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Volatile Day On Wall Street As Trump Steps Up Trade War; White House Asks Supreme Court To Intervene Over Man Wrongly Deported; Trump And Israeli PM Netanyahu Speak At White House. Aired 3-4p ET
Aired April 07, 2025 - 15:00 ET
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ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to our viewers around the world. I'm Erica Hill. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
Chaos. Drama. Volatility. Choose any of those words, they pretty much all describe the day so far on Wall Street.
Massive swings in both directions, the Dow jumping then falling by 1,000 points in a matter of moments this morning. Investors are spooked, frankly, by President Donald Trump's global tariff plan, and, of course, growing fears of a recession.
Mr. Trump, though, seems to be taking little notice of those concerns, instead stepping up his trade war, telling people not to worry and is now threatening an additional 50 percent tariff on China.
The president, meantime meeting today with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. The pair were set to hold a news conference this afternoon. That, though, was abruptly canceled earlier today.
Meantime, for U.S. investors, it has been another tough day, as you see. But with about an hour left in the trading day. Boy, that little bit of green that the Nasdaq is showing us is welcome. But as you can see, otherwise not a lot of movement and still some red there. The S&P basically flat.
Vanessa Yurkevich is standing by at the New York Stock Exchange for us this afternoon.
It has been quite a ride today, Vanessa.
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Quite a morning here on Wall Street. The volatility has really been off the charts, as you mention, just up a thousand points, down a thousand points.
But right now, things are holding steady. Theres some shoots of green happening. And this is something that one analyst told me that we could be seeing today. Just little pops of green as investors are digesting news that is coming out of the administration. There are some encouraging moments for investors, hearing that they're negotiating with Japan, with the European Union, and that the prime minister of Israel is at the White House today. That is the first world leader that is getting together face to face with President Trump to discuss these tariffs.
So, investors may be feeling encouraged, but they don't know what these negotiations are detailing. And that is the big question still. Will there be a de-escalation of this trade war?
If you notice the Dow, I think you can show it on your screen. At one point there was that huge pop around 10:00 a.m. There you see it right there. There was a rumor going around that the president was going to pause tariffs for 90 days, except on China.
That turned out not to be true. The White House said that that was, quote, fake news. So, you can see that dramatic rally and then falling once again as investors were brought back down to reality. But you can just see the hunger from investors for some good news here on Wall Street trying to parse out where this is all going.
And I think that's probably the biggest question they have is where is this going for how long? Many of the traders I've spoken to here say that they believe that this is going to go on for weeks, a month. There's -- they're not getting a lot of encouraging signs that the president is really willing to back off in a way that would turn the tide. So, investors telling me that there's going to be probably still a lot of volatility here on Wall Street until there is some sense that there is a de-escalation.
They are really looking for these tariff rates to be cut, not escalated. Just earlier today, President Trump said that he is threatening an additional 50 percent tariff on China if they do not repeal their 34 percent reciprocal tariff on the United States. So, all in, Erica, you're talking about more than 100 percent tariff on China. One of our biggest trading partners.
In that same Truth Social post, I will note, Erica, he also says that he's open to negotiating with 50 countries. So, you can see that escalation and de-escalation happening within sort of the same paragraph. And that is what investors here on Wall Street are really trying to parse through right now.
HILL: Yeah, it's that uncertainty that breeds more uncertainty and concern in those markets.
Vanessa Yurkevich, appreciate it as always.
Well, as I noted, there was supposed to be a press conference this afternoon with President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But those plans at the White House changed.
Kevin Liptak is there for us.
Kevin, you know, as was -- as Vanessa noted, we are expecting some of the conversations between Netanyahu and Trump will involve the tariffs. But where we stand here is actually a lot of mixed messaging from the White House and from this president. KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah. And just in the
last hour, I can tick through three different messages that we heard from three different senior administration officials on these tariffs. We heard first from Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, who says that he is now going to lead negotiations with Japan after the president spoke earlier today with the prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, talking about a trade deal, talking about a way to ease the tariffs.
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We also heard this hour from Peter Navarro, who wrote in "The Financial Times" that this is not a negotiation, repeating that phrase that he has been using throughout the course of the weekend, saying that this is a national emergency and that countries who hope to negotiate these tariffs away will have to do much more than lowering their own tariffs.
And then we heard from Stephen Moran, who is the chair of the Council of Economic advisers here at the White House, who was asked about that very discrepancy. And he said that these conflicting narratives are just an indication that everyone has an opinion, essentially saying that, yes, the president has surrounded himself with people who have very different views on these tariffs, but he is plowing ahead anyway and that it will ultimately be up to the president himself who decides what to do on any given country, which I don't think is necessarily going to provide the certainty that the markets are looking for. But it does give you at least an indication of where all of this is going.
The White House has said that 50 countries so far have approached the administration to try and negotiate a relief from these tariffs. The first today will be Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. But I think in a lot of ways, he acts as something of a cautionary tale for world leaders.
Just last week, he tried to preempt the presidents tariff announcement by announcing that Israel would lift its own customs duties on American imports. But the president went right ahead anyway and applied that 17 percent tariff on Israel.
And so the question, I think, for Netanyahu today, specifically, will what he will be able to bring to the table to cause the president to provide some tariff relief, whether it's in the economic space or for Netanyahu's case, whether it's in the military space, whether its easing off, for example, the war in Gaza, which is something that the president is hoping will come to some kind of resolution.
Every leader now will have to determine what they have in their own stockpiles and what they have to offer the president that would allow for these negotiations to go forward. But certainly when you're listening to the president's advisers, it is still a very confusing message and a lot of ways a contradictory message. But I think if you can sort of discern through all of that, what you do get is the sense that President Trump wants people to call him. He wants to be on the phone with these world leaders. He wants to be the guy who these foreign leaders call to get their agricultural goods into the U.S., to get their auto parts into the U.S. I think that is where all of this is leading, but it's not necessarily
any relief to the markets to hear these contradictory messages coming out of the administration.
HILL: No. Certainly not. I mean, in many ways, you could say it's almost that he wants these world leaders to come and grovel and ask for a better deal. Meantime, you have Secretary Bessent saying just yesterday that these are not the kind of issues. It's not the kind of things you can negotiate away in days or weeks. And so, I guess we will we will buckle up as we continue to watch these developments.
Kevin, appreciate it. Thank you.
It's not, of course, just the U.S. markets. Global markets also seeing a very volatile start to the week. Many of the major indices seemingly in a tailspin. The major European stocks tanked at the open. All of them as you can see there, eventually closing down.
The Asian markets likewise plunge. Hong Kong's Hang Seng closing down 13 percent, recording its worst trading day since 1997.
Anna Stewart joining me now from London.
And as we just heard from Kevin, as we heard, of course, from Vanessa, as I know you are hearing there in London, it is all of this uncertainty that is continuing to add to the red that we are seeing across the world.
ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And certainly, that was the case, you know, starting Monday in the Asia trading session. I think there have been hopes all weekend from investors that something would happen that we would hear of some sort of negotiation or a pause on President Trump's tariffs, and that something would happen before markets opened and they didn't, which is why we saw such steep losses, particularly in Asia, and feeding right through the European trading session.
Now, it has been interesting that in the Truth Social post, where on the one hand, the president slaps China with a threat of an additional 50 percent tariff, taking it to 104 percent if they don't back down tomorrow on the 34 percent retaliation from last week. Hope you're all following. He also said that additionally, negotiations with other countries which have also requested meetings will begin taking place immediately.
And some of those negotiations, for instance, are from the E.U. This is, of course, one of the largest trading blocs, a major European, major global trading power. And they have said that they are willing to do zero tariffs on industrial goods coming from the U.S. however, they have said in the past that this is something that they've done for autos or offered for cars and car parts. And what happened? Well, President Trump slapped them with 25 percent car tariffs like everybody else.
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So, the big question is, is what sort of negotiation would the president actually want to see and respond to? Is it like trade adviser Peter Navarro suggested not about tariffs at all, or at least not just about tariffs. It's also about the so-called non-tariff barriers, whether that's sales tax or whether its bans on certain products or different regulatory requirements, in which case these negotiations, frankly, are going to take so long that you are going to see markets looking this volatile or settling at totally different prices for some time to come.
We are expecting, Erica, the E.U. to retaliate from tariffs that you can barely remember. The aluminum steel tariffs from much earlier in March. We're expecting that on Wednesday. But that on the one hand and some negotiation on the other. The E.U. sort of playing both strategies here.
HILL: There is a lot there. And as you point out it seems like a lifetime ago, of course, those -- those aluminum steel tariffs from last month. Theres also potentially the reaction to as you point out there are the car tariffs right from late March. And then also what is happening with these sweeping 20 percent across the board tariffs.
I guess we have to get one out of the way first. Is that the thinking?
STEWART: I think with the E.U. and you have to remember, you know, this is a 27-member bloc. So, it's very hard for them to come to agreement on practically anything at all. It takes a lot of time. So, they've already been discussing aluminum and steel for some time.
They delayed half of the tranche that was expected from a couple of weeks ago. So, we're now expecting that to happen on Wednesday. And at the same time today, we had a meeting of E.U. trade ministers. There was no sort of big conclusion out of it, but they are meeting to discuss what happens next.
You're right. They've got to sort out auto tariffs next on the agenda. Once they've done steel and aluminum and then all of the other tariffs. And hey, we're not done yet. We could be seeing more tariffs on things like pharmaceuticals and semiconductors in the pipeline.
HILL: Well, it certainly keeps us all busy doesn't it. And I appreciate it. Thank you.
The Trump administration, meantime, filing an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court over the case of a man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. So, the administration is now asking the high court to block that order, which requires that Kilmar Abrego Garcia be returned to the United States by the end of the day today.
CNN's chief Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic joining us now.
So, Joan, this is striking for a number of reasons. Number one, the administration admits they made a mistake in sending this man to El Salvador. But this also seems to just be the latest and perhaps the most high-profile attempt here to really prove that the executive branch can do whatever it wants.
JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Yeah, this really is an extraordinary situation, and now, it's at the Supreme Court.
Erica, as you said, this man was deported two weekends ago with hundreds of other Venezuelan nationals sent to El Salvador, notoriously brutal prison there, and the administration then said that it had made a mistake that this man should not have been included in the hundreds that were sent there. In fact, there had been an immigration judge order from several years ago against specifically sending him to El Salvador because he had demonstrated that he would be subject to persecution if he went there.
So, a district court judge over the weekend said the Trump administration has to get him back, is required to bring him back. And the Trump administration went to the Supreme Court early this morning asking the Supreme Court to intervene to block the district court judge's order, saying, you know, even though we concede we made a mistake, the Trump administration is saying it doesn't give a district court judge the license to meddle in foreign affairs.
Now, just at about the same time that the Trump administration was going to the Supreme Court, an intermediate court and an appellate court sided with the original district court judge, who said that this Maryland man had to be returned, and that district court, that appellate court, said Attorney General Pam Bondi didn't even have the discretion to deport this man because he had not been found guilty of anything. He had not been assessed in some way officially as a danger who needed to be sent back to -- to be deported under these circumstances, without any due process of law. And this appellate court had said that it agreed with the district court judge that her order had to be followed up here.
Now, there was a very powerful concurring statement from this appellate court, from a judge by the name of Jay Wilkinson, who is an appointee of the late President Ronald Reagan, a very conservative judge, judge. And he wrote outright that the administration screwed up here. The administration made a mistake. It defied, you know, the sentiment behind that immigration judges order saying that the one place that this man should not be sent is El Salvador. He might be able to be sent out of the country, but not to this this one country, because that was the, quote, no -- no removal order that he had said or gotten earlier.
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But we've got these competing views. The clock is ticking. We'll probably hear eventually from the mans lawyer submitting a response to the Supreme Court. But as you said, we've got this 11:59 deadline where the Supreme Court is going to have to weigh in one way or another to decide if, the Trump administration has to fulfill the order from the district court judge to bring him back here.
HILL: Yeah, it is really something. And so, we wait. We wait for that answer, which could be coming, I guess, any moment at this point.
Joan, really appreciate it, as always. Thank you.
BISKUPIC: Thanks, Erica. HILL: Well, as I noted, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting
with President Trump at the White House at this hour. As that's happening, the Israeli military is giving an update on its investigation into the deaths of 14 Palestinian emergency workers in Gaza. You may recall the initial report where there have been some questions about it.
Actually, I'm going to take you straight to the White House, where the president and prime minister are speaking. Let's listen in.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think we've come up to some pretty good solutions and conclusions, and we'll be working a little bit after this. And then I assume you're going back home. Yes, sir. This is a quick stop in and out. But we appreciate you being here.
And we are a friend of Israel, as you know, I would say that I'm by far the best president that Israel has ever even thought of seeing. And it's an honor to be so and to be so thought of many friends in Israel.
They are not in an easy area. It doesn't go easy, but we are helping them. And likewise, they've been helping us very much. And so, we'll see how it all works out. But we had great discussions today. I think on the obvious subject of Iran, and also the less obvious of subject with respect to Israel, and that's trade. And I think the prime minister is going to tell you a little bit about trade and what they're doing for the United States.
So, I want to thank you all for being here. Thank you very much. And thank you, Benjamin. Thank you very much.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you.
Mr. President. I want to first, thank you for inviting me again to the White House. You've been a remarkable friend of the state of Israel. You stand by us. You're standing with us. You are a great, great champion of our lives.
And you actually do the things that you say you do. And I think that people respect that enormously. I certainly do, and the people of Israel do. And I think the Jewish people do as well. We just saw your representative in the Department of Justice fighting antisemitism, standing up for Israel in international forums.
I just want you to know from the heart it's deeply, deeply appreciated. As you said, we had the opportunity to talk today about many subjects. First, if I can mention tariffs, its a subject of some interest today I can tell you that I said to the president, a very simple thing. We will eliminate the trade deficit with the United States. We intend to do it very quickly. We think it's the right thing to do, and we're going to also eliminate trade barriers, a variety of trade barriers that have been put up unnecessarily.
And I think Israel can serve as a model for many countries who ought to do the same. I recognize the position of the United States. It says, you know, we're allowing other countries to put tariffs on us, but we don't put tariffs on them. And, you know, I'm a free trade champion. And free trade has to be fair trade.
And I think that's basically the position that you have put forward, Mr. President. We are going to eliminate the tariffs. And rapidly I had the opportunity to speak to Secretary Lutnick yesterday. We talked about how we -- we could affect this quickly, and I hope to bring the solution very quickly.
We're not talking about intentions. We're not talking about, you know, just words. We're talking about results. And those results are going to come back. That's the first --
TRUMP: Thank you very much. It's very nice.
NETANYAHU: Thank you. Thank you.
REPORTER: Mr. President --
REPORTER: What about the hostages?
NETANYAHU: Well, I didn't --
TRUMP: Let him finish.
NETANYAHU: Let me finish.
REPORTER: Okay.
NETANYAHU: We did. We spoke about not only the hostages, but about Gaza.
The hostages, obviously, is a human story of just unbearable agony. I speak to the families. I spoke to them yesterday. I spoke to another one when I was in Hungary before I came here.
I speak to them every day. They're in agony. The hostages are in agony, and we want to get them all out.
Steve Witkoff was President Trump's very able representative. Helped us get a deal that got 25 out. We're working now on another deal that we hope will succeed, and we're committed to getting all the hostages out, but also eliminating the evil tyranny of Hamas in in Gaza and enabling the people of Gaza to freely make a choice to go wherever they want.
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I mean, they should have that choice. And the president put forward a vision, a bold vision, which we discussed as well, including the countries that might be amenable and are amenable to accepting Palestinians of their free choice if they choose to go there. And I think that's the second thing that we discussed. But the hostages came right on top. We also discussed the situation in Syria. We have -- we've had
neighborly relations with turkey that have deteriorated and we don't want to see Syria being used by anyone, including turkey, as a base for attack in Israel.
Turkey is a country that has a great relationship with the United States. The president has a relationship with the leader of Turkey. We discussed how we can avoid this conflict in a variety of ways, and I think we can't have a better interlocutor than the president of the United States for this purpose.
And, of course, we also discussed Iran. Look, we're both united in the goal that Iran does not ever get nuclear weapons. If it can be done diplomatically in a full way, the way it was done in Libya, I think that would be a good thing. But whatever happens, we have to make sure that Iran does not have nuclear weapons. That's the end of my speech.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: We are -- we're having direct talks with -- wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, we're having direct talks with Iran, and, they've started. It'll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting and we'll see what can happen.
And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious. And the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with or, frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with if they can avoid it. So, we're going to see if we can avoid it. But it's getting to be very dangerous territory, and hopefully those talks will be successful. And I think it would be in Iran's best interests if they are successful. And we hope we hope that's going to happen.
And we had just a lot of good talks on a lot of things. I appreciate very much what you said about the tariffs. We've been ripped off and taken advantage of by many countries over the years and can't do it anymore. Just can't do it anymore. It can't be the stupid people anymore.
And it's all because of the people that sat in the seat right here. Not your seat, but this seat. They allowed things to happen to our country that they shouldn't have allowed to happen on trade and other things, many other things. I mean, look at what's happened with our last president where he allowed millions of people to come into our country with an open border.
Who would want an open border? How stupid is that? But he allowed millions and millions of people and of the millions, and I think it was 21 million people.
But let's say three of them were serious criminals, serious murderers and drug dealers and gang members and people from jails. All the jails emptied out right into our country, right along the open border on the on Mexico generally, the Mexico opened. They came in from Canada, too, by the way, a lot. But generally speaking, on the southern border.
And what a shame it is that we are now working very hard to get them out, get the criminals out, get the murderers out. The drug dealers, the mentally insane. Get them out. They dropped the mentally insane in our country, too.
And this was all done by the Biden administration. It's a disgrace that we have to work so hard. And then we have judges that try and protect these people, but they didn't protect us when the people were being let in. But to get them out is never easy with these people.
So, I think we're doing a great job. The border is the best it's ever been. Even as strong as it was. I had a great solid border. I think it might even be tougher right now and stronger.
So, people are coming into our country, but they're coming in legally. We have a legal process and we have that moving along properly because we need people to come into our country, but we want people that can love our country and cherish our country. So that's where we are. And with that, any questions.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Mr. President? Mr. President, the European Union --
REPORTER: Reaction to the markets today. And would you be open to a pause in tariffs to allow for negotiations.
TRUMP: Well, we're not looking at that. We have many, many countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us. And they're going to be fair deals. And -- and in certain cases, they're going to be paying substantial tariffs. They'll be fair deals.
As you know, I spoke this morning with the prime minister of Japan, and we had a very good conversation. They're coming. And I said one thing, you're going to have to open up your country because we sold no cars like zero cars in Japan, and they sold millions of cars into our country. They don't really take our agriculture a little bit of it, just to keep us slightly happy. But they don't take what they're supposed to be taking.
So, we have a great relationship with Japan. We're going to keep it that way. But they're coming in to meet and other countries are coming in.
With China, as you know, against my statement, they put a 34 percent tariff on above what their ridiculous tariffs were already. And I said if that tariff isn't removed by tomorrow at 12:00, we're putting a 50 percent tariff on above the tariffs that we put on.
So, they've gone for years. They've become a rich country because of people again, that were in the White House that allowed this to happen. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year they'd make on us on trade. And it shouldn't be that way.
And I have a great relationship with President Xi. I hope it's going to stay that way. I have great respect for China, but they can't do this with just were going to have one shot at this, and no other president is going to do this, what I'm doing. And I'll tell you what, its an honor to do it because we have been just -- just destroyed, what they've done to our system. You know, we have $36 trillion of debt for a reason. And the reason is that people allowed it to get that way.
So, we'll be talking to China. We'll be talking to a lot of different countries. And I think, you know, if -- if we can make a really fair deal and a good deal for the United States, not a good deal for others.
This is America first. It's now America first. And we didn't put America first. We put America last. The people that were in the oval office put America last, and we're not going to stand for it.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Mr. President, who's going to represent the U.S. in the talks with Iran?
REPORTER: Two questions. Do you expect any of these deals to be made before April 9th?
And secondly, there have been some mixed messages from your administration. You're talking about negotiations, and yet others in your administration are saying that these tariffs are actually permanent. What is the actual --
TRUMP: Well, it could be they can both be true. There can be permanent tariffs and there can also be negotiations because there are things that we need beyond tariffs. We need open borders.
You know we almost had a deal with China where we were going to open up China. It was almost done. Some of you remember it during my first term and it was very disappointing. We ended up making a great deal $50 worth of product was sold 50 billion. You'd like that in Israel.
And I made that deal, but it wasn't the deal that it wanted. It was -- the deal that I wanted was that, plus they were going to open up China so that our companies could go into China and compete with other countries and China for the, you know, for large number of people.
And at the very end, that deal was terminated. And we went to a piece of the deal. And so, there are a lot of things outside of tariffs. But tariffs are very important. But there are a lot of things like opening up countries that were totally closed.
China is essentially a closed country. In fact, it is a closed country. And what they do is they charge tariffs so that if you -- if you sell cars or if you sell anything, nobody's going to buy it because the price is out of control. But that's true with a lot of other countries also.
So, we're going to get fair deals and good deals with every country. And if we don't, we're going to have nothing to do with them. They're not going to be allowed to participate in the United States.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: This gentleman is all day long.
(LAUGHTER)
REPORTER: Mr. President, many of the -- thank you for the chance -- many Palestinian Americans who voted for you voted for you and not for Biden because you promised them to end the war in Gaza.
TRUMP: I'm honored by that vote, too.
REPORTER: The war is still going on and there's no hostage deal. Do you have any update on that?
TRUMP: Well, I'd like to see the war stop. And I think the war will stop at some point. That won't be in the too distant future. Right now, we have a problem with hostages. We're trying to get the hostages out. We got quite a few of them out, but it's a long process. It shouldn't be that long.
We have a big problem that we've done. I think our last speech to maybe talk about it for a second because a lot of people are asking the Houthis. We've -- we've been very tough and very successful militarily. We've really damaged them badly. These were people shooting down ships and other things, by the way, flying objects like airplanes.
And we -- we've put a major hurt on the Houthis, which nobody's been able to do. We've really hit them hard, and they know it, and they don't know what to do.
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And it's every night, night after night. And we've gotten many of their leaders and their experts, their experts on missiles. I mean, they actually make missiles. Nobody thought that. But they make missiles.
It's highly sophisticated and they're very tough, but they've been very badly damaged. Nobody else was able to do that but us.
Pete, you want to discuss that, please?
PETE HEGSETH, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Yes, sir. Well, it's been a bad three weeks for the Houthis. And it's about to get worse. It's been a devastating campaign. Whether its underground facilities or weapons manufacturing bunkers, troops in the open, air defense assets.
We are not going to relent. And it's only to get more unrelenting until the Houthis declare they will stop shooting at our ships. And we've been very clear that the Iranians as well they are they should not continue to provide support to the Houthis. And that message has been made very clear.
So, we have a lot more options and a lot more pressure to apply. And we know because we see the reports how devastating this campaign has been in them, and we will not relent.
TRUMP: We have a great military. There's no military like our military. And despite Biden having given a lot, but nevertheless a pretty small piece, but it was a lot of our military way in Afghanistan, and one of the dumbest situations, I think, and maybe the most embarrassing situation we've ever been involved in, that that short period of time in Afghanistan.
What a disgrace that was, but left a lot of our military behind, left. You see them in their annual parades where they're parading trucks that are armor plated and different things that they have, but it's many billions of dollars we left behind. But despite that, we have a tremendous military that was a very small portion because we rebuilt the military during my first term.
And we -- we have great, great things happening with our military. We also essentially approved a budget which is in the facility. You like to hear this of $1 trillion, $1 trillion, and nobody's seen anything like it. We have to build our military, and we're very cost conscious.
But the military is something that we have to build, and we have to be strong, because you got a lot of bad forces out there now. So, we're going to be approving a budget. The -- and I'm proud to say, actually, the biggest one we've ever done for the military.
We're cutting other things that were under DOGE but under a lot of other when -- you look at a woman getting $2 billion for environmental and it had nothing to do with environmental, and they had $100 in the bank, and they gave her 2 billion. Many, many of those cases, all that stuff is going to be cut out. But we are getting a very, very powerful military. We have things under order now, the likes of which we've never had before. We've never had the kind of, aircraft, the kind of missiles, anything that we have ordered. And it's in many ways too bad that we have to do it, because hopefully we're not going to have to use it. But the military is very, very powerful. And it's going to remain that way.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Yes, please.
REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President.
I want to ask you about Iran, because this is the first time we hear that the U.S. is having a direct contact with the Iranians. Is it possible to give us some more information? At what level the U.S. is represented? And --
TRUMP: Very high level, and we're dealing with the Iranians. We have a very big meeting on Saturday, and we're dealing with them directly. You know, a lot of people say, oh, maybe you're going through surrogates or you're not dealing directly. You're dealing through other countries.
No, we're dealing with them directly. And maybe a deal is going to be made. That would be great. That would be -- it would be really great for Iran, I can tell you that.
But hopefully, we're not going to have to get into that. We -- we are meeting very importantly on Saturday at almost the highest level, and we'll see how it works out.
Please?
REPORTER: How do you ensure, Mr. President, that these tariffs don't drive U.S. trading partners into the hands of the Chinese?
TRUMP: I'm not worried about it. I'm not worried about it. If they want to be in the hands of the U.S., they don't want to be in the hands of the Chinese. And the Chinese have turned out to be really not very good at that.
People that are with us, they're with us. But we cannot be taken advantage of any longer. I used to watch these deals for years. I've been talking about it for years. You know, I've been talking about it for 35 years how our country is being ripped off. I mean, it 30 years ago, it was Japan. Then it was something else.
Then it was another group, then it was China. China is doing the best job of it, frankly, and it's just not going to happen, not going to happen.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: The E.U. has said that they have offered zero for zero tariffs on cars and industrial goods.
[15:35:02]
Is that not enough?
TRUMP: Well, the E.U. -- no, it's not. The E.U. has been very tough over the years. It was -- I always say it was formed to really do damage to the United States in trade. That's the reason it was formed. It was formed with all of the countries from Europe. I guess most of them, not all of them, but most of them.
And they formed together to create a little bit of a monopoly situation, to create a unified force against the United States for trade. So, they have NATO, which is largely the same countries, and they took advantage of us dollar-wise and militarily until I got there.
You know, I -- I was able to get $600 billion from NATO, where they paid NATO because most of these nations weren't even paying. We were paying for NATO. So, we're paying them to guard them militarily, and they're screwing us on trade. So that's not a good combination.
So, now, it's really turned around. It's the opposite. And the European Union has been very ne -- very bad to us. They don't take our cars, like Japan in that sense. They don't take our agricultural product. They don't take anything practically. And yet they send millions of cars in a year, Mercedes-Benz,
Volkswagen, BMWs, they're sending millions and millions of cars into the U.S. but we don't have a car that's been sold to the European Union or other places.
But let's go for the European Union, and it's not going to be that way. It's got to be fair and reciprocal. It's got to be fair. It's not fair.
We have a deficit with the European Union of $350 billion, and it's going to disappear fast. And one of the reasons and one of the ways that that can disappear easily and quickly is they're going to have to buy our energy from us because they need it. They're going to have to buy it from us. They can buy it. We can knock off $350 billion in one week.
They have to buy and commit to buy a like amount of energy. And we have that, you know, we have more energy than any country in the world. I don't know if you know that -- he knows everything, but the one thing he may not know, we have more energy than any country in the world. We have more of every kind of energy, every form of energy from oil and gas to coal.
And people talk about, I call it beautiful clean coal. As you know, Germany is opening up a coal plant a week. They tried the windmills and it didn't work. They tried all the other solutions and they were ready to go out of business. Now they're doing a coal plant a week.
China is now up to two coal plants. They're -- they're opening two major coal plants every single week in China, all over China. And then we're not allowed to use coal.
Well, we have clean, beautiful coal more than anybody else. We have oil and gas more than anybody else. We have the most energy of any country in the world, including Saudi Arabia, including everybody by a lot.
And I took it to number one. We were number three, and I took it to number one during my administration.
And the reason that we were hurt so badly, and the reason that we went into such incredible inflation during Biden is energy. It was also their bad spending, but energy, because they played around with this incredible thing that we had built, this administration had built, and the energy costs went through the roof. And when that went up, everything else followed.
Now, if you look at what's happening, you got to see this today. I said, we're going to try and get groceries down, right? An old- fashioned term, but a beautiful term.
Eggs. So, when I got in, the press went absolutely crazy. The first week they said eggs have quadrupled in price. I said, I just got here, tell me about it.
And Brooke Rollins and our team did a great job. And eggs are down now, 79 percent, and they're all over the place. And this was a problem that somebody else would have taken a long time to cure.
We have -- energy is down. We have -- interest rates are down. We have groceries, meaning food is down. We have everything is down at levels that nobody ever thought possible.
Energy looks like it's going to be in the $2.50 a gallon range. And maybe below that for a car. So -- for gasoline.
So, we are -- we're really doing amazing. I mean, we're cutting prices because prices got so high, people couldn't live. I mean, the prices for groceries, the prices for standard, standard, groceries, standard, things were going through the roof. They couldn't live. And now those prices are coming down.
So, call them groceries. But that's down. Energy is down and interest rates are down. Everything's down.
And the interest rates, the beauty there is when we refinance debt, you know, debts become such a big factor in this country. We're going to get were going to start paying debt off with tariffs and other things.
But it's such a big factor because the interest rates are so high. Well, now, that's coming way down. So, our budget is going to look a lot better because interest costs are way down.
[15:40:05]
And I guess I've done that.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Many Israelis are watching you now on live show.
TRUMP: Good.
REPORTER: What is your specific way of getting the hostages out from the horrific captivity?
TRUMP: We are trying very hard to get the hostages out. We're looking at another cease fire. Well see what happens. But we have -- we want to get the hostages out.
The Israeli people want the hostages out more than anything. They want the hostages out. This man is working very hard with us to do that. I mean, I don't know, I hope he's being appreciated because he's been a great leader.
He's working very, very hard on the hostages and many other things. And there are plenty of things you have to work on. It's a -- it's a tough place in the world, isn't it?
NETANYAHU: I have a good partner.
TRUMP: Yeah. You do have a good partner and so do we. We're working very hard on the hostages. (CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: If you're going to negotiate a new deal with Iran, can you elaborate how it's going to be more effective than -- than the JCPOA?
TRUMP: Well, I can't really say that, but I think it will be different and maybe a lot stronger. But they were so happy when we made that first deal because we did get a lot out. You know, I had people right in this office, this beautiful Oval Office. They came in ten people, hostages, you know that.
And I said to them, so how was it? And the stories they told me, I mean, as an example, I said to them, was there any sign of love? You were there, 10 people. It's only 10, but it's pretty representative.
Did the Hamas show any signs of, like, help or liking you? Did they wink at you? Did they give you a piece of bread extra? Did they give you a meal on the side?
Like, you know, you think of doing like what happened in Germany? What happened elsewhere? People would try and help people that were in unbelievable distress. They said no. I said all of them.
I said, did they ever wink at you like, you'll be okay, you're going to be okay? No, they didn't do that. They'd slap us.
The hatred is unbelievable. And the lives, you know, they lived in a pipe. Not really a tunnel. It was a pipe. And they always thought they were suffocating. They were going to suffocate. And then they'd open up the pipe and it was like 3-1/2 high.
This isn't -- you know, we hear tunnel is bad, but pipes are worse. And the stories I heard were incredible. But I just said, was there any sign of potential love or affection? And there were none whatsoever.
It was amazing to me. There was nothing like, here, take this. It's a little extra meal or something. They lived like hell.
I don't know, they seem to be. They were amazing to me because they seemed to be pretty normal. They weren't scarred. But I guarantee underneath they have to be scarred. And one was there for 356 days and other was there for about 180 days.
You know, a long time. These are people that have been really, really horribly treated. I've never seen anything like it, actually. I was very surprised to hear the answer.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. Are there two or three countries that are on your list that you feel are farther along in getting their tariffs lowered?
TRUMP: I think there are -- well, I think there are many that want to get rid of tariffs right now. European Union, I mean, as badly as they've treated us, they've -- you know, they've brought their car tariffs essentially off. I guess they brought it down to two and a half, and I hear maybe to nothing.
But it's not only tariffs, it's non-monetary tariffs. It's tariffs where they put things on that make it impossible for you to sell a car. It's not a money thing. It's -- they make it so difficult, the standards and the tests.
They drop a bowling ball on the top of your car from 20 feet up in the air. And if there's a little dent, they say, no, I'm sorry, your car doesn't qualify.
When the same car from Germany or anything would dent. Likewise, unless you're going to have an army tank, it's going to dent. So, they come up with rules and regulations that are just designed for one reason that you can't sell your product in those countries. And we're not going to let that happen.
Those are called non-monetary barriers. They make barriers that are so tough that it's impossible to qualify. So, so tariffs are a big part of it. But there's another big part of it. And that's barriers.
They also do something else. They manipulate their currency, and they drive it down. They want to drive it. They want to have low currencies.
You know it sounds better to have a high currency or strong dollar or whatever. But they bring their currency down. And when it competes with our currency, it's very hard to sell a tractor. It's very hard to sell product because their currency is low and ours is much higher, relatively. And so, it makes it very hard.
I speak to a lot of companies that do, business tractor companies.
[15:45:04]
And they say it's so hard to sell because what they've done is they've lowered the yen, or they've lowered the yuan, or they've lowered their currency so that it's very hard to compete. We don't want that either. So, we have a lot of things that were talking about, but we're going to fix it properly and it's going to be fair to everybody.
And in the end, I think we're going to have a world that does a lot better, you know? But they have to respect the United States, and nobody but me would do this. Nobody but me would do this.
You know, it would be nice to serve a nice, easy term. But we have an opportunity to change the fabric of our country. We have an opportunity to reset the table on trade.
We lose billions of dollars. We lose close to $2 trillion a year on trade. We lose $1 trillion a year to China a trillion. We lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year on trade to China. We lose hundreds of billions of dollars overall, probably to close to $2 trillion. Why would we do that? Number one why would we do that. And then you
have to say is it sustainable. Then you hear about all of the people that say well, deficits. If we have a deficit with the country or if the country has a big surplus with us, like China has a massive surplus that they take and they spend on their military -- well, we don't want that. I don't want them to take $500 billion, $600 billion a year and spend it on their military.
I don't want them spending money on their military, and I shouldn't have to spend money. We shouldn't have to spend it either, because, you know, hopefully. And I said this to President Xi, hopefully its money that were never going to use. In other words, because we're not going to use those incredible weapons that we have and that they have, we don't want that.
So it's going to be very interesting. It's -- it's the only chance our -- our country will have to reset the table because no other president would be willing to do what I'm doing or to even go through it. Now, I don't mind going through it because I see a beautiful picture at the end, but we are making tremendous progress with a lot of countries.
And the countries that really took advantage of us are now saying, please negotiate. You know why? Because they're getting beaten badly because of what's happening. They're getting beaten badly. They're being devalued as countries.
But it's the only chance we're going to have to reset the table on trade. And when we do, we're going to come out unbelievably well. We're going to have a strong country economically again, and we're going to have those factories that are empty all over the United States.
We've lost 90,000 plants and factories. Think of this 90,000 -- you wouldn't think it's possible -- 90,000 plants and factories since NAFTA, which was, by the way, the worst trade deal ever, ever developed, ever had by any country, anywhere, NAFTA.
And I terminated NAFTA. Everybody said it would be impossible. And I terminated through Congress. We terminated it. You had to get it through Congress.
It was a trap. It was a horrible thing. And we got it done. And we went to the USMCA, which was much better.
The problem is they cheat. They cheat like crazy. Canada cheats. Mexico cheats. Just one of those things.
But we are resetting the table and we're going to have great trade, and we're going to have a very strong country. Our country is going to be at a level that has maybe never been or maybe -- you know, our country was the strongest, believe it or not, from 1870 to 1913. You know why? It was all tariff-based. We had no income tax.
Then in 1913, some genius came up with the idea of let's charge the people of our country, not foreign countries that are ripping off our country. And the country was never relatively -- was never that kind of wealth. We had so much wealth we didn't know what to do with our money.
We had meetings. We had -- we had committees. And these committees worked tirelessly to study one subject.
We have so much money. What are we going to do with it? Who are we going to give it to? And I hope we're going to be in that position again.
REPORTER: Mr. President, do you plan to reduce the tariffs that your government put on Israeli goods? Seventeen percent.
TRUMP: On where?
REPORTER: On Israeli goods? 17 percent. Do you plan --
TRUMP: Well, we're talking about a whole new trade. Maybe not, maybe not. Don't forget we help Israel a lot. You know, we give Israel $4 billion a year. That's a lot. I congratulations, by the way. That's pretty good.
But we give Israel billions of dollars a year. Billions. It's one of the highest of any -- we give a lot of -- we give a lot of countries money. You wouldn't believe if I said we give Afghanistan a lot of money, do you?
Because that was a Biden deal, another Biden deal. Not only did he embarrass us with that, but they give them billions of dollars, Afghanistan, right?
[15:50:06]
So, but no, we -- we take good care of our friends, and we don't take care of our enemies. We're not taking care of our enemies anymore. But we do take care of our friends.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Lazar Berman from "The Times of Israel", the IDF is fighting again in the Gaza Strip. I myself might be called up in a month. Do you think that's the way to pressure Hamas to get to a deal? And do you think blocking humanitarian aid is also an effective pressure?
TRUMP: Well, you know how I feel about the Gaza Strip. I think it's an incredible piece of important real estate. And I think its something that we would be involved in. But, you know, having a peace force like the United States, they're controlling and owning the Gaza strip would be a good thing, because right now, all it is, is for years and years, all I hear about is killing and Hamas and problems.
And if you take the people, the Palestinians and move them around to different countries, and you have plenty of countries that will do that, and you really have a freedom -- a freedom zone, you call it the freedom zone, a free zone, a zone where people aren't going to be killed every day. That's a hell of a place. It's a -- you know what I call it? A great location that nobody wants
to live in because they really don't. And when they had good lives, when they have good living, real living where Hamas and all of the -- the problems they have, the level of death on the Gaza Strip is just incredible.
And I've said it, I just -- I don't understand why Israel ever gave it up. Israel owned it. It wasn't this man. So I can say it, he wouldn't have given it up. I know him very well. There's no way -- they took oceanfront property and they gave it to people for peace. How did that work out? Not good.
REPORTER: Is the immigration, Mr. President -- is the immigration plan still on the agenda?
TRUMP: Which immigration.
REPORTER: From Gaza, from Gaza.
TRUMP: All it is, is a concept that I had that I think is good. And now people are copying it, you know maybe do you want to tell people are talking about the Trump plan? Gee, what do we do that? Would you like to answer that question?
NETANYAHU: I think what the president talked about is, first of all, to give people a choice. You know, Gaza -- Gazans were closed in. And every other place, including in arenas of battle. I mean, whether its Ukraine or Syria or any other place, people could leave.
Gaza was the only place where they locked them in. We didn't lock them in. They're locked in. And what is wrong with giving people a choice?
Now, we've been talking, including over lunch, about some countries. I won't go into them right now that are saying, you know, if Gazans want to leave, we want to take them in. And I think this is -- this is the right thing to do.
If you give -- you know, it's going to take years to rebuild Gaza. In the meantime, people can have an option. President has a vision. Countries are responding to that vision. We're working on it.
I hope we'll have good news for you.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Excuse me, people really do love that vision. It's a long-term vision, but so importantly is to have that be a -- a safe field because you're right smack in the middle of the Middle East. You're right along Israel. It should have never, ever been given away. It shouldn't have been given away by Israel.
I don't know why they did it. I mean, I do know why because they were promised peace. But that didn't work out too well because its one of the most dangerous pieces of land anywhere in the world.
Gaza is one of the most dangerous places in the world, so they gave it away for good intention. And it -- it didn't work out that way. And a lot of people like my concept, but, you know, there are other concepts that I like too, and there are some concepts I don't like.
You know what I don't like? The way it is now, because right now it's a dangerous death trap. Gaza. Yeah.
REPORTER: Thank you, sir. Can you talk a little bit about your meeting potential meeting with Vladimir Putin? Do you still plan to meet with him? Could that happen in Saudi Arabia? And maybe you could elaborate as well, a little bit on not providing tariffs on Russia, sir?
TRUMP: So, the reason we're not talking about tariffs with Russia is because we're not doing business essentially with Russia, because they're in a war. And I'm not happy about what's going on with -- with the bombing because they're bombing like crazy right now. They're bombing. I don't know what's happening there. That's not a good situation.
So we're meeting with Russia. We're meeting with Ukraine, and we're getting sort of close. But I'm not happy with all the bombing that's going on the last week or so. Horrible. It's a horrible thing. It's a horrible thing.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Mr. President, can countries negotiate to get below 10 percent?
TRUMP: In terms of tariffs?
REPORTER: In terms of tariffs, yes.
TRUMP: Look, we've been ripped off and taken advantage of for 40, 50, 60 years. And the reason we got ripped off and the way they did it was tariffs.
[15:55:02]
They would charge tariffs. Massive numbers of dollars. And when you look at China when I took over, it was at $507 billion. They were making I call it making. A lot of people say, oh, it doesn't mean anything. Having a surplus means a lot, in my opinion. It's almost like a profit and loss statement.
And when I took over, it was $507 billion that China would. This is originally first-term. And we were very, very tough on them because they were taking that money and they were building a military with it.
Then when Biden came in, he let them get away with murder. He had no idea. I'll tell you what, that man had no idea what was happening, whether it was the border or China or anything else. He had no idea what was going on.
And they got -- they went wild. China went wild. And the money they make is ridiculous, okay? It's just not going to happen. And hopefully, we'll get along with China. If we do, that's great. And
if we don't, that's okay too. But we can't let that continue because that's a -- that's an abuse. They abused the poor people that sat in the seat, that poor Biden. He was abused by them. They took advantage of him.
And I'm surprised, you know, they have smart people. They were radical left lunatics. But they're smart. I'm surprised they allow that to take, you know, to -- to happen. But we are going to bring great trade and we're going to be fair to other countries.
And I will say this virtually every country wants to negotiate. If I didn't do what I did over the last couple of weeks, you wouldn't have anybody wants to negotiate. We would have gone to these countries. You want to talk? And they were. Well, we don't want to talk.
Now, they're coming to us. They're offering things like even Bibi. And this is unrelated because it's a different kind of a relationship.
But he started off our conversation today that he's cutting all of the tariffs. He's cutting everything. He's going to get down to a free base. He's going to do things that, in all fairness, other countries, if they said that, would have never even thought about doing it.
Now they're offering things to us that we would have never even thought of asking them for. Because they're experiencing a lot of hurt. And the hurt is that they've taken advantage of us. And we finally fought back.
Tariffs will make this country very rich. We're rich anyway, but we're rich in a certain way. We have $36 trillion in debt. I want to get rid of it and we can do it quickly with proper deals.
So, when countries don't allow us to sell our product, but we allow them to sell their product when they charge us massive amounts of money for the privilege of going into their country. Those days are over. Okay?
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Yeah, go ahead.
REPORTER: Me?
TRUMP: Sir.
REPORTER: Me? Yeah. Thank you, Mr. President.
On Iran, two questions please. First, if you can give us more details about where the meeting on Saturday is going to take place.
TRUMP: I can't tell you that. I can just tell you there's a major meeting going on between us and Iran, and that will take place on Saturday. And it's at top level.
REPORTER: And the second question about this. A lot of people think that those talks are not going to lead anywhere because the Iranians will never be --
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: I think that's a possibility, too.
REPORTER: If diplomacy fails, is the United States under your leadership ready to take military action to destroy the Iranian nuclear program -- program and remove this threat?
TRUMP: I think if the talks aren't successful with Iran, I think Iran is going to be in great danger. And I hate to say it, great danger because they can't have a nuclear weapon, so.
You know, it's not a complicated formula. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That's all there is. You can't have it.
Right now, we have countries that have nuclear power that shouldn't have it. But I'm sure we'll be able to negotiate out of that, too, as part of this later on down the line.
But Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And if the talks aren't successful, I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran if that's the case.
Yeah?
REPORTER: Mr. President, on manufacturing, Mr. President.
REPORTER: Mr. President, was October 7th the death blow of the two- state solution? And would you consider classifying the Palestinian Authority as a terrorist organization for its continued efforts like terror financing payments?
TRUMP: So, October 7th was a horrible day that some people they -- they deny it. Now I can't believe they deny it from the standpoint of it. They do it because they think it's good politically.
But October, I've seen the tapes. I've seen things that you don't want to see. October 7th was a horrible day, and it will go down as one of the really bad days in the history of the world. It was a horrible, horrible thing that happened. And they grabbed some of these people.
I'll give you an example, when I was with the 10 hostages a few weeks ago.
