happen. We just did -- you know, we just left -- and when you look at the treaty we just did, that was a war that was thousands of people were already shot at the border. And when you look at what we just did, was pretty amazing, pretty amazing. We got a lot -- a lot of good credit. and I really have to thank Malaysia for that because they're really -- the prime minister and everybody really helped get the two countries together. But it was -- it was quite a great peace treaty, but that was one of eight. And makes me feel good. I mean, there's millions of people that we saved. I saved the lives of millions of people. That's what's important. Yeah.
Question: Who are the very good people?
Trump: We are good people. What?
Question: You said that for 2028, there are very good people. Who do you have in mind?
Trump: Well, we have great people. I don't have to get into that. But we have -- one of them standing right here. We have JD, obviously, the vice president is great and Marco's great. I think -- I'm not sure if anybody would run against us. I think if they ever formed a group, it would be unstoppable. I really do. I believe that. I would -- I would -- I would love to do it. And I have the best numbers ever. It's very [Inaudible] I have my best numbers. If you read it --
Question: But you're not ruling out a third term.
Trump: Am I not ruling it out? You'll have to tell me. All I can tell you is that we have a great -- a great group of people, which they don't. They have Jasmine Crockett, a low IQ person, they have -- AOC is low IQ. You give her an IQ test. Have her pass, like, the exams that I decided to take when I was at Walter Reed. I took -- those are very hard -- they're really aptitude tests, I guess, in a certain way. But they're cognitive tests. And let AOC go against Trump. Let Jasmine go against Trump. I don't think -- Jasmine, the first couple of Question:s are easy, a tiger, an elephant, a giraffe. You know, when you get up to about five or six and then when you get up to 10 and 20 and 25, they couldn't come close to answering any of those Question:s.
Question: The readout from Walter Reed mentioned advanced medical imaging. Did you get an MRI? Can you tell us what that was?
Trump: I did. I got an MRI. It was perfect. Yeah. I mean, I gave you the full results. We had an MRI. And -- the machine, you know, the whole thing and it was perfect.
Question: Can you say what in particular they were looking for?
Trump: You could ask the doctors. In fact, we have doctors traveling with us, but I think they gave you a very conclusive -- nobody has ever given you reports like I gave you. And if I didn't think it was going to be good either, I would let you know negatively. I wouldn't run. I'd do something, but the doctor said some of the best reports -- for the age, some of the best reports they've ever seen.
Question: One theory on how you might try to serve a third term is that you could run as the vice president.
Trump: Yeah, I'd be allowed to do that.
Question: You said the White House -- or the White House counsel's or your legal position, I guess?
Trump: Yeah, you'd be allowed to do that, but I wouldn't want -- I wouldn't do that. I think it's -- it's too cute. Yeah, I would rule that out because it's too cute. I think the people wouldn't like that. It's too cute. It's not -- it wouldn't be right.
Question: Sir, a golf-related Question:. Do you mind? Your most -- personally, the most difficult shot for you in golf?
Trump: When, right now?
Question: Yeah. How will you play --
Trump: The most difficult shot? It used to be chipping, but I've become a very good chipper. I hit them all pretty good. I'm a pretty good golfer. I won 38 club championships. That's pretty good. I mean, pretty much, I hit -- I'm very solid, very consistent, pretty long. I mean, I hit the ball pretty long. I play with Gary Player. You know, Gary's 90 and he shot 70 with me the last time we played, which is pretty amazing, from 68?
Question: So putting -- putting is pretty good for you?
Trump: Putting is pretty good. It's pretty good. Used to be -- I'd say putting used to be the best, but I'd say putting is pretty good.
Question: Sir, can I ask just one more trade Question:? There were some tweaks to the Vietnam deal where they're going to have some zero tariff items that can come into the United States.
Trump: Yeah.
Question: Why was that change made?
Trump: I don't know.
Jamieson Greer: That's just -- that's just -- there's a handful of things like coffee, coffee, etc., the type of stuff we don't make in the United States or grow, like climatologically we can't. So it makes sense if people are going to do a deal with us, we'll give them a good deal there. But overall, 20 percent on Vietnam.
Trump: And we want to get coffee down a little bit.
Question: So just to clarify, technically, that was stuff that was at 20 and now will be brought to zero? Is that –
Greer: Well, it's just brought to whatever Congressional level of tariff there is, right. I mean this is -- you know, we have a huge deficit with Vietnam. And so they've taken down all their tariffs to zero on everything.
Trump: All gone.
Greer: All the non-tariff barriers gone. They're going to accept all our autos, all our standards, all of that. We have –
Trump: Which, by the way, people said impossible to get.
Greer: They did say impossible.
Trump: They're all gone.
Greer: Yeah, yeah. And so we just have a few items like that, that we can't grow or extract from the ground and certain spices that we don't grow in America, that kind of thing. How worried are you still about the risk of transshipment through Vietnam from China? Yeah. So part of the deal, they have to -- they've agreed to a duty evasion agreement with us, and if we catch them doing it, we can charge an additional 40 percent, right?
Question: On top of the 20?
Greer: That's right. Yeah. And that's an executive order that's already in place.
Trump: You guys have a very interesting couple of days. We have Japan and then we have South Korea, but we have China coming and it's going to be very interesting. I have a lot of respect for President Xi. And we are going to -- I think we're going to come away with a deal. But I really feel good. Our country is doing so well economically. It's doing so incredibly well, but the Democrats should let it open. I guess they don't do that because it's doing so well. It's too bad. But on the -- you know, on the macro scale, it's not having that kind of an effect. We just want people to get paid. We think it's very unfair. And how about the man that put up $130 million to make sure our military got paid? There's that.
Question: You won't tell us who he is?
Trump: I won't tell you I won't tell you, but this is a person that called me, that said, sir, I'd like to make a contribution of any difference needed for the United States military. I said, I don't know, that could be a big number and we worked it out. It was about $130 million and he wrote a check for $130 million because he's an unbelievable patriot and that's what it's all about.
Trump: So we're going to have a good time over the next two days. Get a little rest.
Question: One quick one, sir. [Inaudible]
Trump: I haven't been watching it too much. [Inaudible] no, I'm -- I'm disappointed they didn't put Pete Rose in. I said, put Pete Rose in before he dies. He had over 4,000 hits. They didn't do it. And with all the gambling you see now, I mean, give me a break. They didn't put Pete Rose in. I asked the commissioner, put Pete Rose in, Commissioner, long before he died, like a year before he died.
Trump: They didn't get it done. Should have gotten it done. Pete Rose -- Pete Rose was a great baseball player.
Question: Sir, one quick one. Just, you said yesterday that you might invite China to Mar a Lago?
Trump: Yeah.
Question: When would that be?
Trump: Well, sometime after -- I'm going to go, or we pretty much agreed that I'll be going to China.
Question: When is that?
Trump: In the earlier part of the year.
Question: OK.
Trump: And President Xi will be coming into maybe Washington or Palm Beach or someplace sometime after that.
Question: Vietnam said that you accepted an invitation there as well. Do you plan on visiting them at all?
Trump: Well, he invited me. If I can, I will. We have a good relationship with Vietnam. I mean, they were -- look, they made a lot of money with the United States over the years with presidents that really didn't know what they were doing. But now as you know, Vietnam is not charging us tariffs and that's a big step.
Trump: And based on that, I would -- that's a -- that's a big move.
Question: And Friday, Ambassador Greer launched a 301 on whether China reneged on its phase one deal. Is that [Inaudible] would you pause that? How connected is that to --
Trump: I don't think it's going to be -- it may be a part of the talk, but it may be a part of just the negotiation.
Greer: That was a separate deal from before. And there's a lot of, you know, view in the United States and they didn't keep aspects of that deal. So we're just looking into it as that's continuing, but we're really --
Trump: If it all works out well, I'm sure they'll be able to talk us out of it. Do you agree?
Greer: We'll see. Up to you sir.
Trump: I think so I have a feeling. I have a feeling they'll talk us out of that.
Question: [Inaudible] said that you have a great relationship with Xi Jinping. You really get along.
Trump: Yeah.
Question: Could you just elaborate on that? What about your relationship is so great? And what about him are you really --
Trump: I just think -- we're obviously -- that was hurt pretty badly by COVID, when COVID came in. It came in through Wuhan. Everybody knows that. I always said it. I said it right from the beginning. So that had an impact. But you know, an impact for a lot of reasons. Number one, we didn't get to speak as much because we're all busy getting out of that nightmare. But no, I think I have a very good relationship as good as anybody. And I would say that likewise with him. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you.
Question: Thank you, Mr. President, appreciate it. Can I ask you about -- the FIFA president has been following you around, Mr. President.