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Trump: 'Lightly' Considered Trump Tower Deal in 2016; U.S., Mexico, Canada Leadership Gather to Sign New Trade Agreement. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired November 30, 2018 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[07:00:18] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK. Good morning, everybody. We do have some breaking news. In fact, it's a very busy morning here. Welcome to your NEW DAY.

We have just watched Vladimir Putin arrive in Buenos Aires, and we're also waiting for President Trump to go to a ceremony in Buenos Aires where he is expected to take questions. Why is that important? Because there are a lot of questions this morning about everything, from what's happening on the international stage to what's happening here at home with the Mueller probe.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. And again, on your left there, Vladimir Putin arriving just moments ago. He will not meet with President Trump. The president cancelled that meeting. The story they gave was because of events happening in Ukraine, but the cancelation of it, of course, took place just hours after the revelation, the latest revelation in the Mueller probe.

CAMEROTA: We know a little bit about what's on the president's mind, as communicated by his Twitter feed. And he is thinking about the Mueller probe this morning.

Here is "The Washington Post" headline that sums it up: "'Individual 1', Trump Emerges as a Central Subject of Mueller Probe." Robert Mueller appears to be focused on Mr. Trump and two of his adult children and their financial links to Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The president's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has pled guilty. And he now admits that he lied to Congress about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen says those discussions stretched into June of 2016. That is when the candidate Trump was becoming the presumptive nominee. Sources tell CNN the president is spooked and distracted and may even be nervous about his written answers to Robert Mueller.

BERMAN: The special counsel appears to be interested on three broad areas: Roger Stone and WikiLeaks, No. 1. The 2016 Trump Tower meeting involving Donald Trump Jr., where Trump Jr. was promised Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton, that's 2. And No. 3, this Moscow Trump Tower project. We're learning that one of the ideas floated for that project, the

Moscow Trump Tower, was to gift a $50 million penthouse to Vladimir Putin. That is that according to convicted felon Felix Sater, who worked on the project with Michael Cohen.

Vladimir Putin, of course, as we said before, had announced plans to sit down with President Trump. That was going to happen tomorrow, but the president canceled that meeting.

We want to go right to Argentina right now. CNN's chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, is in the ballroom, awaiting this open event where we'll hear from the president, Jim. What's new in Buenos Aires?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John and Alisyn. As you can see, folks are entering the room here at this hotel in Buenos Aires, where we're going to see the president, President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico and the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, in just a few moments. They're going to be sign onto this new trade pact between the three countries that will essentially replace NAFTA.

And I apologize, John and Alisyn. There are folks coming into the room, folks who are a little taller than myself who may be blocking our camera angle a little. Good morning, sir.

But as you just noticed a few moments ago on the president's Twitter feed, he is sort of venting his frustrations about the Mueller probe and responding to this bombshell revelation from Michael Cohen, pleading guilty to lying to Congress about, in essence, the Trump Moscow project.

And the president, on his Twitter feed this morning, saying all of this was very cool and very legal, says he talked about it on the campaign trail.

One thing we should point out, because you just mentioned this a few moments ago, is that when we were covering then-candidate Trump during the primaries, the GOP primaries in 2016, there was no talk of a Trump Moscow project. Obviously, that is something that his GOP rivals would have seized upon.

And the president also saying in another tweet the looked at lightly doing this project, as he put it, somewhere in Russia. That somewhere in Russia is obviously the Russian capital of Moscow.

Now, you heard the president yesterday. You heard the president's outside attorney, Rudy Giuliani, both referring to Michael Cohen as a liar. We'll see if the president wants to repeat some of those comments this morning.

He's not scheduled to take any questions at this event. We expect this just to be a signing ceremony with some comments from the three leaders. But obviously, past being prologue, and we're so close to the president, and sometimes he has not been able to resist taking questions. There is a possibility that he'll be asked about all of this when we get going in just a few moments.

We should point out that I did talk to a source close to Michael Cohen last night who wanted to respond to some of these comments coming from the president, from Giuliani, calling Michael Cohen a liar. According to this source close to Michael Cohen, Michael Cohen, as this person put it, is on a journey. And that what he is doing right now, cooperating with the special counsel's office, is described as, quote, "one step in that journey."

The suggestion being, John and Alisyn, that there may be other steps in this process for Cohen as he cooperates with the special counsel's office.

[07:00:10] But again, in the next few moments, we're expecting any minute now, all three of these leaders will be coming out here to sign onto this new trade agreement.

The question, of course, the big question of the day is just how much the president wants to talk about the situation with Michael Cohen and this rapidly developing story with the Russia investigation that seems to be changing hour-by-hour -- Alisyn and John.

BERMAN: Jim Acosta, stick with us as long as you can, if you will. We'd like you to be part of this conversation.

We're also going to bring in CNN chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin; former Clinton White House press secretary, Joe Lockhart; and Republican U.S. senator -- former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum. They are political commentators for CNN.

Jeffrey Toobin, I want to start with you and where we are this morning as we await the president to see if he answers more questions. This morning already, the president has weighed in on Twitter and said, "Yes, I was doing business during the campaign, and I lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia."

I call this the "A Few Good Men" defense: "You're damn right I did. I was doing this." So did he break a law?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Certainly not by conducting his real-estate business. That is not -- that was not illegal then. It's not even illegal now.

The question is, was he candid with the voters, with the other candidates during this period about what he was doing?

RICK SANTORUM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Sorry.

TOOBIN: And how does that relate to the other parts of the investigation where there might be illegal activity? But certainly, the real-estate development itself was not -- was not illegal.

But you know, what he keeps saying, that, "Well, everybody knew I was negotiating in Moscow during the first half of 2016," that's obviously untrue. I mean, we all know what he did and didn't say, and he did not say he was negotiating with Russia.

And that's important, because this was the period when he was being so mysteriously solicitous to Vladimir Putin. Why did he keep saying such nice things about Putin? Why -- why did they change the Republican platform to make it pro-Russia. It comes clearer, if he had a financial motive, to ingratiate himself with Russian leadership.

CAMEROTA: Let's just remind everybody of the times that Donald Trump, then candidate, was asked about it, or then even as president, and what -- how he responded about his financial entanglements with Russia. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: You said you have no investments in Russia, but do you owe any money to Russian individuals and institutions?

TRUMP: No. Will I sell condos to Russians on occasion? Probably. I mean, I do that. I have a lot of condos.

I don't have any deals with Russia. I had Miss Universe there a couple of years ago. Other than that, no.

We could make deals in Russia very easily. We wanted to. I just don't want to, because I think that would be a conflict.

I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don't have any deals in Russia.

I had the Miss Universe pageant, which I owned for quite a while. I had it in Moscow a long time ago, but other than that, I have nothing to do with Russia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Rick, what are your thoughts?

Santorum: I didn't see anything that he said there that was untruthful. I mean, he didn't have any deals. The deal was never done.

CAMEROTA: And should he have said, "But I occasionally do think about building a Trump Tower"? I mean, I'm just asking what you're comfortable with.

SANTORUM: Look, I'm sure Trump p-- the Trump empire, which is pretty substantial, does lots of negotiations with lots of people, and some deals happen and some deals don't. And does he have to disclose every -- everything that he's looking into? Probably would have been wise to do so.

But there's certainly nothing criminal about not reporting that you're, you know, probing into maybe doing a deal there. If the deal doesn't happen or it didn't pursue it, then I don't think he has an obligation to do it. I think he should have, but I don't think there's any legal obligation.

BERMAN: What would you have said, as a candidate against Donald Trump in the Republican primary, if you had known that the Trump Organization was negotiating with Kremlin officials about building a multi-million-dollar tower in Moscow? What would you have said to candidate Trump on a debate stage?

SANTORUM: I would -- I would say that he should -- if you're going to run for president, you should extricate yourself from these types of -- you shouldn't be doing these types of deals if you're running for president of the United States, given the nature of the tension between the two countries.

But again, there's nothing criminal about it. There's nothing, I don't even think, untoward about it. I mean, lots of business people do business in Russia. We do business in China.

CAMEROTA: But do you -- I think that --

SANTORUM: We have more tension with China, I think, these days than even with Russia.

CAMEROTA: Understood, but to Jeffrey's point, do you think that that made him susceptible to Vladimir Putin? That he was so solicitous -- there had to be a reason that he was so solicitous.

SANTORUM: You're not susceptible unless you've been rewarded -- awarded something. I mean, if he got a $50 million loan or whatever -- whatever it was, a large number, that's one thing. But having a negotiation with someone, I don't think that makes you susceptible.

TOOBIN: But is -- isn't that actually worse? Because you're trying to get Russia to agree to participate. So you're trying -- you're ingratiating yourself. That's even worse than having made a deal, you know.

SANTORUM: What I read, the Russians were eager to do that investment, so I don't think it was necessarily him ingratiating himself with the Russians. I think the Russians were trying to ingratiate themselves with him.

[07:10:03] BERMAN: So maybe unseemly, maybe political malpractice.

SANTORUM: Certainly not criminal.

BERMAN: Maybe not criminal. However, if the president lied in his written response to Robert Mueller, which he submitted over the last few weeks, that's a problem. That's a legal problem.

Dana Bash, who is with us right now, has done all kinds of reporting on this and other things related to this. What is the word from inside the Trump legal camp about these written answers?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: They insist that there's no contradiction, but we don't have the specifics to back that up. We have to really underscore that. Because we don't know exactly the detailed -- the detailed level of the questions that the president got on this matter. You know, when did he know? When did Michael Cohen and he talk about it? We just don't know.

All we have from the Trump legal team is the general promise that there's no contradiction between what the president said, which had to have been -- was supposed to be truthful, otherwise he, just like any other American, could face criminal charges -- I mean, it's a little bit different when it's the president, but you know, you get the point. The difference between that and what Michael Cohen said.

The thing, though, I think that we can't lose sight of is what we can't see. Because Robert Mueller has been so good at and sort of wiley about putting in the bare minimum to make clear to other people involved, in this case, "Individual 1," the president of the United States, you know, "I'm on to you."

But there's so much more in the, what, 70 hours of conversations that we now know Michael Cohen had with the Mueller team that we don't know about.

And so when you talk about the president's mood, you talk about what we are going to see and hear from the president now, it is impossible to think that that is not weighing on his mind. And our reporting is he's not happy, and he's lashing out. And, you know, that 70 hours and e-mails and perhaps audiotapes that Michael Cohen is known to have -- have recorded with people, that's all part of the feds' big evidence war chest.

CAMEROTA: Joe, very quickly before we get back to Jim Acosta, one of the interesting things about this is, we've talked to Carrie Cordero. We've just heard from Rick Santorum. There's nothing on its face illegal about the president doing deals -- well, the candidate doing deals with Russia and then not wanting to fully disclose it.

But for some reason the people around the president lied about the timeline. That's what Michael Cohen is pleading guilty to. He lied to congressional investigators about the time line. So somehow, instinctively, the Paul Manaforts, the Michael Cohens of the world were fudging it because -- to protect Donald Trump. That's interesting.

LOCKHART: Yes. I mean, I think Dana's got it exactly right. What -- what Mueller has done here is laid out several predicates. He's basically established, you know, the stuff with Roger Stone is that the WikiLeaks dump, that matters. The Moscow project, that matters. He's not filled in the details.

And I think we forget a little bit what -- often during the campaign, Donald Trump resisted releasing his tax returns. He's still resisting doing that. That there is something they're hiding. There's not that it's under audit and all that. There's something.

So that's why people instinctively were trying to cover this up. We don't know what it is. It could be something terrible; it could be something innocuous. But we don't know what it is. Mueller knows, and we'll find out. BERMAN: Carl Bernstein, our friend, tells us to follow the lies in

journalism. Something he knows a little bit about. Michael Cohen lying, Paul Manafort lying. Follow that and ask the question why?

You're looking at live pictures from Buenos Aires, where we are expecting to here from President Trump very shortly.

Our Jim Acosta on the scene there. And Jim, a meeting with Vladimir Putin was canceled for today. The whole schedule adjusted in a way that it looked like, to me, that the White House was trying to protect or maybe withdraw the president a little bit from the public eye. What's in store?

ACOSTA: That's right. And John, I should point out in just a few minutes, I think we're going to get started here. I just saw the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo; press secretary Sarah Sanders; and others are starting to make their way into the room. Other folks from the Canadian and Mexican delegations, as well.

But yes. The schedule has been adjusted, and it was adjusted on Air Force One as the president left Washington yesterday. He had just told reporters less than an hour before taking off that he was looking forward to this meeting, essentially, with Vladimir Putin.

And then he got on the plane. The White House says he got a briefing from his advisers about the situation with Ukraine and Russian aggression against Ukraine and that, because of that, he decided to cancel that meeting.

But of course, obviously with -- with the Michael Cohen news, the backdrop of the president meeting with Vladimir Putin, and of course, all of this news about a possible Trump Tower project in Moscow that might have involved Putin or his cronies and so on, that that might not have been the best backdrop for the president down here in Argentina.

Now, I mean, one thing we should point out, good to see you this morning, Mr. Secretary. The secretary of the treasury Steve Mnuchin just a moment ago, tapping me on the arm. They are making their way into this room for this -- for this event.

[07:15:11] But one thing we should point out, if during the campaign, during the GOP primaries in early 2016, remember, then-candidate Trump was taking a very soft approach when it came to Vladimir Putin and Russia. It was almost sort of counter to the direction of the entire Republican Party at that time. And had it been known at that time, when the president was advocating softer ties, closer ties with Russia, while the public knew about a Trump Tower Moscow project, a Trump Moscow project, it would have been a totally different conversation, I would imagine.

I would assume that his GOP rivals would have gone after him and said, well, maybe it's because you have this possible project you might be building an office tower, condominium, hotel tower in the middle of downtown Moscow. Is that the reason why, Mr. Trump, why you're advocating these closer ties and taking a softer approach when it comes to Vladimir Putin?"

That obviously would have been part of the conversation. It is a conversation the American people didn't have. And so obviously, it's very relevant now, and obviously, these questions are going to continue to be raised.

The big question this morning as the president meets with the Mexican president, the Canadian prime minister during this event here in Buenos Aires, is whether or not the president is going to take any questions on the subject. Our sense of it is at this point that he's not going to do that. They're going to sign this new trade pact. They're going to make some remarks and then move on. We'll have other opportunities during the day.

But yes, John, they have tailored his schedule with respect to what the president is going to be doing over the next couple of days. It's a compressed, tightened schedule than what we were led to believe just a couple of days ago.

CAMEROTA: Jim, stand by. Obviously, we'll get back to you momentarily. But I saw you, Rick Santorum, responding to what Jim was saying.

SANTORUM: Well, I just --

CAMEROTA: But just to -- were you -- did you find it peculiar during the campaign that President Trump seemed to take such a soft approach, as Jim said, to Vladimir Putin?

SANTORUM: What I -- first off, what I responded to was that Donald Trump having a potential business deal with the Russians during the course of the campaign would somehow have been a damaging blow to Donald Trump.

I mean, given all the damaging blows that Donald Trump withered through on the campaign with no ripple effect on his publicity, in some way, in some cases, increasing that, I think he would spin this and say, "Yes, you want me to be doing deals with the Russians. I'll do this deal, then I'll do" -- I don't think it would have had any impact whatsoever. It does raise the question why would someone lie about it, then? So I understand Joe's point --

CAMEROTA: As a Republican, were you uncomfortable that Donald Trump always was sort of complimenting Vladimir Putin? Did you ever scratch your head and go, "I wonder why he does like Vladimir Putin so much?"

SANTORUM: You know, yes, potentially, although Trump's shtick was we need to entangle ourselves from all these foreign things. We need to work with folks. And so it was not inconsistent with what he does in North Korea, what he's done, you know, with China in trying to use his personal magnetism to work with these folks.

So no, I -- you know, it was part of a broader -- it wasn't -- it wasn't, you know, "what doesn't fit and why" here. I mean, this all was sort of consistent with his approach that he could strike deals with folks, and he could develop these relationships. BERMAN: We just got a two-minute warning. We're about to hear from

the president. We don't know if he will take questions on this subject we're watching very closely.

We do know who is traveling with the president, Jeffrey Toobin. The secretary of state, the national security adviser, the secretary of treasury, the press secretary. I did not hear a lawyer mentioned in the group of people, and I wonder if over the next few days, he needs a lawyer nearby? Because already his statement on Twitter this morning, I think, moves the ball, where he basically said, "Yes, I was negotiating with Russia while I was campaigning."

TOOBIN: You know, what's so different -- I mean, Joe can speak to this, but I covered the Clinton White House during the Monica Lewinsky, the whole Whitewater scandal.

The approach there is the president was doing the president is doing the nation's business. The president is not going to talk about the investigation. He's going to talk about health insurance. He's going to talk about, you know, what presidents do.

Donald Trump is doing something different. He addresses Mueller all the time, both in person and -- and on Twitter. So you know, I have every expectation that, if he is speaking off the cuff, he will speak about the investigation.

But other presidents, especially in a foreign country in a setting like this, would be talking about trade, would be talking about jobs, and we'll see. I mean, it's just a different approach. Who's to say which one is right? But the -- certainly, Trump talks about this a lot more than Clinton ever did when he was under investigation.

CAMEROTA: What are you looking for Joe?

LOCKHART: Well I think Jeffrey's exactly right. I mean, our strategy at that point was to not to ever talk about this. It was -- was to focus the American public on the job the president was doing for them. It was about them, not about him.

Privately, the president railed, and we took a lot of abuse, you know, from time to time, because he was very angry. But it was always about them.

[07:20:07] The one other point, quickly, that -- I do think there's a difference between some of the other Trump issues and this one. If you look back at the polling on -- when President Clinton was in office, the sharpest drop he took was not from Monica Lewinsky. It was from an obscure thing no one remembers, a China satellite scandal. There was a story about whether a Democratic fundraiser had sold secrets to the Chinese. It turned out to be nothing. We dropped 10, 12 points in the polls, because people instinctively know if you're selling out your people, that's different than infidelity. That's different than political misgivings.

So I don't know that we know that, but I think it is different. BERMAN: Hang on. And again, we're minutes away, seconds away,

perhaps, from hearing from President Trump. And Dana Bash, I want to bring you in, because we've heard from Rick Santorum, our former Republican senator at the table here.

And we've been hearing from Republican officials in Washington to an extent publicly yesterday. And their hair is publicly not on fire over this. I haven't heard people come out and say, you know, the president was lying about this; the president needs to answer for this. I haven't heard that publicly yet.

Is that what you're hearing out loud and privately?

BASH: I think that this has been going on so long that these Republicans who privately have been a lot more candid have genuinely decided to take a wait and see approach, because their hair has been on fire so many times they've run out of matches to light it again. I mean --

LOCKHART: Or hair.

BASH: Or hair.

LOCKHART: Most of them, hair.

BASH: Fair point. So they're taking the time to do that.

Joe Lockhart, I remember that scandal --

LOCKHART: Yes.

BASH: -- from the Clinton days. And I think that you're right, that that is what -- a lot of what the president -- now president, candidate Trump got a pass on, was, "Oh, that's just Donald Trump. Of course. He's been married three times, and he's not perfect. And he's a reality host, and he's a tabloid guy from New York." And that's all true.

I was at many, many Trump rallies and talked to scores of Trump voters. And I agree with Senator Santorum that they would have done a shoulder shrug on this Russia thing.

The difference, of course, is that between and now, is that many of them, the president -- now president of the United States didn't think he was going to be president. And now we have him on the world stage, dealing with people who are relying on the president, the leader of the free world, to be tough on Russia. And he hasn't.

And so it is all coming full circle. It's all kind of coming together right now. The issues that he's had on the campaign, the issues that he had as a businessman, the issue that he has right now being under investigation, which is very clear, named publicly for the first time in a document, in a court document, and now the issue of being commander-in-chief. And this is the first time we're going to see it all come together right now on the world stage.

CAMEROTA: Go ahead, Rick.

SANTORUM: Yes. Dana, with all due respect, I think the president has actually been much tougher on Russia than President Obama ever was.

CAMEROTA: Not verbally.

SANTORUM: But -- well, not verbally but you know, actions. I can tell you that Vladimir Putin care more about Ukrainians getting arms than they --

BASH: That's fair.

SANTORUM: -- Barack Obama was sending blankets.

BASH: That's fair.

That's fair, but he hasn't said -- I mean, he cancelled the meeting, but aside from that --

SANTORUM: Well, that, yes.

BASH: -- he hasn't said anything about the current -- the current issue.

SANTORUM: I just think if you look at the Russia policy, Dana, the administration has been quite tough on Russia. Just look at what we've done with our energy prices and destroying the Russian economy. What we've done with gas lines. There's lots of things.

BASH: Forced to by -- forced to by a huge bipartisan majority in the United States Congress.

LOCKHART: And it certainly hasn't -- he has not --

BASH: He didn't want to do it, and he did it.

LOCKHART: He has not been tough on them on the central question of them manipulating and trying to manipulate our elections. He has been soft on them there. He has refused -- he refused in Helsinki to look Putin in the eye and tell him it was wrong. He said -- "I believe it when he says when he wasn't involved here," so on the central question, he has been soft.

SANTORUM: I will agree that verbally, he's been soft. I would say from a policy standpoint, he has not been soft.

BERMAN: Not on the hacking.

SANTORUM: I think he's been --

BERMAN: Not on the attack on the U.S. election system.

SANTORUM: Well, he's -- he's sanctioned Russian, you know --

BASH: But he had to.

BERMAN: Dragged -- as Dana pointed out, dragged kicking and screaming into it.

BASH: And delayed for a while.

BERMAN: Again, I understand the policy in Ukraine. I'll give it to you, you know. Lethal arms is different than blankets, but on the policy of attacking the U.S. election, just clearly not so.

All right. The presidents are walking in. Do we have a picture of it?

CAMEROTA: Sort of.

BERMAN: Sort of. We have a picture of --

CAMEROTA: Of a podium.

BERMAN: You can see they're walking in. Let's listen in. What you're going to hear first is all about trade and the renegotiated NAFTA.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States, the president of the United and Mexican States and the prime minister of Canada.

[07:25:08] TRUMP: Thank you very much.

We're gathered together this afternoon for a very historic occasion, the signing ceremony for a brand-new trade deal, the United States/Mexico/Canada Agreement. So important. I'm honored to be here with President Enrique Pena Nieto. Become a great friend, of Mexico. And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has also become a great friend. This has been a battle, and battles sometimes make good friendships. So it's really terrific.

With our signatures today, we will formally declare the intention of our three countries to replace NAFTA with the USMCA, a truly groundbreaking achievement, modern-day agreement.

I want to thank U.S. trade representative Bob Lighthizer and his entire team for their tremendous effort and the efforts that they've made all throughout the last almost two-year period.

Thank you, as well, to Jared Kushner; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; secretary of the treasury, Steve Mnuchin; and director Larry Kudlow for their hard work and untiring devotion throughout the negotiation process. Peter Navarro, thank you so much for the work that you put in, and so many others.

The USMCA is the largest, most significant, modern and balanced trade agreement in history. All of our countries will benefit greatly. It is probably the largest trade deal ever made, also.

In the United States the new trade pact will support high-paying manufacturing jobs and promote greater access for American exports across the range of sectors, including our farming, manufacturing and service industries. As part of our agreement, the United States will be able to lock in

our market access to Canada and Mexico and greatly expand our agricultural exports, something we've been wanting to do for many years.

This is amazing deal for our farmers and also allows them to use cutting edge biotechnology and eliminate non-scientific barriers. Our nations have also agreed to innovate new measures to ensure fair competition and promote high wages and higher wages for U.S. and North American auto workers. The auto workers are tremendous beneficiary.

Under the USMCA, at least 75 percent of our automobiles' content must be manufactured in North America, and 40 to 45 percent of automobile content must be manufactured in North American high-wage labor in order to gain preferential access to our markets. This will help stop auto jobs from going overseas, and it will bring back auto jobs that have already left. Many, many jobs are already planning to come back. Many companies are coming back. And we're very excited about that.

This landmark agreement includes intellectual property protection that will be the envy of nations all around the world. The USMCA also contained robust new provisions on digital trade and financial services, and the most ambition environmental and labor protections ever placed into a major trade agreement anywhere at any time.

We have dramatically raised standards for combatting unfair trade practices, confronting massive subsidies for state-owned enterprises, and currently, if you look at it, currency manipulation that hurt workers in all three of our countries. The currency manipulation from some countries is so intense, so bad; and it would hurt, Mexico, Canada and the United States badly. We've covered it very well in this agreement.

These new provisions will benefit labor, technology and development in each of our nations, leading to much greater growth and opportunity throughout our countries and across North America.

In short, this is a model agreement that changes the trade landscape forever, and this is an agreement that, first and foremost, benefits working people, something of great importance to all three of us here today.

President -- I must say -- Pena Nieto and Prime Minister Trudeau, we've worked on this agreement. It's been long and hard. We've taken a lot of barbs and a little abuse, and we got there. It's great for all of our countries. Thank you for your close partnership throughout this process.