TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Holds a Bilateral Meeting with Mark Carney of Canada, 10.6.25
[Video]
President Donald Trump: Well, thank you very much, everybody. It's an honor to have the Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney, who I -- I have made very popular. He's an extremely popular prime minister, and I'm very honored to do it because I liked him -- right from the beginning, I liked him, and we've had a good relationship. We have some natural conflict, but we, uh, will probably work that out. But we've had a very strong relationship, and your hosting of the various countries that showed up were -- were -- that was a beautiful job you did, and I appreciate it very much. Uh, we're going to be talking about trade. We're going to be talking about a lot of different things.
We'll certainly be talking about Gaza. We're in, uh, very serious negotiations to, uh, I guess, you could say, depending on the way you count, 3,000 years, you could say 500 years, you could say -- but that -- it's been raging for a long time. And I think there's a possibility that we could have peace in the Middle East. It's something -- even beyond the Gaza situation. We want a release of the hostages immediately, et cetera. And so, our team is over there now. Uh, another team just left. And other countries -- literally every country in the world has supported the plan.
Prime Minister Mark Carney: Yeah.
Trump: I don't think there's anybody that hasn't actually. Not that I've seen. But, uh, there's a real chance that we could do something, so you may have some questions on that later. But in the meantime, we'll spend some time, and we'll, uh, make some deals, and we'll do some things that are good for both of our countries. And, Mark, it's an honor to have you. Thank you very much.
Carney: Thank you very much. Mr. President. If I may, uh, you kindly hosted, uh, me and some of my colleagues a few months ago, and I said at the time, uh, you were -- are a transformative president. And since then, uh, the transformation in the economy, unprecedented commitments of NATO partners to defense spending, peace from India, Pakistan through to Azerbaijan, Armenia, uh, disabling Iran as a force of terror, uh, and now -- and I'm running out of time, but this is, uh, many respects the most important, uh, what you created --
Trump: The merging of Canada and the United States -- [Laughter]
Carney: That wasn't where I was going. I -- no. But I -- you know, on this, uh, on this, uh, solemn day of commemoration of the October horrific attacks of October 7th, uh, for the first time in decades, hundreds of years, thousands of years, this prospect of peace that you've made possible, Canada stands foursquare behind those efforts. And we'll do whatever we can to support it. Thanks.
Trump: Thank you very much. Any questions?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: [Inaudible] what would it take for you to drop or lower your tariffs on Canadian sectors including -- including aluminum and steel?
Trump: Well, we're going to be talking about that with the prime minister, and we'll be talking about tariffs. We'll be talking about a lot of that, but that's for a little bit later on.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: I want to just to acknowledge our great ambassador. Is he doing a good job?
Carney: He's doing a good job.
Trump: Otherwise, I'll get him out of there, so. [Laughter]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Is it the White House's position that furloughed workers should be paid for their back pay?
Trump: Uh, I would say it depends on who we're talking about. I can tell you this, the Democrats have put a lot of people in great risk and jeopardy, but it really depends on who you're talking about. But for the most part, we're going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don't deserve to be taken care of, and we'll take care of them in a different way. OK. Thank you.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: In your opinion, why has Canada/United States failed to reach an agreement up until now?
Trump: Well, it's a complicated agreement, more complicated maybe than any other agreement we have on trade because, you know, we have natural conflict. We also have mutual love. You know, we have great love for each other. I love this -- I love Canada and the people of Canada, and Mark feels the same way about here. The problem we have is that they want a car company, and I want a car company. Meaning the US wants a car company. And they want steel, and we want steel. You know, so -- in other countries they're very far away, and there's no problem. You can compete, and you can do. We don't like to compete because we sort of hurt each other when we compete.
And so, we have a natural conflict. It's a natural business conflict. Nothing wrong with it. Uh, and I think we've come a long way over the last few months actually in terms of that relationship. So, uh, when it comes to trade, the United States was always giving everything -- they gave everything to Canada. They would -- they would, you know, let car companies leave here and go to Canada, but that hurts the United States. And, you know, other presidents didn't see that. They weren't business oriented. They might have been good politicians. In some cases, not in all cases, they were bad at both. But, uh, it's -- it's a very natural conflict, and it's something that we're working on.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: A lot of compromise this summer. Are you willing to offer some compromise Canada maybe on steel and aluminum?
Trump: Well, we've made compromise, and we -- uh, we've made some compromise even on steel. But, you know, we have the same basic, uh, authority and the same basic -- this could be also a little bit of a conflict with other countries all over the world on steel because we want to make our own steel. We don't want to bring steel in for the most part. But we will bring it in, and we do bring it in. We continue to bring it in from Canada. But there is a tariff to pay, and I think that would be a normal thing to say. But we've come a long way. I think, Howard, we can truly say -- do you want to make a comment on that?
Howard Lutnick: Well, I think the opportunity to work together. But as you've said, there's conflict, you know. Why do we make cars in Canada? You called that out, and you've addressed that. So, there are places we should work together, and there are places that we have natural conflict.
Trump: It's a tough situation because we want to make our cars here. At the same time, we want Canada to do well making cars. So, we're working on formulas, and I think we'll get there.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Canadians are refusing to go to the US. The numbers are down like 23 percent in the first seven months of the year. What do you say to Canadians that don't want to go to the US now because of your 51st state talk, because of the trade war, the tariffs, and the fear of also --
Trump: Look, I understand that, and Americans don't want to buy cars that are made in Canada, you know. I mean, we have the same conflict. So, there isn't -- it's -- it's something that, uh, will get worked out. There's still great love between the two countries. But, uh, you know, American people want product here. They want to make it here. Detroit was emptied out and moved to Canada, moved to Mexico, moved to other places, not just Canada. And, uh, now they're all moving back. You know, they're moving back. We have right now -- I was just telling Mark. We have 17 trillion, but it's going to -- it's really much higher.
Trump: That was as of a couple of months ago. We have over $17 trillion being invested now in the United States. As an example, Biden in -- he was the worst president we've ever had. But they had less than 1 trillion in four years. We have more than 17 trillion in eight months. Eight months. And I think that number is going to be $21, $22 trillion. Uh, there's never been anything like that in the history of the world for any country, not even close. You know, if you did 1 trillion in a year, that's pretty good. We're going to do over 20, and it's coming in with AI. It's coming in with auto plants. You know, we're building auto plants, a lot of auto plants in the US. It's coming in for a lot of reasons.
It's coming in because of the fact -- I think the November 5th election was a big factor, and I think the tariffs are a big factor. And again, we want Canada to do great, but, you know, there's a point at which we also want the same business. We're competing for the same business. That's the problem. That's why I keep mentioning one way to solve that problem is a very easy way.
But we're competing for the same business. He wants to make cars. We want to make cars, and we re in competition. And the advantage we have is we have this massive market. So, it's a -- you know, it's quite an advantage.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President, can we talk about Portland for a second? Are you planning to invoke the Insurrection Act? And that would be a, you know, a very long-standing war of law that's been on the books.
Trump: Yeah. Well, it's been invoked before as you know. Uh, if you look at Chicago, Chicago's a great city where there's a lot of crime. And if the governor can't do the job, we'll do the job. It's all very simple. Uh, they -- they probably had 50 murders in Chicago over the last five, six, seven months. Many people were shot. And then the governor gets up and he says, well, we can handle it. They can't handle it. They don't know what they're doing. The mayor is grossly incompetent. He's at a 4 percent approval rating in Chicago. He's at a 4 percent lowest approval rating, lower than even de Blasio had, which is hard to believe in New York.
I thought de Blasio would always maintain that record, but the Chicago guy is even lower. So, I think that -- uh, we want safe cities. If you look at DC, you would right now -- Mark, you could go out. Take your family out to dinner. You could walk right down the middle of the street. There is no crime in DC. Uh, when I got here, this place was a raging hellhole where people would come from Canada. People would come from other places and end up getting shot. Nobody's being shot. The -- the National Guard has been unbelievable. I mean, they are strong, tough guys. You know, we won something at the Supreme Court, which is a big deal. Merit. Everything now in this country is merit based. I didn't think I'd ever see it again.
And we have our soldiers in merit based, too, and they're central casting. And they walk through that town, and I'll tell you what. This place is safe. It's beautiful. Now we're in Memphis, and the same thing's happening. You're getting the reports. The -- the bad guys are saying we don't want anything to do with this. And we're removing many people in DC. We -- we took out 17 -- 1,700 career criminals and sent them back to the countries from which they came mostly led out by Biden and his people that had open borders and open border policy. And, you know, Canada, you suffered because of that too because they'd come here, and they'd go into Canada also.
So, we're like a buffer for that in terms of they -- Canada suffered greatly by Biden and the open border, the policy of open border -- totally unchecked, totally unvetted. And these people were, you know, if you got 5 percent, 2 percent -- you were getting a lot of bad people, and we now have a closed border.
Carney: And now we have -- you tied in the border and -- yeah.
Trump: Yeah, you've done well. We have a closed border and it's a really closed border. In fact, for four months -- I don't even know if this is possible, but the figures were released. Zero people were able to come into the United States from the southern border, zero. And as you know, we've taken a very hard stand on drugs. This is also benefiting you. A lot of the -- we call them the water drugs, drugs that come in through water. They're not coming. There are no boats anymore there. Frankly, there are no fishing boats, there's no boats out there, period, if you want to know the truth. We're saying does anybody go fishing anymore.
The fact is we knocked out -- probably saved at least 100,000 lives, American lives, Canadian lives by taking out all those boats coming in. So, it's -- and now they don't come in that way anymore. Now they'll come in other ways and we're not going to allow that either. So, we've done a great job on that. But on crime, Chicago's a great city, but you can't be a great city if you have murders and if you have a lot of problems and they do. And they have an incompetent policy, just like they had open border policy, anybody could come in. They came in from prisons, they came in from mental institutions, drug dealers.
They came in from all over the place, and we don't have that anymore. This country is becoming very -- we're a very strong country. Look, financially speaking I would say that because of the tariffs, because of the election, because of the policy, because of the Great Big, Beautiful Deal -- I added the word great because it really is -- it's the biggest -- it's the biggest bill ever passed in the history of our country. We don't need another bill, it's the biggest tax cuts, the biggest -- I mean when you think, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime for the people. But far beyond that, what it does is incentivizes auto plants and AI and all of the things that nobody's ever passed a bill like. We don't need another bill.
We don't need any more bills. I said let's get it all at once. I was greatly helped by our speaker, Mike Johnson, and by the Senate. I'll tell you what, John Thune has been -- both of those guys have been incredible, and we got a bill passed that we really -- I said, let's see if we can get it all done because these Democrats are like insurrectionists, OK. They're so bad for our country, their policy is so bad for our country. I said, let's see if we can get it all done in the big -- and everybody said it's not doable because it's the biggest bill ever passed in the history of our country. And we got it all done; we don't need anything else; we've got everything we want. And now because of that, that's a big reason why the companies are coming in. You know, one year depreciation, one year write off, one year expensing, nobody's ever seen anything like it. So, they're coming in from all over the world.
But to have a great country, you can't have crime and we don't have crime. But we have cities where there's tremendous crime and Chicago is one of them. And if the governor can't straighten it out, we'll straighten it out. A question for the president?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. Carney -- Mr. Prime Minister, I'd like to know how come the UK and the European Union have succeeded to sign deals and bring the tariffs down and Canada still hasn't been able to do the same?
Trump: Because they're not located right next to each other. You know, it makes it -- in many cases, it's much better and easier.
Carney: But if I may, let's be clear about the relationship as it stands right now. We are the second largest trading partner of the United States. We do a lot of trade going across the border where we're cooperating, first thing. Secondly, we are the largest foreign investor in the United States, $0.5 trillion in the last five years alone, probably $8 trillion in the next five years if we get the agreement that we expect to get. Thirdly, there are areas, as the president just said, where we -- I wouldn't -- conflict, maybe not so much conflict, we compete -- there are areas where we compete and it's in those areas where we have to come to an agreement that works. But there are more areas where we are stronger together and that's what we're focused on and we're going to get the right deal, right deal for America, right deal obviously from my perspective for Canada.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Wait, wait, wait. So, one thing that we are working very closely is the Golden Dome, that's the protective mechanism and you see how that works. It's unbelievable. You know, Ronald Reagan wanted to have it and at that time they didn't have the technology, even close to the technology, but he was advanced. And we'll be working together on a Golden Dome for the two countries. And it's something that I think is going to be very important, especially when you look at the world, you look at what's happening. We want to have that protection. It's really amazing. The technology is unbelievable.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President, why do you say some federal workers should not get their back pay? Why do you say some?
Trump: Well, you're going to have to figure that out, OK? Ask the Democrats that question.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President, just a follow up there. I mean, the law says that when the government is reopened that workers will receive their back pay. So, are you going to defy the law there or what are you hoping to --
Trump: I follow the law and I -- what the law says is correct and I follow the law.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President, will Canada be leaving empty handed or will Mr. Carney be leaving Washington with a deal on tariffs?
Trump: I think they're going to be very happy. We have a lot of things that we're working on that people don't talk about. They talk about, you know, competitiveness. He's a very competitive person. And they talk about things that we don't necessarily agree on. But I think they're going to walk away very happy. I think so.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President, on all your trade deals that you've signed, there's been a minimum tariff that countries have gotten. When USMCA gets renegotiated, do you want a minimum tariff on goods between Canada and the US?
Trump: Well, we're going to have tariffs between Canada, and you know they have them with us. I will say with our farmers, as you know, they went up to as much as 400 percent, 250, 300 and even one at 401 percent. We found one having to do with a very small product, but it was high.
Question: But you know [Inaudible]
Trump: So, we've had -- so, you know, we've always had tariffs between the two of us. And actually, Canada was charging us very high tariffs on our agricultural things, a lot of our agricultural product, and that's one of the things that we talk about bringing that down. So, you know, this is a mutual thing, but we've been charged tariffs. Look, we're the king of being screwed by tariffs, just so you understand, and I'm not talking about with Canada, I'm talking about with countries all over the world. When you look at Europe, when you look at China, when you look at all of the -- any -- almost every country charged the US, we didn't charge them because we were led by stupid people in many cases.
Stupid people, they took advantage of our country. They're not taking advantage of us anymore. You know, if you looked at European Union, they're all my friends. I don't blame them. I blame our presidents. I blame our past presidents and business leaders. But we are the king of countries that have been taken advantage of. For many, many years, we've been paying trillions and trillions of dollars and receiving nothing. Nothing at all. As an example, prior to the deal with Europe where they pay a lot of money, but they're happy and I'm happy, the deal was good. It's a fair deal, but it wasn't fair. You couldn't put a car into Europe; you couldn't sell your agriculture into Europe. You couldn't do anything. And now we have it so that it's open.
We charge them tariffs. We didn't charge them tariffs on cars. They charge us tremendous -- I said to Angela Merkel once, I said how many cars have gone to Germany from the United States. And she said, well, I don't believe any, I said you're right, you're right. Well, that doesn't happen anymore and they're paying a fair amount.
It's just a fair amount. It's not -- I could ask for much more. It's a fair amount. But the United States now is using the same thing that they've used on us. And I just can't believe it's taken presidents so long to do this. And again, we're going to treat people fairly -- we're going to especially treat Canada fairly. But I can't believe it's taken so long where we get charged and don't charge them. Japan was a good example. We made a deal with Japan. You saw that, Mark, a deal with Japan. It's a much different deal than we've had in the past, but they would send us millions of cars, no charge. We weren't allowed to send them cars.
We sent them no cars. I doubt you had one car go into Germany because we were restricted. They didn't want our cars. Same thing with Europe, same thing with other places. So, now -- all we do now is fairness, but fairness leads us to the most successful country there's ever been. You know, we have some advantages over other countries, and we do have a great market. We have an amazing market, but you know what, if I let this go, if we didn't win this election, if we had these people that were running that were ruining our country, destroying our country with their open borders and men playing in women's sports and transgender from everybody, and windmills all over the place. If we allow that to go on for another couple of years, we would be -- I don't -- I'm not sure that we'd even have a country.
Question: Mr. President? Mr. President?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Sir, do you still want free trade going forward? Mr. President, how do you see this --
Trump: I'm -- by the way, I'm not sure we would have even had a country, and now we have the most successful country in the world. Brian?
Question: Yes, sir. What is your message to Democrats ahead of the next vote to open up the government? The American people are saying open the damn government. What's your message to them right now?
Trump: Well, they're the ones that started it. They're the ones that have it. And it's almost like a kamikaze attack by them. You want to know the truth? This is like a kamikaze attack. They -- they almost -- you know, they have nothing to lose. They've lost the elections. They've lost the presidential election in a landslide. I saw the other day where Kamala said this was a very close election, very -- this was one of the biggest sweeps that anybody's ever had. Won the popular vote by millions, won the Electoral College by a massive amount. They said if I got 270, that would be great. But I got, I think, 312 or 315 and they got 220. So, you know, we won that, but we won counties.
The big thing is counties. So, out of all of the counties, thousands and thousands, we got 2,500. They got 525. It was a landslide. And we listen -- oh, yes, it was close. It was one of the greatest victories ever, and it was a mandate to do what we're doing. And I hope -- and -- and Mark wants this as much as I do. We are very close to making a deal on the Middle East that will bring peace to the Middle East. After all of these years of millions and millions, tens of millions of people being killed, there's a chance to bring peace to the Middle East. In addition to that, I made seven other deals. And they're, you know, great. And we're -- you know, things are happening with respect to Russia/Ukraine. That's one that -- last week marked 7,812 people were killed, soldiers, mostly soldiers.
But 7,000 -- more than 7,000 -- almost 8,000 soldiers were killed. It's a crazy -- it's a crazy thing. I thought that would have been one of the easy ones. I get along very well with Putin, and I thought that would have been -- I'm very disappointed in him because I thought this would have been an easy one to settle. But it's turned out to be maybe tougher than the Middle East. We'll see what happens with the Middle East.
Question: Mr. President?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Is the fentanyl crisis over with Canada, with the Canadian border?
Trump: Is what?
Question: The fentanyl crisis.
Aide: Fentanyl.
Trump: No, it's not over. It's never -- I think it's never going to be over, frankly. But they've done -- Canada's worked hard, and they've done a much better job than in the past. We have very few people coming in through our southern border, too. We -- we've worked with Canada and we've worked with Mexico, so we've made it a lot better.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: But if -- wait, wait.
Carney: I'll just -- on fentanyl, any amount is too much, so we've gotten it down. It's down substantially. It's less than 1 %, but it's -- look, it's still too much. It's too much at home in Canada.
Trump: Lot of people.
Carney: Yeah. We gotta stop it.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: On USMCA, are the two of you both committed to seeing it through in the renegotiation of that deal that you made?
Trump: Well, we can renegotiate it, and that would be good, or we could just do different deals. We're allowed to do different deals if we want. We might make deals that are better for the individual countries.
Question: What's your preference?
Trump: I don't care. I want to make whatever the best deal is for this country, and also very much with Canada in mind.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Go ahead, please. Go ahead, sir.
Question: Sir, on China, what more can the United States and Canada do together to counter China?
Trump: Well, you have to be able to compete. They're a great competitor. And Mark and I both know that, and you have to be able to compete. We have big advantages over China for lots of different reasons. And I think we're doing very well with China. I get along very well with President Xi. I'm going to be meeting him in a few weeks, as you know. I'll be meeting him in South Korea. But we've had a very good relationship for a long time. But you have to be able to compete. To do well with China, if you can't compete, you're not going to do well with China. And Canada's very competitive. I can tell you that. Canada is a very competitive country. And I think Canada has done very well over the years with China.
Carney: Yeah. Yeah, we have. But we'll do better together on that.
Trump: Yeah.
Question: Mr. President?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: On the Middle East, what guarantees are you giving your Arab partners that Israel will not resume its offensive after the hostages are released?
Trump: Well, the primary guarantee is, once this deal happens, if it does happen -- look, they're in negotiations right now. We are going to do everything possible. We have a lot of power, and we're going to do everything possible to make sure everybody adheres to the deal, ok?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President, are you concerned about the delays at airports? And how do you see the shutdown ending?
Trump: Oh, sure. I mean, it's -- they're all Democrat delays. There are delays at the airport. That's standard. And again, this is something that we've -- every day we put forth a bill, just a continuation. It's a very simple thing to sign and very simple to do. And I -- I really think that these are people that -- I think they have nothing to lose. They have a party that's out of control. They have no leader. Nobody knows who the leader is. I look at people with very low IQs like Crockett, this woman Crockett, I never met her, but she's a low IQ individual. I look at AOC talking about how, if they want to negotiate, they can come to my office. She's not in that position to do that.
And who the hell is she to say that? And then I watch Nancy Pelosi not knowing what to do. I watch -- I watch their leadership. Look, Schumer is petrified of a primary because he's not going to win probably against anybody in a primary. You know, Schumer did the right thing, but he handled it badly originally a year ago. He did probably the right thing, but he handled it badly. I -- I think Schumer is incapable of making a deal. They are a mess. They're a party that has no leadership. They have -- and they have no policy. You know, we have great --
Question: But, Mr. President --
Trump: We have great -- I think we have great leadership, but we also have great policy. We have strong borders. We have no men in women's sports. We have, I mean, basic things. We're not -- they're not -- we're not going to take your child away and change the sex of your child. We're not going to do things like that. What they're doing to the country is so incredible, and they got away with it, with all their woke crap. And now it's stopped, and we have a country that's based on common sense and strength and intelligence. I mean, we have -- the United States of America -- and I say it. I say it all the time. Other leaders have told me this.
Mark hasn't yet, but I think he would. A year ago, we were a dead country and now we -- we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. Maybe Canada. I'll give Canada, but I like -- because I do like Canada. But, you know, we're the hottest country in the world right now. There's never been a country that has the kind of money coming into -- there's never been anything like this. There has never been a country that, if you get -- if you take $1 trillion, that would be unbelievable. We're going to have over $20 trillion invested in this country. There's never been anything like what you're seeing, and it's based on good policy and common sense and leadership.
Question: Mr. President?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President, what is Canada giving you in return? If you say Mr. Carney is going to be leaving Washington happy, what's Canada giving you in return? Well, you'll find out. But I think the people of Canada, they will love us again. Most of them still do. If you say only 25 percent --
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: I assume -- I assume a lot of them. I think they love us.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: And you know what? I'm -- I'm not -- I'm not the biggest hockey fan, but I like it a lot. And I watched some of the greatest hockey games I've ever -- how good were those games, right?
Carney: Yeah, very good. We're coming down for the World Series, Mr. President.
Trump: Oh, good. [Laughter]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President, will you sign a trade deal with Canada that doesn't include supply managed goods like dairy, for example? The federal government said that's --
Trump: Well, a deal would include dairy. I mean, it's going to include everything. We'll -- we'll do a comprehensive.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President, have you identified programs to eliminate under this shutdown?
Trump: Oh, sure. Sure.
Question: Which ones?
Trump: We have a lot. I'm not going to tell you, but we'll be announcing it pretty soon. But we have a lot of things that we're going to eliminate, and permanently eliminate. You know, one of the things that we have is -- is some advantage, you could say. But because of the shutdown, which I think they made a big mistake, we're able to take out billions and billions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse. And they've handed it, you know, to -- on a silver platter. And you know Russell Vought is a serious person, very serious person. He's sitting there and he's getting ready to cut things. And this is something that was handed to us by I assume Schumer. I don't -- I just don't know if Schumer has any power anymore.
I look at your -- your leadership. I don't know who to speak to. I'll tell you what. I'm getting calls from Democrats wanting to meet. I never even heard their names before, and they're claiming to be leaders. The Democrats have no leader. They remind me of Somalia, OK? You know? And I met the president of Somalia; I told him about the problem he's got. I said you have somebody from Somalia who's telling us how to run our country from Somalia. I said, would you like to take her back? He said, no, I don't want her, OK. You know who I'm Talking about.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: How many permanent jobs are you talking about to be eliminated?
Trump: Well, I can tell you, I'll be able to tell you that in four or five days, if this keeps going on.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: If this keeps going on, it'll be substantial. And a lot of those jobs will never come back. But you're going to have -- you're going to have a lot closer to a balanced budget actually.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Is there anything the prime minister has done that's making it more difficult to reach a deal?
Trump: Say it.
Question: Is there anything that the prime minister has done that's making it more difficult or easier to reach a deal?
Trump: No, I think he's a great prime minister. I mean, he could represent me anytime. I will tell you, I'm not saying that because -- no, he is a very strong, very good leader. He's a nice man, but he can be nasty. He can be very nasty, maybe as nasty as anybody. I think Canada, let me put it this way. I can tell you this because I deal with lots of leaders all over the world. He's a world class leader. He's a man that knows what he wants. And I'm not surprised to see that he won the election and won it substantially. And I would think he's more popular now. He's a good man. He does a great job and he's a tough negotiator.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: So, then what's holding things up? If he's a great man and you want to do a deal with Canada, why aren't you?
Trump: Because I want to be a great man too. [Laughter] Thank you very much. Thank you.