TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Speaks to Reporters on Board Air Force One, 10.30.25
[Video]
President Donald Trump: Okay. Hello, everybody.
Question: Hello, Mr. President.
Trump: I thought it was an amazing meeting. He's a great leader, great leader of a very powerful, very strong country, China. And, uh, we -- I mean, what can I say? We have -- Uh, it was an outstanding, uh, group of decisions, I think that was made. A lot of decisions were made, too. There wasn't too, too much left out there. And, uh, we've come to conclusion on many very important points, and we'll be handing that to you in a little while. We'll -- You know, we're having a -- Because there was a lot of, a lot of different things, uh, many of them very important. We're, uh, we're in agreement on so many elements, uh, large amounts, tremendous amounts of the soybeans and other farm products are gonna be purchased immediately, starting immediately.
If you notice, President Xi authorized yesterday for China to start. Did you know that, right? China, to start buying in very large quantities of soybeans and other things, which I appreciated. That was a very nice gesture. Uh, and, uh, many other things like that. We, on Fentanyl, uh, we agreed that he was gonna work very hard to stop the flow. You know, it's a very complex subject because it's used for lots of different reasons, including, including anesthetics and things. But he's gonna work very hard on it, precursors. And, uh, I think you're gonna see some real action taken. Uh, I've agreed, as you know, I put a 20% tariff on China because of the fentanyl coming in, which is a -- It's a big tariff.
And based on the statements today, I reduced it by 10%, so it's 10% instead of 20%, effective immediately. I believe he's gonna work very hard to, uh, stop the, the death that's coming in. But again, it's complex because of, you know, what, what fentanyl is, what the precursors do. So I think you're gonna see a big difference. We have, uh, we've had discussions on many of the elements that you're talking about all the time. You're, uh, you're asking me questions, and most of those things were, uh, were, I think, agreed to for the most part. I think we agreed to almost, almost everything at a very acceptable form. I wouldn't say everything was discussed because there were things that probably, in retrospect, we could have discussed and we didn't, for some reason did come up, but if you have any questions, let me know. Go ahead.
Question: What about chips, sir? Did, uh, did he agree? Did you agree to sell any more to [Inaudible]
Trump: We did discuss chips, we did discuss chips and, uh, he's going to be -- They're gonna be talking to NVIDIA and others about taking chips, that we make great chips, and NVIDIA's the leader at -- Uh, I'll be speaking to Jensen from NVIDIA, but they're gonna be discussing that with NVIDIA to see whether or not that they could do. I said, "That's really between you and NVIDIA," but we're sort of the, uh, arbitrator or the referee. It's a little rough up here, these skies, the skies are a little rough.
Question: Yeah. And just to clarify, sir, that is the, the downgraded Blackwell chips, you, you would authorize those to be exported?
Trump: Not the Blackwell. We're not talking about the Blackwell, that just came out yesterday. Uh, but, uh, a lot of chips, you know, a lot of the chips, and that's good for us.
Question: How soon do you think you'd be able to sign an action --
Trump: You know what you do. Yeah. Come on. Just stand right over here.
Jamieson Greer: Lemme, lemme -- yeah. Hey, everybody. Thanks. Just make a point on the chips, the president was saying there's so many chips we already sent to China, a lot of advanced chips, et cetera, and, and as he said, you know, NVIDIA will talk to China and see what's possible. The Blackwell chips, of course, weren't discussed. We focused on export controls of China on rare earth. They're gonna keep those flowing, which is quite important.
Question: What are the major stumbling blocks that are left now to work through? And how soon do you think you could sign a trade deal with China?
Trump: Well, I think pretty soon, we have not too many major stumbling blocks. Uh, we were -- We have a deal. Now, every year we'll renegotiate the deal, but I think the deal will go on for a long time, long beyond the year. We'll negotiate at the end of the year, but all of the rare earth has been settled. Uh, and that's for the world. I mean, you know, worldwide we did this, uh, I guess, you can really say with this was a worldwide situation, not just the US situation. So we continue to produce the rare earths and buy the rare earths and everything else, you know, when you see from other countries. But, uh, China is -- Uh, that whole situation, that roadblock is gone now. There won't -- There's no roadblock at all on rare earth, that will hopefully disappear from our vocabulary for a little while.
Question: So [Inaudible] is that a one-year pause on the policy they announced?
Trump: One year, it's a one-year agreement, and we'll extend it after a year --
Question: And what will your --
Trump: -- like, like we do. It's a one-year deal that will, I think, be very routinely extended as time goes by.
Question: And what will your new tariff.
Greer: It's totally clear, we're not -- They're not going to impose the rare earth controls that they proposed; President Trump and President Xi came to an understanding of that. Yeah.
Question: What will your new tariff rate on China's goods be once you signed the deal?
Trump: Other than what we, uh -- This, the tariffs remained exactly the same.
Question: 55%?
Trump: It's about -- Uh, no, it's, uh, it will -- It was 57, now it's 47.
Question: And how long --
Trump: Because we reduced, we reduced it by the fentanyl because I believe they are really taking strong action. We've already seen the action on fentanyl that they're taking very strong action. So reduce the 10%.
Question: So that November date is gone when it was gonna go up again?
Trump: Yeah. Yeah. [Inaudible]
Greer: That's, that's right. So that's on Fentanyl. Uh, they've agreed there are a variety of precursors. Uh, you may recall that actual fentanyl was scheduled by China in the President's first term successfully. There are certain precursors where they take whatever actions they need to control that. If they can control rare earths, we know they can control the precursors. And President Xi I think was very strong in saying he was going to enforce those laws internally. And, of course, we'll watch that and we're working on it.
Trump: He's gonna be very strong on enforcing the fentanyl, everything having to do with fentanyl and regulations internally, including taking very strong measures against those that don't obey.
Greer: And a variety of other tariffs still remain. Section 301 tariffs from the original, a variety of Section 232 tariffs. Some of these tariffs are, as the President mentioned, around 40%. For some individual products, it may go up to 100%. But it's a general matter. It's about 45- 47%.
Question: So, sorry. It sounds like you might be going to China then, uh, after the, the successful meeting.
Trump: Yeah, that's another thing we agreed. I'll be going to China in April and, uh, he'll be coming here sometime after that, whether it's in Florida, Palm Beach, or Washington, D.C.
Question: Did you read anything on the shipping fees, the 301 shipping investigation [Inaudible] China?
Trump: Well, that's been, that's been --
Greer: So we're gonna postpone that while we negotiate with them about that issue. Uh, we're trying to rebuild shipbuilding. The Koreans just agreed to invest $150 billion in shipbuilding. So we think we have a good path forward to do that.
Trump: But that's no longer an issue.
Question: Did the war in Ukraine or Taiwan come up?
Trump: We, we discussed that. And we discussed, basically -- These are rough winds in Asia, I must tell you. This is a rough flight. We could have waited an hour maybe. See, this is a little tough. Uh, these are tough conditions for interviews. You know, they're gonna be watching Trump. They're gonna say, "He didn't look too good. He's got the shakes." I don't have the shakes, but people are gonna think I do.
Question: You're pretty solid.
Question: So, Ukraine, it, it came up?
Trump: Yeah, it did come up. Ukraine came up, uh, very strongly. We talked about it for a long time and we're both gonna work together to see if we can get something done. Uh, we agreed the, the sides there, you know, locked in, fighting, and sometimes you have to let him fight, I guess. Crazy. But he's gonna help us and we're gonna work together on Ukraine.
Question: Russian oil --
Trump: There's not a lot more we can do.
Question: [Inaudible]
Trump: Uh, you know, he's been buying oil from Russia for a long time. It takes care of a, a big part of China. And, you know, I, I can say India's been very good, good on that, uh, front. Uh, but, uh, we, we didn't really discuss the oil. We discussed working together to see if we could get that war finished. You know, it doesn't affect China. It doesn't affect us. And, uh, I'd like to see it done on the basis I, I don't like to see 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 young people, mostly young people, for the most part soldiers, be killed. It's not costing us anything. In fact, we make money and I don't even want to talk about making money. I don't care about making money in that case.
But, you know, we send weapons to, uh, NATO. They buy full price. They buy the weapons. They give up to whoever. But I think they give them probably to Ukraine for the most part. Uh, now, we did, we discussed the whole thing. We're gonna work together to try and get the war with Russia and Ukraine solved.
Question: What about the Taiwan issue, sir?
Trump: It never came up. Taiwan never came up. It was not discussed, actually.
Question: [Inaudible] didn't come up that you thought might come up? You had mentioned you didn't get to everything.
Trump: You know, I mean, we had a long meeting, as you know. But, uh, a lot of things we discussed in great detail. A lot of things we brought to finalization. A lot of finalization.
Question: [Inaudible] surprise --
Trump: I thought it was a great meeting. I, I think it was a very friendly meeting. Uh, it was a good meeting for two very large, powerful countries. And that's the way we should get along with a large powerful country.
Question: Why did you write on your Truth Social about nuclear testing? What, about resuming nuclear testing, what prompted you to do that right before the meeting?
Trump: Yeah, it had to do with others. They seemed to all be nuclear testing.
Question: Russia?
Trump: We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We don't do testing. You know, we've, uh, halted it years, many years ago. But with others doing testing, I think it's appropriate that we do also.
Question: Did Israel [Inaudible]
Question: Any details around the testing, sir, like where, when?
Trump: We wouldn't be, it'll be announced. You know, we have test sites. It'll be announced.
Question: Did Israel give you a heads-up before they bombed Gaza? And is it still a ceasefire if they're stopping?
Trump: Yeah. It's a ceasefire. It is. No, they had a sniper and one of their soldiers were killed and they did retribution. So we'll see. But, uh, yeah, it is ceasefire. It's all, it's back to ceasefire.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: What's the thinking behind, uh, reducing troops in Romania? The drawdown of US troops in Romania?
Trump: You'd have to ask, I mean, I could tell you about it, but it's not very significant. It's not a, not a big deal.
Question: Nuclear weapons, sir. Um, which countries do you have in mind when you say you wanna send a signal?
Trump: What a rough ride this is. This is, the interviews are tough enough without, you know, without your life being threatened. You guys okay?
Question: Yes, sir. Thank you.
Trump: That camera guy's very steady. We're gonna look real bad today on television, I'll tell you. Um, I think that, you know, it's, uh, pretty much, I think we've discussed mostly what, what we said, pretty comprehensive. We're gonna issue a statement on some of the details. But overall, I guess on the scale of from zero to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12.
Question: 12?
Trump: Okay. I think it was a 12. Especially ---- I think very importantly, you know, just the whole relationship is very, very important. And I think it was really good.
Question: Oh, and especially coming on the heels of the successful trip.
Trump: Yeah.
Question: We're in Malaysia, you signed a peace deal for Cambodia and Thailand. Critical mineral deals with all our allies.
Trump: So many successful meetings.
Question: Real great. Right? The whole way.
Trump: And so many meetings made for our country with literally hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars have come into our country over the last four days represented by this meeting. But trillions of dollars, uh, where Toyota's gonna build plants, $10 billion worth of plants, uh. You know, I could go over so many different companies coming in. They're pouring money into the United States. So beyond even this meeting, this was an unbelievable trip. And I hope you're glad you were part of it.
Question: Thanks.
Trump: It was, it was big.
Question: Did you tell --
Trump: Every country, Japan, and I mean, you look at South Korea and Japan and so many other countries that we met there, they're investing tremendous amounts of money in the United States, like money that we've never seen before.
Question: How many of those investments from China in the US, additional investments, anything like [Inaudible]
Trump: They have investments and they will invest. And, uh, China, you know, I think they feel very strongly. They congratulated me on the tremendous success that we've had because there's never been a country that has had so much money come into it for purposes of investment, for building, for auto plans, for AI, et cetera. So he was very strong on congratulating me for that.
Question: But he didn't commit to any additional, uh, investment or outflow.
Trump: He didn't really discuss it, but he would --
Question: Did you ever, did you ever get through to Kim Jong Un about setting up a meeting? Does he have a phone?
Trump: We never, we never were able to talk because we, uh, look, I was so busy and really, this is why we came. I think it would've been maybe disrespectful to the importance of this meeting if we did that. So I'd come back, uh, with respect to Kim Jong Un, I'd come back if it was for --
Question: What do you wanna talk about with him?
Trump: Uh, I had a great relationship with Kim Jong Un. I think if I didn't get elected, you would've had -- If Hillary Clinton came in at the time, who he doesn't like, he doesn't like too many people other than me if you wanna know the truth. I think you would've had a, a big war Could have been a very bad war too.
Question: Sir --
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: -- with the nuclear announcement. Just one more on the nuclear announcement. Do you worry that we're entering a more risky environment when it comes to nuclear issues?
Trump: No, I don't think so. I think, uh, I think we have it pretty well locked up, but we, you know, we have more than anybody. When I see them testing and I say, "Well, if they're gonna test as we have to test." I'd like to see a de-nuclearization because we have so many, and Russia has some. Russia's second and China's third. And China will catch up within four or five years. I think de-escalation would be a -- They would call it de-nuclearization would be a, a tremendous thing. And it's something we are actually talking to Russia about that. And China would be added to that if we do something. Thank you, all. It was a great success. It was a great honor. I mean, he's a tremendous leader of a very powerful country and I give great respect to him. And we appreciate the fact that he came for this meeting. Thank you very much.
Question: Anything on Canada? Anything on Canada?
Trump: Uh, we had a very nice conversation with him last night. [Laughs] Uh, that's good. We really do. Thank you.
Question: Thanks.
Question: Thank you for that, Mr. President.