Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announces the suspension of the United States from the INF missile treaty, based upon ongoing violations from Russia.  [Video and Transcript]

…make no mistake about President Trump’s mission set. President Trump’s mission set is to make sure that any agreement that we entered into has America’s best interest – that is, it protects the American people, protects our allies around the world as well, and has provisions that other countries are both capable and willing to comply with, and allow us to verify that they have complied with those agreements.

[Transcript] SECRETARY POMPEO: Good morning, everyone. At the core of President Trump’s foreign policy are a few very, very simple truths. The security of the American people must be our greatest consideration, the agreements into which we enter must serve American interests, and countries must be held accountable when they break the rules.

For years, Russia has violated the terms of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty without remorse. To this day, Russia remains in material breach of its treaty obligations not to produce, possess, or flight-test a ground-launched intermediate-range cruise missile system with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.

In spite of this violation, for almost six years the United States has gone to tremendous lengths to preserve this agreement and to ensure security for our people, our allies, and our partners. We have raised Russia’s noncompliance with Russian officials, including at the highest levels of government, more than 30 times, yet Russia continues to deny that its missile system is noncompliant and violates the treaty.

Russia’s violation puts millions of Europeans and Americans at greater risk. It aims to put the United States at a military disadvantage, and it undercuts the chances of moving our bilateral relationship in a better direction. It’s our duty to respond appropriately.

When an agreement is so brazenly disregarded and our security is so openly threatened, we must respond. We did that last December when the United States, with strong support from all of our NATO allies, formally declared Russia in material breach of the treaty. I also then provided notice that unless Russia returned to full and verifiable compliance within 60 days, we would suspend our obligation under that treaty.

We provided Russia an ample window of time to mend its ways and for Russia to honor its commitment. Tomorrow that time runs out. Russia has refused to take any steps to return real and verifiable compliance over these 60 days.

The United States will therefore suspend its obligations under the INF Treaty effective February 2nd. We will provide Russia and the other treaty parties with formal notice that the United States is withdrawing from the INF Treaty effective in six months, pursuant to Article 15 of the treaty.

Russia has jeopardized the United States security interest, and we can no longer be restricted by the treaty while Russia shamelessly violates it. If Russia does not return to full and verifiable compliance with the treaty within this six-month period by verifiably destroying its INF-violating missiles, their launchers, and associated equipment, the treaty will terminate.

Before I close, I want to give a special thanks to our NATO allies who have stood with us in our mission to uphold the rule of law and protect our people. Their solidarity reflects the historical strength and unity of the NATO alliance. Their support is good for our shared security, it’s good for trans-Atlantic unity, and it’s good for international peace and security. President Trump is grateful for all that you have done.

The United States is hopeful that we can put our relationship with Russia back on a better footing, but the onus is on Russia to change course from a pattern of destabilizing activity, not just on this issue but on many others as well. The United States stands ready to engage with Russia on arms control negotiations that advance U.S. and allied and partners’ security, and are verifiable and enforceable. It must also include all the partners that must all responsibly comply with their obligations. As we remain hopeful of a fundamental shift in Russia’s posture, the United States will continue to do what is best for our people and those of our allies.

I’m happy to take a couple of questions this morning.

MR PALLADINO: Reuters, Lesley Wroughton.

QUESTION: Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Secretary.

SECRETARY POMPEO: Hi, Lesley.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, one of the big things that everyone is worried about is that this could eventually spark an arms race. What are you doing to prevent that? How concerned are you that Russia will not engage in that six months and that it could see this posture as a threat and take it on?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Well, the very risk that you identified is the one that we are suffering from today. The Russians are in violation of the agreement. That is, their commitment – this agreement that’s been in place for an awfully long time – the Russians have been violating. That is, they have begun to move towards what it is – that risk you actually have just identified. And you heard me this morning: We’ll continue to have conversations with them. We hope they’ll come back into compliance. We’ve had conversations at every level, at the senior levels, at technical levels, conversations about the nature of these systems. There’s no mistaking that the Russians have chosen to not comply with this treaty and present the risk of continued arms growth in a way that they had committed to back when they signed this treaty that they would not do, and if you just have one party to a treaty complying, you’re down the path that you describe.

We will continue to work with the Russians to achieve an outcome that gets us to a place. President Trump very much wants to have an agreement that is verifiable and enforceable on these systems and I hope we can convince the Russians it’s in their best interest as well. We certainly think that it is.

MR PALLADINO: One more question. Michael Gordon, Wall Street Journal.

SECRETARY POMPEO: Sir.

QUESTION: Sir, the Trump administration has withdrawn from agreements it doesn’t like, the JCPOA, and now you’ve indicated your intentions on INF because of the Russian alleged violation, but the question is whether – what new agreements can be worked out to take their place. The Russians have said they’re prepared to discuss a New START extension. The treaty expires in two years, which is not a lot of time if the administration plans to take a new approach. When will the United States be prepared to discuss the future of strategic arms control, and what is your vision of how to go about eliminating or reducing the world’s most dangerous arms?

SECRETARY POMPEO: Yeah, these are incredibly important questions. I would wager to say that President Trump has put this risk of proliferation as his highest American national security interest, and we’re endeavoring to do everything we can to ensure that the risks of proliferation that increase in these massively destructive weapons systems is diminished. But, Michael, it does no good to sign an agreement if a party’s not going to comply with it. The piece of paper, if it’s not being complied with, is – doesn’t reduce the risk, it doesn’t take down that threat. To the people around the world, the INF document today is being violated by the Russians. That is, the very agreement that they signed up for. We didn’t force them into the agreement; they decided this was in their best interest. They’ve now decided it’s not in their best interest to comply with that agreement.

So we are prepared to enter into negotiations on these complex arms control issues all around the world, including conversations about the renewal of other arms control agreements as we move forward. But make no mistake about President Trump’s mission set. President Trump’s mission set is to make sure that any agreement that we entered into has America’s best interest – that is, it protects the American people, protects our allies around the world as well, and has provisions that other countries are both capable and willing to comply with, and allow us to verify that they have complied with those agreements. Absent that, it’s just sitting around a table talking. It is incredibly important that we make sure that the provisions of these agreements are enforceable and verifiable, and that’s our aim. That’s our aim in every set of important arms control discussions that this administration will engage in.

Thank you all. Have a great day.

[Transcript Link]

After a round of trade discussions with the Trump administration, China has decided to emphasize the panda face.  It must be noted, as we review this decision, the second largest exporter of soybeans is Brazil…. that would be the same Brazil that just elected another economic nationalist, Jair Bolsonaro.

The U.S. is the #1 exporter with harvests exceeding 108 million metric tons. Brazil just happens to be the worlds #2 exporter, with harvests exceeding 86 million metric tons.

Imagine what could happen if nationalist President Trump and nationalist Jair Bolsonaro had a phone call and actually coordinated a unified and nationalist trade position toward China?  {{{nudge, nudge – wink, wink – say no more, say no more}}}  Wait… wha?

According to multiple media reports, Beijing is agreeing to an initial purchase of 5 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans as a show of good faith:

WASHINGTON – China has agreed to resume purchases of U.S. soybeans following talks Thursday between President Trump and Beijing’s top trade negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He. It will start off by purchasing 5 million metric tons.

“Five million tons of soybeans per day,” Trump told reporters at a Oval Office meeting with Liu. “That’s going to make our farmers very happy. That’s a lot of soybeans.”

The administration had few other specific concessions to report following the meeting but claimed that it had made significant progress toward an eventual deal.

China had cut back its purchases of soybeans back in July, with the number reaching zero in November, but restarted its purchases in December following a cooling-down of the trade war by both sides. Reuters reported that China ultimately purchased 23 million tons in 2018.

The administration also announced that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will be traveling to China early next month to follow up on the talks.  (read more)

Well played Mr. President…. well played !!

.

.

Brilliant strategery.

Way too funny !

Now it’s time for President Trump to pour the vociferous praise upon Chairman Xi Jinping and Vice Premier Liu He who made a decision based on an economic landscape without any options; and not a single media pundit could ever put two+two together.

This administration is epic !

.

Watch:

.

Earlier today President Trump delivered extensive remarks on a variety of issues during a White House meeting to discuss border security and human trafficking.

The Trump administration sets the bar on government transparency by allowing media to review these ongoing policy discussions.  Additionally, President Trump answers all of the media questions on current events and issues of public interest.  WATCH:

.

[Transcript] THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, everybody. We appreciate it. The jobs numbers just came out and we added 304,000 jobs, which was a shocker to a lot of people. It wasn’t a shocker to me. The country is doing really well. We have the strongest economy anywhere in the world, by far. And we’re the strongest nation in the world. So that was really good. But those numbers were very, very impressive.

Labor force participation rose 63.2 — and rose to 63.2. That’s a great number. Hourly earnings rose. For people working, the earnings rose. Those are numbers that you didn’t used to hear very much. So we’re very honored. But very importantly, we added 304,000 jobs. Estimates were 150 [thousand] to 170 [thousand], and it turned out to be 304,000. So that’s a big, big number.

Companies are reporting extremely well. Numbers on earnings have been great. And I think we are headed in a very, very powerful direction. Other countries are not doing well. Actually, that’s probably — in many ways, that’s one of the headwinds that we have. Because other countries in other areas are not doing well, and we’re doing fantastically well.

So we’ll take that every single time. But we’d like to see others do better. China is having a very tough time. As you know, Europe — the EU is having a pretty tough time. So I guess it makes our numbers look even more important. It makes them look even better.

We’re here to talk about human trafficking on the southern border. This is a group of incredible people who we’ve been working with in different levels, in different forms. And they’re going to be speaking, most of them, and telling you some stories and how we need border security. And if we don’t have it, the Democrats, frankly, will be doing this country a tremendous disservice. Nancy Pelosi is doing a very, very great disservice to our country. And I think she’s got to get on the ball, because we’re going to have a wall that’s being built anyway.

But if you don’t have it — human trafficking, just as an example. When you see today what’s going on, people that aren’t willing to do what they have to do, and they know what they have to do, they’re doing the country a tremendous disservice.

We’re here to directly, from members of law enforcement, hear what they have to say, and battling the scourge of human trafficking on our southern border and all across our nation. Much of it comes — in fact, most of it comes — some people would say almost all of it — from the southern border, which we can stop very easily. This is not something you can go through points of entry. You can’t just say that you have three people in a car and bound up and all sorts of problems, and you can’t go through a port of entry, obviously. They go through areas where we don’t have a wall.

So I want to thank Secretary Nielsen, Associate Chief Carl McClafferty, and Acting ICE Director Ron Vitiello for joining us for this important event. Really important event. Human trafficking is worse now than it’s ever been in the history of our world. It’s a world problem. It’s a U.S. problem, but it’s a world problem, caused, to a certain extent, by the Internet. One of the reasons that we have it so bad is the Internet. That’s why it’s picked up tremendously over the last five years, because of the Internet.

My administration has made the fight against human trafficking one of our highest priorities. In the past several weeks, I’ve signed four robust pieces of bipartisan human trafficking legislation. My Director of Intelligence — and we have a group of people that are incredible — they’ve elevated the human trafficking problem to the highest levels. We’re watching closer than ever before. We’re studying people that are doing it. We’re following them. We’re capturing them. But our job could be made a lot easier if we had support for what the incredible law enforcement folks do at the southern border.

Our progress will be limited if we do not secure our porous border and put an end to the human trafficking and humanitarian crisis that is taking place at the southern border. It is indeed a crisis. And, you know, we have right now an invasion. If you look at what’s going on with the caravans, it’s an invasion. There are three caravans heading our way. If we had a wall, it wouldn’t even be a problem. But we’ve sent 2,500 military down to help Border Patrol and law enforcement. And I have to say, the military has done an incredible job, including helping us with some walls and some fences, which are very nice to say.

Unsecure borders give traffickers free and clear passage to transport their victims into the United States. It’s a tremendously big money-maker for some very, very bad people. In fiscal year 2018, ICE made more than 1,500 human trafficking arrests, with 97 percent of that for sex trafficking. And it’s a big movement now because of the Super Bowl, if you can believe this. They are bringing in a lot of women through the southern border for the Super Bowl.

And then I have people like Nancy Pelosi and Democrats that say, “Oh, we don’t need a wall.” And they come through areas where you don’t have any form of barrier protection.

In a moment, we’ll hear from several individuals who are working tirelessly every single day to fight the trafficking, rescue victims, and support survivors. Survivors need tremendous support. What they go through is unimaginable.

Former DHS Special Agent and advocate, Timothy Ballard, who is here, will detail one case where a 13-year-old girl from Central America was kidnapped, trafficked across a section of our border without a wall, and then horribly abused in captivity while in New York City, taken right through a certain section where there is no wall and you can’t see anything for miles and miles and miles. They could have come through anywhere they wanted. And if we have that all filled up, it would be very hard.

Even one woman or one child trafficked is too many. But there are thousands and thousands and thousands, and it’s billions of dollars of money flowing into the pockets of some very bad criminals. There are potential victims, including young children, that we can still protect if we act now to secure our border and build a wall. The case for building a wall is everything. It’s everything.

Human trafficking by airplane is almost impossible. Human trafficking by van and truck, in the backseat of a car, and going through a border where there’s nobody for miles and miles, and there’s no wall to protect — it’s very easy. They make a right, then they make a left. They come into our country. And they sell people. And we cannot let it go on.

And the Democrats can play their game. But if you watch them in interviews, they want to get off that subject so fast because there’s no way they can justify the fact that a wall works. It works so well. I watched them the other day. I watched a couple of high-ranking Democrats trying to explain that walls are not necessary really; they’re immoral. What’s immoral is when people come into our country and kill innocent victims.

If you look at the San Diego area, if you look at many areas where you have the wall; if you look at Tijuana — if we didn’t a wall in Tijuana now, you’d have people coming in by the tens of thousands. But we have a wall. It’s an old wall. It’s not a good wall, and it still works.

What we’re building is incredible. We’re building a lot of wall right now. We’re renovating wall and we’re building wall, and we’re going to continue to build wall, regardless of what happens with this committee, which I say is a waste of time. Because any recommendation that comes back to me — and I’m a very modern guy. They like to say walls are medieval. They work, 100 percent. And what doesn’t work is technology, if you don’t have the wall. The technology is called the “bells and whistles.” And we have the top law enforcement people in the country here — really, in the world. And they will tell you that, without the wall, it all doesn’t work; it can’t come together.

If you just take a look at parts, take a look at Tijuana, imagine that. Imagine us taking that wall and moving it to Texas. Let’s take it up and move it to Texas. They would like to have it. Let’s take it up and move it right over to Arizona or New Mexico. They would love to have it. They would love to have it. And you would have thousands and thousands of people. There would be nothing you could do to stop the people from pouring across.

But we’re here to talk about human trafficking, and this is something where people have no idea how bad it’s become. Worse than ever at any time in the history of our world because of the Internet.

So I’m going to ask Secretary Nielsen to speak, and then we’re going to show you some videos and some other things. And I don’t think there will be anybody up there, including from the media, that disagrees with me. They may not write it that way, but there will be nobody that disagrees with me.

Secretary, please.

SECRETARY NIELSEN: Thank you. Well, first I want to thank everyone for being here. Greatly appreciate it. Mr. President, thank you always for your leadership.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

SECRETARY NIELSEN: This is an extraordinarily important topic. And as you’ve said many, many times, it’s a horrific, horrendous, and horrible ongoing tragedy and crisis that we have due to our vulnerabilities on the southern border. So thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

SECRETARY NIELSEN: This is an insidious form of modern-day slavery. That’s what this is. This is not a problem that is experienced in other places of the world. It’s experienced here, today, in the United States of America. It is something that this entire administration is committed to combatting. It takes very close coordination with state and local governments but also with our international partners to take down transnational criminal organizations that are at the heart of this crime.

And before we turn to other people, I just want to talk a little bit about the fact that this is directly related to our unsecure southern border. Transnational criminal organizations have taken advantage of our unsecure border. The result is that we continually see young girls used as pawns to line the pockets not only of criminal illegal aliens, but also the cartels who violate our nation’s borders and our laws, and use that money to fund other criminal enterprises.

The President mentioned the Super Bowl. I just want to pause to say DHS — in addition, I’d like to thank the over 600 DHS personnel who are on the ground in Atlanta to help the state and local secure the Super Bowl. But we also continue to do our other mission (inaudible), which includes combatting human trafficking. We have made over 40 arrests, and some of the victims that we have saved unfortunately include underage children that had been brought in for the purposes of being sold and abused as part of Super Bowl activities.

So I want to thank all of HSI for their great work continually, but also as we prepare for the Super Bowl.

So, before we turn to our law enforcement folks at the table, what we’d like to is turn to Tim Ballard, who is the Founder and CEO of Operation Underground, and also to Alma Tucker — thanks to both of them for being here — the Founder and President of the International Network of Hearts.

They’ll be talking to us about their experiences assisting victims, sir. So I’d like to start with — perhaps with Tim and then with Alma.

MR. BALLARD: Thank you so much, Mr. President. Thank you very much. I spent 12 years as a special agent, as an undercover operator, working on the southern border, working sex trafficking cases. And I can tell you, you’re exactly right.

One little girl I can tell you about. In fact, I introduced this little girl to Ms. Trump during a private briefing. This little girl was kidnapped in Central America. Eleven years old. Groomed for two years with the intent of getting her ready to come to America. Why? Because we are the highest-consuming nation of child pornography. We are the clientele that’s the big money.

They brought this little girl through a part of the southern border where there was no wall, easily got her to New York City. And this is hard to hear but this is the truth, and everyone needs to hear this. This little girl — and this is very typical — raped for money every day, 30 to 40 times a day. If that’s not a crisis, if that’s not an emergency, I don’t know what is.

Now, let me say this: Had there been a wall, had there been a barrier, this little girl likely would have been saved, because the traffickers would have been forced to take this child through the port of entry where we have amazing law enforcement. I’ve worked with these people. These are the best people on the planet. They can detect. They have equipment. They have trained agents.

In contrast, while this was happening, I was working another case. A little boy — a Mexican boy who was kidnapped by an American trafficker, by a child pornographer. He kidnapped Mexican children, brought them to San Bernardino County, where he had a makeshift studio, made child porn with these little children. Five years old.

This little boy was kidnapped in Mexicali, Mexico where there was a wall, where there is a barrier. And so he was forced to take this little boy through the Calexico port of entry. And guess what? It worked. We captured him. We rescued the little boy, and subsequently rescued 12 other children in San Bernardino, California.

The difference between those two cases is two plus two equals four. The wall was a difference. The wall rescued this little boy, and the lack of a wall caused this little girl to go through a hell that is indescribable, that is not manufactured. It is a real crisis. It is a real emergency.

THE PRESIDENT: And you have many thousands of people like this.

MR. BALLARD: Thousands. This is happening all the time. We work in Mexico. We have done several operations. I just met with the Secretary of State — their equivalent — Olga Sanchez, just last month about this.

We are having to do operations in Mexico, our foundation, working with law enforcement, to be — essentially become the wall because there is no wall. We’re forward deployed. It’s like trying to catch flies with chopsticks. It works. We can make it work. But if we had a big, you know, fly swatter, which would hit the wall, that would be a lot better. It stops it.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s great. Thank you very much. I appreciate it very much. Please.

MS. TUCKER: Mr. President, thank you for the opportunity to actually put a face to this horrible epidemic situation that we’re (inaudible) called human trafficking.

We are International Network of Hearts, and we represent more than 50 organizations fighting for both sides of the country together against human trafficking.

And we realize that not only the kids need to be rescued, but also provide services. And this is why we have two shelters — one for boys and one for girls. And we know also the statistic, they say — the (inaudible) is from 12 to 24 years. (Inaudible.) But we were shocked to receive kids four, five years old.

As you know, when they’re rescued, they come with a lot of trauma. They need a lot of services. And I want to tell you a little bit how I start working in human trafficking. That was 20 years ago when I used to work in the Mexican consulate, and I had the privilege to serve some kids that were rescued.

One particular case impact my life. She was only 14 years old, and the smuggler — the parents paid the smuggler to bring her undocumented to the mountains, to this country. But the smuggler told her that her parents didn’t pay a full amount for her transportation, and she had to pay.

She had to pay with her own body, and have sex with all the people in the group. Then go through this journey. And they forced her to have sex 20, 30 times until Border Patrol rescued her, and they transferred her our way to the hospital. And I was there; they called me. I used to work in the consulate.

And just to hear a girl — a 14-year-old crying for her mother, crying for someone that can help after going through this trauma. I was able to be there and hold her hand through these horrible moments. And I promised her to stay with her, holding her hand until I was able to find her parents. And she has to go through horrible situations, as you know: medical, interviews, everything.

And I promised myself, no matter — I didn’t work anymore with the consulate — I had to do something. Cases like this, I see one after another.

I remember another girl, only nine years old. She was brought to this country through the regular lines in San Isidro. But a smuggler decided to put the little girl in the hood next the engine. And he had another four men in the car.

Once he got caught at the border, they processed them — the whole group. But he never mentioned about the girl. He let her in the hood. Not until the next day, the mother called looking for her and she hear what happened. Then the officers ran to the car and they found the little girl, nine years old, unconscious. Also, she was transferred to the hospital. Thank God, she survived.

But these people — these smugglers — they don’t care about the life of one little girl. They really don’t care.

Other cases that I’ve been working — I remember they brought a lady who was 21 years old. Her husband actually was — came from Tlaxcala. I don’t know I’m pretty sure you’re familiar with what is going on in Tlaxcala. There is an industrial business for families for generations and generations in Mexico. And he brought her to this country and promised her a better life.

But when she was in this country, he forced her to have sex with men in the fields — in agriculture fields. Days — and again, days. Forty, fifty times a day. And when she denied to do it, she told her — she left behind her daughter in Mexico and she said, “You will never see your daughter again.”

Officers, they arrived and they rescued her. And now she’s reunited. And thanks to the collaboration from both countries, they found her daughter in Tlaxcala, they brought her to this country, they provide services, and they were reunited.

I know that it’s necessary to increase the collaboration from both countries because this is something that is happening. But we need to do something to stop it. We work direct with the victims. We see how much pain. And from generation and generation (inaudible) when someone is victim of human trafficking.

Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.

SECRETARY NIELSEN: Alma, thank you. And, sir, I’d just like to thank Ivanka Trump who’s been such an amazing advocate and support of the victims and raising awareness. Thank you.

Now we’d like to turn to Deputy Special Agent in Charge, Anthony Scandiffio from New York, who’s going to talk about an illegal sex trafficking reunion investigation in New York.

MR. SCANDIFFIO: Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. President. HSI New York — unfortunately, we do a lot of work in the sex trafficking area, especially in the Queens, New York area.

One investigation that we did involved young females that were being brought up from Tenancingo, Mexico to Queens, New York area. The coercion and the abuse begins in Mexico where these traffickers approach these young vulnerable women to either convince them that — to come to America for the better life. Maybe sometimes even date them, become their boyfriends, or even marry them, luring them to the United States.

The women talk about how they’re brought across the border, and one describes being put down face-down on a raft and pulled across on a rope. One driven in the back of truck, in the back of flat-bed truck. Or in the middle of the night, crossing the border into a vehicle taken to a safe house.

They think their journey — the rough part of the journey is over, but little do they know, once they reach Queens, New York, that’s when their true horror begins where they’re abused, beaten, maybe not fed — all for the trafficker to take over their minds and to force them into this life of prostitution.

For us, I thank God for the great work of the Border Patrol. They interdicted one of these individuals he had from females with him. From that little bit of information, we were able to uncover over 12 victims in New York, two of which were minors when they came across the border by this trafficking organization.

And like Ms. Tucker stated, these poor women were asked to service 15 to 40 men a day for as little as $40. The organization was making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, which is being funneled back through Mexico.

Doing this type of work for us at HSI is the most rewarding work that we could ever do because you’re saving a life; you’re saving a victim. And it’s making the public aware of this that’s out there. We did a bilateral takedown with the Mexican authorities where we arrested five of the individuals in Mexico; three of the individuals in New York. They were recently sentenced in January of this year, ranging from 8 to 25 years for the trafficking of these 12 victims to the New York area.

THE PRESIDENT: And mostly are coming through the border?

MR. SCANDIFFIO: Yes, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: It’s incredible. Incredible.

SECRETARY NIELSEN: We’d like to turn it over to Joel. Joel is going to talk about Operation Safehaven. This was a ring that was operating from Georgia to Texas, sir.

MR. ROUNTREE: Mr. President, thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.

MR. ROUNTREE: My name is Joel Rountree. I’ve been a special agent for approximately 16 years now. And at HSI we work a variety of cases. And I see victims, and some of the most important ones we work are these trafficking type of cases. They allow us to now only make a difference in these people’s lives, in the victims’ lives, but also it really puts some bad guys in jail.

So one of these particular cases is Operation Safehaven. I’m out of the Savannah, Georgia office of Homeland Security, and we uncovered a sex trafficking circuit. They are operating in Georgia and also in nine other states, including North Carolina and Texas.

They had recruiters, very similar to what we heard here today already, operating in foreign countries, and would deliver these girls, mainly uneducated and from poor backgrounds, into the United States with the American Dream that so many people have. And when they get here, it’s really a nightmare.

These victims that we interviewed, as a result of our case, told us — and I’ll use their verbiage — they were taken and (inaudible) in houses prior to being put on this 20-brothel circuit that we were taking down at the end. They described how they would be forced to service up to 30 men per day in these brothels where they’d work for one week. And at the end of their week, they were transferred to the next one. And it was just an endless circle that they stayed on.

We conducted an investigation for possibly 18 months. We employed a variety of investigative tools: mobile tracking devices, covert cameras. All this led to wiretap affidavits where we intercepted communications occurring on the telephones utilized by members of the organization.

That, in turn, led us to a federal indictment in the (inaudible) of 40 individuals, and they ranged at every level of this organization, from the customers that were at the brothel, to the transporters, to the traffickers.

We were also able to arrest 36 of those while rescuing 15 of the victims out of these brothels. They were provided services by our victim assistance coordinators in their areas, including food, clothing, shelter, and the like. So we considered it pretty successful.

THE PRESIDENT: Great job. I heard you do a fantastic job. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

SECRETARY NIELSEN: Thank you, Joel. I would like to turn to Carl. And, sir, this is particularly horrific what Carl is going to describe. There are some parts of this that are law enforcement sensitive, so he will keep it at the appropriate level.

But what he will describe is the child-recycling ring that we have previously talked about. This is a crime, sir, where smugglers take children, and they bring them again and again across the border to enable other criminals to enter our border under the loopholes in our laws.

So, Carl, please.

MR. MCCLAFFERTY: Thank you, Secretary. Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

MR. MCCLAFFERTY: As you know, 2008 of October, it was the first time we ever had more family units than single adults apprehended. So the family unit issue has become something of a crisis for us.

In Yuma, Arizona, we were catching groups of Guatemalans — family units — turning themselves into Border Patrol, crossing around where the fence ends. And I just started looking into it and found that some of the sponsors, after they were released, were the same person, with the same address and same phone number.

So they reached out to HSI, to Charleston, South Carolina, where these people were going. HSI looked into it. There’s something going on here. “Why don’t you come out, and we’ll do this case together?” We went up to Charleston, followed a group that actually got released. They were picked up by the sponsor. Immediately after that, the smuggler pulled over and put a bag of trash in a dumpster. Agents recovered that. Inside was their ankle bracelet, their illegal documents, already discarded by these sponsors who tend to be in the smuggling organization.

They investigated this case. We were able to tie this back to a larger group that was smuggling Guatemalans into South Carolina and other places. Out of this, I believe we got eight indictments and then a warrant served, resulting in 24 illegal aliens apprehended.

And one of the indictments was a woman who was being paid $1,500 a child to take the children back to Guatemala who are not part of the actual family unit. So, she claimed to doing this 13 times, and so we found out they were recycling these children. They would bringing them up, smuggling them as part of a family group, recycle them back to Guatemala, put them in another family group, and come back up.

So this was, you know, obviously an exploitation of these children.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

SECRETARY NIELSEN: Thank you, Carl.

Now I would like to turn over to Amy Allen, sir. She is an ICE victim advocate. I had the pleasure of hearing a brief from her a couple of weeks ago. She is a very powerful part of what we do to help the victims and survivors, and I’d love for her to give to you a little bit about what she does.

MS. ALLEN: Thank you, Mr. President. As working with HSI in Division 4, there’s a component there called the Victim Assistance Program, and I am part of that along with 22 other victim advocates that sit in all of our offices.

As a forensic interviewer, my job is to investigatively interview, alongside with an agent, a victim of human trafficking and child exploitation. I’ve done over 6,000 interviews in my career. This is all I’ve done for 25 years.

I think when we sit here and we talk about the rescue of victims, our minds turn to how that actually happens. And with HSI’s investigative efforts, a lot of our leads to seek these rescues come from financial institutions, communities, schools, and our local law enforcement partners.

These women don’t necessarily have access to 911. These women don’t always identify as a victim based on the coercion and the manipulation that’s being done by their traffickers. If we had access, or if they had access to 911, obviously we would serve them quicker. But we’re identifying them and then really wrapping services around them in order to, if you will, bring them to team America.

We want these victims to be stabilized. We want them to be healthy enough to allow us access to investigative information that they can provide so that we can prosecute the offenders, and the controllers, and the traffickers that are keeping these women working and laying down 20, 30, 40 times a day.

So my job is to work alongside the agent when we identify this victim, and again, make sure that that victim is interviewed in a way that’s not blaming. We certainly don’t want to ask the victims of human trafficking, “How many men did you have sex with each day?” We want those women to be met with non-blaming language, such as, “How many men had sex with you?”

You know, this is not their fault. No matter what they look like, no matter how they’re dressed, you know, our idea of them or what our community thinks of them when they’re being controlled and coerced into this kind of environment, it’s our job to help identify that, and then, like I said earlier, to rescue them.

So we look for additional support all the time in our program, because again, the outreach that we do to the community and to the people that really have their eyes and ears there to identify them is important to us.

You know, our Blue Campaign that is run by HIS and ICE, the slogan is “Hidden in Plain Sight.” And I think that’s such an important slogan to have because these women are among us. Obviously, when you talk about the Super Bowl, we talk about women that are there. There’s other people there that need their eyes and ears to help identify that. But they are hidden in plain sight.

And so our outreach efforts and the victim assistance efforts that we take every single day to help identify them and support them really will bring to pass additional prosecutions and support for them.

Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.

SECRETARY NIELSEN: And finally, sir, one more. Jim at the — again, at the appropriate level — is going to tell us a little bit about how technology plays a very important role here. And we’re extraordinarily proud of what HSI and ICE bring to the table in terms of their investigations.

So, please, Jim.

MR. COLE: Mr. President, thank you for having me. I want to talk about HSI’s role in using technology to fight these types of crimes. We’re definitely a world leader in applying technology and doing victim-centric investigations.

I founded our HSI’s Child Victim Identification Program and Laboratory back in 2012. I’ve dedicated my career to identifying and rescuing victims of these horrendous crimes.

In doing so, we applied several different pieces of technology. Actually, I have some demonstrations here for you. So one of the things that we do quite often and what you see here is a sanitized image of an offender’s hand abusing a victim that we’ve removed from this image. But in that image, we were able to pull a fingerprint of the subject from that image and thusly identify that subject through the fingerprint.

We routinely do this now —

SECRETARY NIELSEN: And if I could interrupt, Jim. That’s even though the fingers are not facing the picture.

MR. COLE: Correct.

SECRETARY NIELSEN: So the technology enables them to pull the prints from the photograph.

MR. COLE: So, another thing that we do often are comparisons. So after the fact — after we’ve identified and rescued the victim usually — and we have imagery, again, depicting — we have a lot of hands in our imagery. So this is a case of having an individual’s hand from the abuse imagery and then having exemplar images from a search warrant photo and using the dermatological markings from that person to be able to draw the difference that it is the same person.

And so we do a lot of comparisons of pretty much anything that can be photographed or depicted in imagery or video, we can do a comparison of as long as we have an exemplar.

In this case here, this uses some creative technology but also some external expertise. So we have the child depicted in an outside environment. That child is horrifically abused in imagery and video that we have seized, as well as some of the non-abuse imagery.

So what we did is we sanitized her away from the image. So we just remove her using different image editing tools. And what we did here, we noticed that there is some plant life; there’s flora and fauna.

In the bottom right, in the red circle, is what’s called a “dwarf palm.” We then, with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a strong partner of ours, we submitted this image to the Smithsonian Institute, and an expert in flora and fauna was able to tell us that that plant is only going to be in the areas in green that you see on the map here, primarily southwest United States and Florida.

Using other imagery from that, there was a playground. We worked with the playground manufacturers and with certifying bodies of playgrounds throughout the United States. And through that, we were able to identify that that specific playground was just outside of Houston, Texas.

That allowed us to focus on a specific neighborhood in Houston, Texas, and within hours, we identified that child and apprehended the offender, and rescued that child from horrific and ongoing abuse.

The rest of my briefing is law enforcement sensitive, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, that’s fine, Jim. Thank you very much. You do a great job. We appreciate it.

Kellyanne, do you have anything to say?

MS. CONWAY: Sir, thank you so much, and Secretary Nielsen, and Ivanka Trump, for just convening us and allowing the press to come in. Because so many times, I just think Americans are not hearing the basic facts and figures, not appreciating the tragedy that so many of these young victims endure day in and day out, and really, the very brave and important work of the men and women around this table and all that they represent, all the people that they represent.

Sir, coming fast on the heels of the largest seizure of fentanyl by the border control in our nation’s history — yes, through a port of entry, but that’s what we know about. It’s all the things, as you hear here, that we don’t know about — the perilous journey that people are taking, that they’re forced into.

And I think this is exactly why you’re asking for a physical barrier as the centerpiece of a larger immigration reform package. Something that people cannot drive through, walk around, crawl under, or climb over. Something that keeps the likes that you heard today out — keep them on that side of the border or let them come legally. Keep the drugs out. And human trafficking — we want these young girls and boys to have a better life. And it’s not going to happen if people feel like they can just drive them over the border and into Queens, New York, as you heard today.

So thank you very much for your leadership. I really hope the Democrats will see this as a nonpartisan issue looking for bipartisan solutions.

THE PRESIDENT: That would be nice. Ivanka?

MS. TRUMP: Well, I think we heard some incredibly powerful stories today. And I do think for so many people this is viewed as an international issue. And to hear the stories around this table and to realize this is happening in our country, this is happening every day — whether it’s Atlanta around a major sporting event like the Super Bowl, or whether it’s just through the course of the day — this is very much an American issue as well as an international issue.

Timothy, as we were both on the Hill championing for the passage of anti-trafficking legislation last year, I met with the young girl that you mentioned, and nobody can meet with a survivor and not be deeply moved and feel deeply passionate about the issue of human trafficking.

So, I’m so grateful for the work of the NGOs and law enforcement community. Thank you, Secretary Nielsen, for all that you’re doing on this front. And of course, thank you, Mr. President, for highlighting this issue because it is the gravest of human rights violations.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. And thank you to everybody. It’s a big issue and a very important issue. We’re going to strengthen up our southern border. It should have been done 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago. It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace.

And now you have problems even with — I understand yesterday, even people from Venezuela want to come through. Everybody wants to come through. A part of it is the success of our country, but we’re going to keep our country successful.

And we want people to come in. It’s so important to say. We need people. We have a lot of companies moving in. A lot of companies are moving back into the United States. I’d never thought they’d be moving back. And we need people. You see that with the jobs numbers. We really need people. But it has to be through a legal process and a process really of merit. But we do want people coming into our country. They have to come in legally.

I just want to thank everybody for being here. What you go through is incredible. And the job you do is incredible. Few people could do what you do. And we want to try and make it easier for you. Or another way — you could, this way, handle more of the incredible work. Because no matter what we do, it’s not going to stop, but we can reduce it incredibly by tremendous numbers.

So I just want to thank everybody for being here. And we’re very proud of you. Very proud of the job you do. And thank you very much. And, Madam Secretary, thank you very much. Really great.

Q Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q Mr. President, why not just go ahead and do the national emergency now (inaudible)?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re building the wall now. Yeah, we’re building the wall. People don’t understand that, I’m starting to learn.

We’re spending a lot of money that we have on hand. It’s like in a business, but we have money on hand and we’re building — I would say we will have 115 miles of wall, maybe a little bit more than that, very shortly. It’s being built. Some of it has already been completed. And in San Diego, if you look, it’s been completed. It’s really beautiful. Brand new.

We have other wall that’s under construction and we’re giving out a lot of contracts. So we’re building the wall. It’s getting built one way or the other.

Q Is there another option besides the national emergency that you would consider?

THE PRESIDENT: We are doing things right now. I mean, we’re building it with funds that are on hand. We’re negotiating very tough prices. We’ve designed a much better-looking wall that is also actually a better wall, which is an interesting combination. It’s far more beautiful and it’s better. It’s much more protective. But it looks better, because the walls that they used to build were not very attractive. I actually think that’s possibly part of the problem.

But the real problem is we need something. We have to have a very strong barrier. But we’re building a lot of wall right now, as we speak. And we’re renovating a lot of wall. And we’re getting ready to give out some very big contracts with money that we have on hand and money that comes in.

But we will be looking at a national emergency, because I don’t think anything is going to happen. I think the Democrats don’t want border security. And when I hear them talking about the fact that walls are immoral and walls don’t work — they know they work.

I watched somebody being interviewed the other day by a very good anchor, and the anchor actually was getting angrier and angrier as they tried to explain how a wall doesn’t really have that much of an impact. And yet, thousands of people are on one side of the wall, and nobody is on the other side of the wall. It was actually laughable and really horrible in the same breath. So that’s the way it is.

You know, if you look at El Paso, if you look at certain places — but El Paso was one of the most dangerous cities in the whole country. Once the wall was completed, it became one of the safest — immediately. It wasn’t like it took five years. Some of you know this. Immediately, it became one of the safest cities in the whole country.

So, we’re building the wall. A lot of it is — I mean, the chant now should be, “finish the wall” as opposed to “build the wall,” because we’re building a lot of wall. And I started this six months ago. We really started going to town because I could see we were getting nowhere with the Democrats. We’re not going to get anywhere with them. It’s going be a part of their campaign, but I don’t think it’s good politically.

And I think Nancy Pelosi should be ashamed of herself because she’s hurting a lot of people. And I think the Democrats should be ashamed of themselves.

Now, in all fairness to the Democrats, many of them want the wall. And I see it. They’re just dying to say what they want to say, but they can’t say it as well as they would be able to if they were allowed to do it.

Yes.

Q Mr. President, sir, are you saying now you believe that, on February the 15th, the only option you will have left is either close down the government or declare an emergency because you don’t have any faith that this committee will come up with an answer?

And if you do declare an emergency, are you concerned that you will almost be immediately be enjoined by some court — in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals district?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have very, very strong legal standing. It would be very hard to do that. But they tend to go to the Ninth Circuit. And when they go to the Ninth Circuit, things happen. For instance, the ban: It missed, and then missed, and then was approved in the United States Supreme Court where we have had a very good record.

They go to the Ninth Circuit. In many cases — and in fact, in most cases, it has nothing to do with the Ninth Circuit. It’s a shame what they do.

So, let’s see what happens. I can only tell you this, John: We have very, very strong legal standing to win. We are doing it regardless. I mean, we don’t have — we haven’t declared the national emergency yet, and yet we’re building a lot of wall. We’re continuing to build a lot of wall with, as we would say in business, “cash on hand.” And we’re negotiating tough prices. We have a great system. A great wall system. It’s very uniform. They used to have all these different systems; nobody knew what was going on. We have a very good, solid system that looks good and is very powerful, as a wall.

Q But are you saying now that you expect to declare a national emergency?

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t want to say. But you’ll hear the State of the Union and then you’ll see what happens right after the State of the Union. Okay?

Q But are you going to wait until February 15th to do that?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, we’re building now. I mean, the one thing that I’m trying to stress to people and I wasn’t before, because before it meant less. But when I see the obstruction, when I see the tremendous obstruction by Democrats, knowing that the only — the only saving of our southern border is the wall.

I mean, you look at these towns — before the wall, they were crime-ridden. And now, the wall gets built — we put up a wall in a certain area, and all of sudden, it went from being a horrible hellhole into something that’s really safe. They can’t even believe it. The mayors can’t even believe it.

If you ever took some of the walls down in California — for instance, one story: In San Diego, they were begging us to build a wall. I mean, they were putting pressure on us — that area of San Diego — where people were rampant going through. And you’d have a lot of security, but the security can only do so much.

When — as an example, when you have these caravans that are going to be hitting, we were — we’ve done a great job with the caravans. An incredible job. And most of them have gone back or they’re staying on the other side of the wall. They haven’t been coming in, for the most part. But we’ve done a great job. We don’t have the ammunition because we don’t have the barrier. But it’s been really amazing to see the difference when you have it and when you don’t. It’s incredible to see the difference of an area on the other side of a barrier.

So, you know the old expression, “walls work,” whether you like it or not. In Israel, they have a wall, and it was 99 — it is 99.9 percent successful. And ours are too, when we have it. We’re going to be starting in a certain — we have a few of them — a few areas that we’re starting, where they catch up. Once you have the holes in the middle, they just — it’s sort of like water; they just spread in. But you have to have it.

So when you talk about the committee, I can tell you the Republicans want to have a wall, but the Democrats are told that you can’t do that. They are doing a tremendous disservice. The Democrats are doing a tremendous disservice to our country.

You heard today about human trafficking. Human trafficking can go down by a tremendous percentage if we had a wall on our southern border. Tremendous. Because it’s very hard to do human trafficking through ports of entry because you have people standing there, looking. And they say, “Hey, what’s going on in the backseat? What’s going on in the trunk?” They check these things.

So they come in through areas where you don’t have the barriers. And we’re not going to let that happen. So we’re building a lot of it. We’ll be up to about 115 miles of wall — some renovated, some new. And we’re going to make a big step in the next week or so, prior to my doing anything. But actually having a national emergency does help the process. It would certainly help the process.

What would help a lot would be if the Democrats could actually be honest and approve. They’re not being honest. Everybody knows they’re not being honest. They know they’re not being honest. I’d like to hear what they talk about in their rooms when they go back.

And I tell you what: A lot of pressure is being put on by Democrats — being put on their leadership. Tremendous pressure is being put on because they cannot justify not having a barrier between our country and Mexico. Mexico — it just came out yesterday, numbers were just released: Thirty-eight thousand people were murdered in Mexico — up, like, an incredible amount, 30 percent or something, from the year before. Thirty-eight thousand people were murdered in Mexico. It’s one of the most, unfortunately, unsafe countries in the world. We need a protective barrier for our country.

And that doesn’t include Honduras, who we are not happy with, and we’re looking very seriously at taking away all funding. And same thing for Guatemala, and the same thing for El Salvador. It’s a disgrace what’s going on in those countries. For years and years, the United States has paid them hundreds of millions of dollars, and they do nothing for us.

When a caravan starts in the middle of Honduras, obviously they’re allowing it to start. And they want it to start because they want to not have certain people in their country. So what do they do? They put them in the caravan. And we’ve had tremendous numbers of criminals that we’ve caught in the caravans before they get here.

So the committee is — I know the Republicans want to do something. And I’m not saying it because I’m a Republican. I’m saying the Democrats are instructed: “Don’t do a wall.” And they’re only doing that — you hear about human trafficking, drugs, gangs, crime — they’re only doing it for one very simple reason. It’s one simple reason — couldn’t be simpler: because they think it’s good politics for 2020. Because they say, “Maybe we can beat Trump because this is a big issue.”

Now, I’ve done a lot of other issues. I’ve done military, where we’ve — our military is in great shape now. It’s strong and ready. It was totally depleted when I got here. Regulation cuts, tax cuts. I mean, we’ve done more than any other President has ever done in the first two years of his presidency.

But the wall is a big factor, and they want to use the wall for politics. So it’s not going to work because we’re building the wall, and it’s under construction.

Yes.

Q Mr. President, have you privately decided whether or not you will declare a national emergency? And just to clarify —

THE PRESIDENT: Have I privately? You know, what’s in my mind?

Q What’s in your mind.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, certainly thinking about it.

Q You’re thinking (inaudible)?

THE PRESIDENT: I think there’s a good chance that we’ll have to do that. But we will, at the same time, be building — regardless, we’re building wall and we’re building a lot of wall. But I can do it a lot faster the other way.

Q Are you saying that you will — that we should be prepared for you to announce at the State of the Union what you are going to do?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’m saying listen closely to the State of the Union. I think you’ll find it very exciting.

Q Can we get a Venezuela question real quick?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q Are you willing to commit the U.S. military, if necessary, to force (inaudible) Maduro —

THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t want to say that. But it’s always an option. Everything is an option. I take no options off the table. Okay? Thank you.

Q Mr. President, are you thinking of adding on a meeting with Xi Jinping on the back end or the front end of the meeting with Kim?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, I’m thinking about it.

Q How close are you —

THE PRESIDENT: I mean, some of you were there yesterday. We had an incredible meeting yesterday with the Vice Premier of China — a very powerful man, highly respected. Very strong. Very respected, also, by the President — President Xi. And we had an amazing meeting on trade — mostly on trade. Actually, also on fentanyl. China has agreed to criminalize fentanyl. That’s going to have a huge impact on fentanyl coming into the country.

There is a possibility we’ll meet somewhere, whether it’s there — I’m over in a certain location. I’ll be over in a certain location there, as you know.

Q So you might do —

THE PRESIDENT: That’ll be announced officially probably next week.

Q So you might do two —

THE PRESIDENT: It could happen. It could happen.

Q It sounded like Da Nang for that summit, sir. Is that a good guess?

THE PRESIDENT: Gee, Da Nang. Who does Da Nang remind me of, huh? (Laughter.) A certain senator. It’s a certain senator that said he was a war hero when he wasn’t. He never saw Da Nang.

Q And just to follow up — have you found the money to pay — to build a wall in case you do have to (inaudible)?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have a lot of money, and that’s why we’re building. I mean, we have a lot of money. Don’t forget, we had a billion-six approved. Then we had another billion-six approved. Now, in theory, we have a billion-three approved.

But we’re renovating a lot of walls that were basically dilapidated. In some cases, it’s called a “renovation,” but it’s really much more. It’s wall that is in such bad shape that we take it down and we build new wall in certain very important areas.

But we’re doing a combination of renovation and new wall. But we’re doing a lot of it.

Q Mr. President, do you need an appropriation from Congress or a national emergency to build all the wall you think is necessary?

THE PRESIDENT: We’re already appropriated. We have a lot of appropriation. It’s already been done. And certain other things we’ll be doing that we haven’t done yet. And one of the things we’re considering, obviously, is a national emergency.

And it is — it’s an invasion of our country, of not only people, not only gangs and criminals and human traffickers; it’s an invasion of drugs into our country. It’s an invasion like you’ve never seen before. You talk about heroin — 90 percent of the heroin coming into our country comes in through the southern border. We can stop so much of that.

And I’ll tell you this: If we build a proper barrier, with all of the technology, which only really works with the barrier — but if we build a proper barrier with great technology, too, we will see crime throughout the United States go down in percentages that we’ve never seen before. It’ll be an amazing thing. Because so much of it comes through the southern border.

Q Mr. President, a follow. Can you tell us some of the themes that are important to you in the State of the Union speech?

THE PRESIDENT: I think most of the themes you would know. It’s economic development. It’s success. I mean, no country has had the success that we’ve had over the last two years. And I will say this: If the other party got into office, instead of being up and having these phenomenal 304,000 jobs added — and we had so many great months.

And, you know, it’s been a little bit tricky because I’m in the middle of some very big trade deals, which is disruptive before you make it. But after you make it, those deals are much better than they were before. I don’t even mean much better; I mean better like nobody has ever seen before. That includes a deal. If we make the deal with China, you’re talking about, it’ll be a different world for us. We lost $500 billion a year with China, for many years. Five-hundred billion, not million. Five-hundred billion. We’re not going to do that anymore.

Our relationship with China is extraordinary. My relationship with President Xi is better, I guarantee, than any relationship of a President and a President. It’s not even close. But it can’t go on this way. We can’t allow this to happen.

And, if you notice, yesterday — and I think it was a big story, or it should have been — but China, as a sign of goodwill, has agreed to purchase a tremendous, massive amount of soybeans and other agricultural product. Our farmers, this morning, are very happy. I spoke to Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture. He called me this morning. Our farmers are extremely happy.

Q In Texas, where you want to build about 168 miles of wall, you can’t build the wall right on border; you’ve got to build off the floodplain.

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

Q So you may slow down human trafficking, you may slow down drug runners, you may slow down people who don’t want to get caught. But for all these tens of thousands of Central American migrants who just want to touch foot on U.S. soil and wait for the Border Patrol to pick them up, how does building new wall solve that problem?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re going to solve the problem, and we’re also working on different things because there’s so many loopholes.

You’re right: Touch the land — all of the sudden, it’s a catch-and-release deal. They become — they go into the country and, in some cases, if they’re criminals, you — they’re released into our country. It’s a ridiculous thing. It’s a loophole.

And if you look at the visa lottery, and if you look at all of these other — chain migration. We have to fix all of it, John. It’s very important. The wall is the most important thing by far. But we have to fix the loopholes. You’re 100 percent right.

Okay, yeah.

Q Nancy Pelosi says you’re risking an arms race with Russia today. What’s your answer?

THE PRESIDENT: Say it again.

Q Nancy Pelosi says you’re risking a new arms race with Russia. What’s your answer?

THE PRESIDENT: Honestly, I don’t think she has a clue. I really don’t. I don’t think Nancy has a clue. And I see that when she says, “Walls are immoral.” She doesn’t have — she doesn’t know. And I wish she did because she’s hurting this country so badly. It’s all rhetorical; not delivered well. But it’s all rhetorical. She’s hurting our country very, very badly, even with statements like that.

Okay, thank you very much everybody.

Go ahead.

Q Pulling out of the INF, is this as much about the threat in the Western Pacific from China as the emerging threat from China (inaudible)?

THE PRESIDENT: No, the reason is — the reason is — first of all, you have to add countries, obviously. It’s old. But, very importantly, one side has not been adhering to it. We have, but one side hasn’t. So unless they’re going to adhere, we shouldn’t be the only one.

I hope that we’re able to get everybody in a very big and beautiful room, and do a new treaty that would be much better. But — because certainly I would like to see that.

But you have to have everybody adhere to it, and you have a certain side that almost pretends it doesn’t exist — pretty much pretends it doesn’t exist.

So unless we’re going to have something that we all agree to, we can’t be put at the disadvantage of going by a treaty, limiting what we do, when somebody else doesn’t go by that treaty. Okay?

Thank you. Thank you very much.

END 12:50 P.M. EST

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published the report on the January job growth and the financial media sat jaw agape as the economy gained a whopping 304,000 jobs despite the government shutdown. The doomsayer pundits are choking on a triple-scoop of winnamins.

Adding to the financial media apoplexy the wage growth in blue-collar workers far exceeded expectations, and the ISM data on manufacturing blew all consensus predictions out of the water… leading to the following ‘scorching’ headline from CNBC:

(Link to article)

Too funny.  Enjoy the following:

(Via CNBC) January’s super strong jobs report and a solid manufacturing survey on Friday showed that recession worries may be overblown and slowdown fears are not impacting corporate hiring or dampening manufacturers’ sentiment.

The economy added a surprising 304,000 new jobs in January, well above the 165,000 expected by economists. Wages grew by an annual 3.2 percent, and were even higher for nonmanagerial workers with a 0.4 percent monthly gain.

“The labor market is still scorching,” said Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist at Jefferies. “If you look at the payroll data, the economy continues to pound out job growth. Wage growth is for real.”

ISM manufacturing was 56.6, well above the consensus of 54.2, but the important new orders component rose even more to 58.2 from 51 in December. A number above 50 reflects expansion, and while off recent highs, economists had expected the number to slow down even more. Consumer sentiment was also reported Friday and was significantly lower at 91.2, but it too beat expectations. (read more)

• In January, employment in leisure and hospitality rose by 74,000.
• Construction employment rose by 52,000 in January
• Employment in health care increased by 42,000 in January.
• Over the month, employment in transportation and warehousing rose by 27,000.
• In January, retail trade employment edged up by 21,000.
• Mining employment increased by 7,000 in January.
• Employment in professional and business services continued to trend up over the month (+30,000) and has increased by 546,000 in the past 12 months.
• Employment in manufacturing continued to trend up in January (+13,000).(Source BLS Data)

“January’s Job Report demonstrated the strength of the American economy, with 304,000 jobs added as private sector job creation continued to surge despite the partial government shutdown. Significant growth in the mining, construction, and transportation and warehousing sectors led the report.

“The unemployment rate ticked up 0.1 percentage point to 4.0%, largely as a result of the temporary lapse in federal government funding, yet this is the 11th consecutive month that the unemployment rate has been at or below 4.0%.

“Average hourly earnings rose by 3.2%, marking the sixth straight month in which year over year hourly earnings have been growing at or above 3%. Average weekly earnings rose at an even more robust 3.5%, year over year.

“Another key indicator in the report pointed to the increase of the labor force participation rate to 63.2%, the highest rate since August 2013.

“As the jobs and employment data normalizes over the coming months, we are confident the nation’s economy will continue to build on the strength seen in 2018 and the first report of 2019.”  ~ Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta

Attendees for the Oval office meeting include: President Donald J. Trump; Mick Mulvaney, Acting White House Chief of Staff; John Bolton, National Security Advisor; Larry Kudlow, Director of the National Economic Council; Peter Navarro, Assistant to the President for Trade & Manufacturing Policy; Matt Pottinger, Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asian Affairs; Clete Willems, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council.

U.S. Administration team members: Secretary Mike Pompeo, Department of State; Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Department of the Treasury; Secretary Wilbur Ross, Department of Commerce; Ambassador Bob Lighthizer, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative

Chinese Delegation: Liu He, Member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China; Wang Shouwen, Vice Minister of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China.

.

[Transcript] 3:43 P.M. EST – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. It’s a great honor to have the Vice Premier of China with us, and also the Vice Minister of Trade of China. We have had long discussions. This has been going on for quite some time. It will be, by far, if it happens, the biggest deal ever made — not only the biggest trade deal ever made. It will be the biggest trade deal by far, but it’ll also be the biggest deal ever made. The two largest countries doing a trade deal. There won’t be anything that will match that. And we’ll see what happens.

We’ve done very well. We’ve had a very, very strong relationship, as my relationship is with President Xi.

I think we’ll start by reading the letter that President Xi sent to me and to us. It puts us off to a good foot. And then we’ll also repeat a couple of the remarks that the Vice Premier stated. And then we are going to have Mr. Lighthizer speak for a couple of seconds. And we’re then going to get back to business, and you can go and have fun and write your stories.

So thank you very much for being here. We appreciate it. And if you could start by reading the letter from President Xi, and maybe you could speak louder.

INTERPRETER: Message from President Xi to President Trump:

Mr. President,

I send you my best wishes as a new round of high-level consultations is being held between our two countries on economic and trade issues. I ask Mr. Liu He to bring to you sincere greetings and best wishes from me.

Right now, China-U.S. relations are at a critically important stage. Last month, we had a successful meeting in Argentina, in which we agreed to work together to build a bilateral relationship based on coordination, cooperation, and stability. That was followed by the good conversation we had through a phone call and the letters of congratulations we sent each other on the 40th anniversary of our diplomatic relations.

Guided by the agreement we reached, our economic teams have engaged in intensive consultations and made good progress. I hope our two sides will continue to act in a spirit of mutual respect and win-win cooperation, and step up consultations by meeting each other halfway in order to reach an early agreement that works for the interests of both sides.

Such an agreement will send a positive signal to our two peoples and the broader international community. It will serve to ensure healthy development of China-U.S. relations and contribute to steady growth of the world economy.

Mr. President, in our last phone call, you said you wanted for China to buy more agricultural products. I have made some arrangements about which, I believe, you might have been briefed.

As I often say, I feel we have known each other for a long time, ever since we first met. I cherish the good working relations and personal friendship with you. I enjoy our meetings and phone calls in which we could talk about anything. It falls to us to work together and accomplish things meaningful for the people of our two countries and the world at large.

Mr. President, if there is anything, you could always approach me through various means. I hope we’ll keep close contact in various ways. As the Chinese Lunar New Year draws near, my wife and I wish to send our New Year greetings to you, to Melania, and to your family. May you enjoy a happy and prosperous New Year.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s a beautiful letter and we appreciate it. You may go with the Vice Premier’s statements, and then I’m going to ask for you to say a few words, Bob, if you don’t mind.

Please.

INTERPRETER: The Vice Premier said that President Xi attaches tremendous importance to the personal friendship with you, and he hopes to you — to see your continued success. And over the past two years, since you took office, you have made tremendous accomplishment on both the domestic and diplomatic front.

Thanks to your policies of tax reduction and deregulation, your U.S. economy, as I heard from my American colleagues over there, has now been enjoying high growth and low employment with unprecedented prosperity. And it is because of your decisive decision that has directly facilitated the major breakthrough — the relationship between the U.S. and the DPRK.

And under the strategic guidance of you and of President Xi and you, Mr. President, it is possible that China and the U.S. will have the possibility of striking a successful deal on trade.

And my trip to the U.S. this time is to follow through on the important agreement reached between you and President Xi to accelerate the 90-day consultation between China and the United States in the hope of striking a comprehensive deal. And we’ve been working conscientiously with Ambassador Lighthizer and Secretary Mnuchin over the past couple of days, and our discussions are going well. We have achieved a lot of important consensus towards the direction of striking a comprehensive deal, which is to be ultimately reached between you and President Xi.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. Bob, maybe you could say just a few words as to where we are, how we’re doing, what we’re discussing. And then maybe I’ll ask the Vice Premier to say a few words, and we’ll get on with our negotiations.

AMBASSADOR LIGHTHIZER: Great. Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps, go ahead, if you want to say that.

(Interpreter speaks.)

THE PRESIDENT: Got it? He speaks very good English.

AMBASSADOR LIGHTHIZER: Based on many months of negotiations, we had two very intense, very long days of discussions. Your team was — all of your team was involved. I think we’ve made progress. We have much work to do if we’re going to have an agreement, but we made substantial progress. We focused on the most important issues, which are the structural issues and the protection of U.S. intellectual property, stopping forced technology transfer, intellectual property protection, agriculture and services issues, and enforcement, enforcement, enforcement.

Both sides agree this agreement is worth nothing — if we can get an agreement, it’s worth nothing without enforcement. That’s been your instruction from the beginning. So we’re focusing — we have a lot more issues to cover, but we focused on the structural issues — the ones that you’ve been so focused on — and we talked about enforcement, enforcement, enforcement.

THE PRESIDENT: And you’ll be going in early February, with your group, to China to continue negotiations.

AMBASSADOR LIGHTHIZER: We are more or less — Mr. President, we are more or less in continuous negotiations. There will be a brief pause for the Chinese New Year — briefer than the Chinese want — but our people will be in contact. We’re going back and forth with papers and with discussions. The Secretary and I will be going over there shortly, and then we’ll see where we are.

At this point, it’s impossible for me to predict success, but we are in a place that, if things work, it could happen.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And we look forward to that, and we look forward to the results of your trip. But you’re really discussing it anyway, whether you’re in China or here. We have a thing called the telephone and other means of talking. So I know you’re spending a lot of time, and it’s moving along well.

So I just want to say the Vice Premier is a friend of mine. He has become — he is truly one of the most respected men in Asia, one of the most respected men in all of China, and, frankly, one of the most respected men anywhere in the world. And it’s a great honor to have you with us.

VICE PREMIER LIU: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: And if you’d like to say a few words — please, Liu.

VICE PREMIER LIU: It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. President.

I don’t think you can hear me.

And I fully agree with the report that satisfies Ambassador Lighthizer, and we actually have to establish three key themes. First about (inaudible). And secondly, about drugs coming through. And thirdly, about enforcement or implementation.

But, at the same time, we’ll also discuss something from China: the need to do something where (inaudible) U.S. some problem with (inaudible).

So I thank you so much to be with you, and I’m waiting for (inaudible) in Beijing (inaudible), and I hope we will make a deal.

THE PRESIDENT: We’ll be going. And we look forward to that. And then a little back-and-forth, and ultimately, I know that I’ll be meeting with President Xi, maybe once and maybe twice, and it’ll all seem — it seems to be coming together.

I do appreciate the fact that you said so much about our farmers and that you’ll be doing purchases quickly about the farmers. That’s really wonderful.

VICE PREMIER LIU: Five — five million.

THE PRESIDENT: Five million —

INTERPRETER: Five million tons of soybeans.

THE PRESIDENT: Five million tons of soybeans. Wow.

VICE PREMIER LIU: Per day.

THE PRESIDENT: Per day. That’s going to make our farmers very happy. That’s a lot of soybeans. That’s really nice. And I know they said some other things, and we’ll put out a release for the press.

But the relationship is very, very good between China and the United States. And the personal relationships are very good, with the Vice Premier, with myself and President Xi, and with our representatives. It’s been very, very good. And, you know, you read a lot of things. Sometimes you hear good, sometimes you don’t hear good. But I will say that I think that the relationship that we have right now with China has never been so advanced. I don’t think it’s ever been better. But I can you tell you for a fact, it’s never been so advanced.

And certainly a deal has never been so advanced. Because, essentially, we don’t have a deal. We never had a trade deal. We’re going to have a great trade deal. But we never really had a trade deal with China, and now we’re going to have a great trade deal with China, if it all works out. And we look forward to it. It’s going to be great for both countries — not just us, not just them. This is going to be great for both countries.

And I know you’ve already done a lot of opening up China to the financial services industry. It’s been happening very much, very rapidly. And hopefully we can get that done for our farmers, our manufacturers, and likewise, the United States.

So it’s just an honor to be with you. And I will see you today, but I’ll see you a lot over the next month, that I can tell you. Okay?

Thank you very much. It’s a great honor. Thank you.

Q Mr. President, when do you want to meet with President Xi?

THE PRESIDENT: We haven’t set up a meeting yet. I think we’re working on seeing where everybody is, and then we’ll meet to discuss some final issues. It may be a lot, it may be a small amount. But I have a feeling it will be agreed to pretty quickly by both countries. Both countries would like to see a positive result.

Q And have you seen enough progress, based on what you’ve heard from your team so far, on IP and technology transfers?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Yeah, very much. Technology transfer, IT. I think that we have made tremendous progress. That doesn’t mean you’re going to have a deal, but I can say that there is a tremendous relationship and warm feeling, and we’ve made tremendous progress.

Q Mr. President, did you talk to your intelligence chiefs today about the displeasure you had with their (inaudible)?

THE PRESIDENT: I did. And they said that they were totally misquoted and they were totally — it was taken out of context. So what I’d do is I’d suggest that you call them. They said it was fake news, so — which, frankly, didn’t surprise me.

Q We just ran exactly what they said to Congress.

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me. Excuse me. It didn’t surprise me at all. But we’re here to talk right now about China.

Q Did the fact they didn’t bring up the border as the world threat assessment, did that undermine or undercut what you have said — that there’s a crisis at the border?

THE PRESIDENT: It didn’t undermine anything. We need a wall. And if we don’t have a wall, we’re never going to have security for our country.

Q But they didn’t bring it up as part of the national security assessment.

THE PRESIDENT: Next.

Q Does that undercut —

THE PRESIDENT: Please.

Q Is there any more detail about the soybean offer and deal?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think it’s so nice that — you said soybeans?

Q Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s a tremendous purchase, which will take place now. And our farmers are going to be very happy.

Q When does that start?

THE PRESIDENT: When is the soybean taking place?

VICE PREMIER LIU: They have already (inaudible).

THE PRESIDENT: They’ve already started.

VICE PREMIER LIU: And they will start another (inaudible).

THE PRESIDENT: So they’ve started on a smaller scale, and today they’re starting very big. And I very much appreciate that. Please tell President Xi. And on behalf of the agricultural industry, and on behalf of our farmers, frankly, we appreciate it very much. It’s a very big order.

VICE PREMIER LIU: Chinese people like U.S. farmers very much.

THE PRESIDENT: They like the U.S. farmers. Well, we have good product. And you can use it, and it’s —

VICE PREMIER LIU: (Inaudible.)

THE PRESIDENT: No, but I really appreciated that. That was really fantastic to say. And that’s before we make a deal. It’s a fantastic sign of faith.

Q Mr. President, was the Huawei case discussed during negotiations?

THE PRESIDENT: No, we haven’t discussed that yet. It will be, but it hasn’t been discussed yet.

Q In what aspect? How will it be discussed?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it will be discussed. I’m sure at some point that’ll be — that, actually, as big as it might seem, is very small compared to the overall deal, but that will be discussed.

Anything else?

Q Mr. President, is the plan (inaudible) the trips to see Xi and to meet Chairman Kim again?

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me?

Q Would you combine the trips to see Chairman Kim for your meeting again?

THE PRESIDENT: It’s possible. We’ll see how it is. We haven’t discussed it yet. When President Xi and I meet, we want to have it down so that we have certain points that we can discuss and, I would say, agree to. But we’re not quite at that stage yet. But all of these representatives and these representatives are coming to a conclusion, except for certain very important points. And we want to make it comprehensive. We want to make a deal that we can look at and be proud of for many years — not where we have to go back and renegotiate, or we left things out.

So whether it’s intellectual property or whether it’s any of the other things that we discuss all the time, we want to try — would you say? — have everything included. We want to have it very comprehensive.

Q What are the specific points that you feel like you need to negotiate one on one with him personally?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we really — we really have discussed many of those points today. But I would say, probably more than any other thing, every single point that you discuss in the newspapers and on television. Those are the points that we’re discussing. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any point that was discussed by the folks that really represent you, and represent you well. It’s every single one of those points have been discussed in our transactions and our trade deal — in this trade deal.

Q Mr. President, you said earlier you would be willing to postpone this. What did you mean by that? Do you want to extend the deadline? Or what did you mean by that?

THE PRESIDENT: We haven’t talked about extending the deadline. The deadline is March 1st. That deadline has stayed, and we really haven’t talked about it. Maybe we don’t — I don’t think we have to extend. Now, at a certain point, you’re going to have — this is a very complex, and a very large — it’s the largest transaction ever made, to be perfectly straight. We have to get this put on paper at some point if we agree. There are some points that we don’t agree to yet, but I think we will agree. I think, when President Xi and myself meet, every point will be agreed to.

One of the things that we discussed in Argentina was fentanyl. This is not a trade deal, this is a fact that President Xi was extremely good when he said that they would criminalize fentanyl, because fentanyl is killing a lot of our great American people. And if they did what they are going to do, it would very much halt or at least — I think it would stop fentanyl from coming into this country, which would be a tremendous thing. And so that’s a separate than a trade deal, but it’s a very important thing.

Q Mr. Lighthizer mentioned enforcement. How do you envision an enforcement mechanism working?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think we’re going to have strong enforcement language both ways. They want enforcement, too. And I think we’re going to have it both ways, and we’ll have strong enforcement language. This is a serious deal that we’re doing. This could be done very quickly, very easily, but it wouldn’t be comprehensive; it would be small.

And I just want to end by saying it really is a sign of good faith for China to buy that much of our soybeans and other product that they’ve just committed to us prior to the signing of the deal — is something that makes us very proud to be dealing with them. I think that the farmers who have already been notified of this by me and my representatives — and by Sonny. Sonny Perdue is here, the Secretary of Agriculture. I think that was music to your ears, Sonny.

SECRETARY PERDUE: Absolutely. Good news.

THE PRESIDENT: And that’s a big number. That’s a big number even for you to hear. Right?

SECRETARY PERDUE: Good news. Our folks will be happy.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you let the farmers know right away?

SECRETARY PERDUE: They’ll know before I (inaudible). (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: And that was more than even soybeans — that was the other things that we discussed before the press came in. They discussed other things that they are buying also. So, Sonny, if you let everybody know, that would be great.

SECRETARY PERDUE: We’d be happy to do that.

THE PRESIDENT: Were you surprised to hear that?

SECRETARY PERDUE: Pleased to hear that.

THE PRESIDENT: Ah, that’s going to keep the farmers busy. That’s going to keep them busy. That’s a big order.

So let’s keep going. Let’s start our discussions and we’ll ask the media to leave. Thank you all very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

Q Is Secretary Mnuchin going over with Ambassador Lighthizer?

THE PRESIDENT: I think so. Steve, you’re going?

SECRETARY MNUCHIN: Yes, I’ll go with Ambassador Lighthizer.

THE PRESIDENT: Are you going? Are you going, too? Ask Mnuchin. She wanted to know about Mnuchin.

Q Is there a date for that?

SECRETARY MNUCHIN: We have a tentative date we need to confirm in the next couple of days.

Q What about the summit with North Korean leaders?

THE PRESIDENT: It’s moving along well. The end of the month. The end of February.

Q Any other details you can provide?

THE PRESIDENT: Early next week, probably State of the Union. Okay?

Q (Inaudible) President Xi?

THE PRESIDENT: One way or the other.

END

(tweet Link)

President Trump delivers remarks [transcript below] while signing an executive order to support American Workers and American Manufacturing.  The executive orderemphasizes enhanced strength for “America First” during U.S. infrastructure projects.

The president delivered comprehensive remarks on a myriad of issues. [There’s a fun little (off central focus of the camera) moment at 05:43 as President Trump gives the copy of his printed remarks to an attendee when the room’s focus is on Navarro.  It really highlights Donald Trump.]  This is the Heartbeat of MAGA!   Must watch/read.

.

[Transcript] 11:59 A.M. EST – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. I’m honored to be here with many of the great American workers as we take historic action to accelerate the incredible revival of American manufacturing. It truly is a revival. Nobody thought it was possible, actually. And not only is it possible, but we’re thriving.

We’re also grateful to be joined by Secretary Acosta, Administrator McMahon, and Representative Robert Aderholt, Mario Diaz-Balart. And we’re working on a lot of interesting projects in your neck of the woods, aren’t we, huh? How’s that all going?

REPRESENTATIVE DIAZ-BALART: Mr. President, you are a champion of freedom in this country.

THE PRESIDENT: I didn’t expect that. I never told him to say that. (Laughter.) Well, that was a great move. Every once in a while (inaudible). (Laughter.) And you too, that I can tell you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Robert Aderholt. Robert, thank you very much. David Joyce, Anthony Gonzalez, and David Rouzer. Thank you all for being here. We really worked hard on this. And I appreciate your support.

In the eight years before I took office, we lost nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs. They were leaving. People were talking about the fact that you needed a magic wand; you’ll never bring them back. You remember the previous administration, he said that they said — he said — they all said you needed a magic wand; manufacturing jobs were over. I guess you people heard that too. It was a little bit discouraging.

And since the election, we’ve gained more than 500,000 jobs — and that number is going to be very soon to 700,000 jobs — all in the manufacturing world, which is a beautiful world, a high-paying world, and very important for our country.

Last year, we saw the biggest increase in manufacturing employment in more than 20 years. Early in my presidency, I issued an executive order directing the federal government to live by two very crucial rules: Buy American and hire American. And I think that sounds appropriate. Remember in the old days? It was not that. It was almost the opposite. You’d say, “Where are they coming from?”

Thanks to my executive order and a really great group of people, we have increased reliance on American-made goods very, very substantially. Federal agencies are now spending an additional $24 billion on American-made products instead of going to other countries or foreign-made products.

Federal spending on foreign goods is now the lowest it’s been in more than 10 years, and it’s going down very substantially. And, by the way, we don’t get treated great by many countries in terms of our trade deals, and that’s changing rapidly. But we are now looking out a little bit for ourselves and it’s about time.

Today, I’m taking action to build on this tremendous success by strengthening the Buy American principle for federal infrastructure and federal spending.

We want American roads, bridges, and railways, and everything else to be built with American iron, American steel, American concrete, and American hands. And if you look at what’s happened with the steel industry, it’s actually amazing. The steel industry is thriving now and it was dead when I came to office. It was dead. It was a dead industry. They were dumping steel all over the place. The jobs were going. And if any of you were in the steel industry, I think you can probably tell them, you know. And aluminum, too.

But when you look at what’s happened to the steel industry, it’s been incredible. One of the great successes. And now prices are starting to come down because they’re competing with each other. Nucor and U.S. Steel and so many of these companies, they’re building many, many plants all over the United States. And as those plants open, they’re finally competing with themselves.

We literally were not going to have steel companies. We weren’t going to make steel in this country. And that in itself is a very important thing. We have to have steel. There are some products you have to have. And, by the way, steel is one of them.

You talked about defense — how do you do it without steel and aluminum and the kinds of things that we’re really very heavily focused on.

By signing this order today, we renew our commitment to an essential truth: It matters where something is made, and it matters very greatly.

When I came to office, and I witnessed for many years — for decades, frankly — they didn’t care where it was made. I care where it’s made. It should be made right here in the USA. And we’ve taken a very strong stand.

I want to introduce, before I sign, Peter Navarro and Kevin Hassett, two of my great economic people. And they’re going to give you a little talk as to what’s happened and how good we’re doing.

Peter, do you want to start?

MR. NAVARRO: Thank you, Mr. President. I remember back during the campaign, the naysayers said that this President could not restore the manufacturing base.

I’m just going to show you a couple pictures here. What we have here is a chart that shows the loss of 192,000 jobs during the eight years of the Obama administration. It did tick up a little bit during Obama’s last two years: 73,000. But it is absolutely dwarfed by the policies of this President: 473,000 since Inauguration Day, and over 500,000 since the election.

And then you can see how the emphasis is on this administration in putting men and women who work with their hands to work. You can see the jobs created in the Obama administration: One percent of the total job gains were manufacturing compared to 10 percent.

And the folks here that you see on the President’s right come from across this great country, and they build essentially the mother’s milk of Americana. It’s lamppost, it’s fire hydrants, it’s water mains. And we salute these workers today coming in this White House.

Kevin is going to show you another chart that shows how these distribution of manufacturing gains are across this country, and then we’ll kick it back to Mr. President.

CHAIRMAN HASSETT: And again, the economics literature, Mr. President, when you were running for office basically said that manufacturing was going the way of agriculture in the previous century; that it was just on an inevitable decline as a percentage of GDP. But it also focused a lot on this idea that there was a rust belt in America. There was a place where there used to be manufacturing, where there was disproportionate harm to workers.

And I think the thing that’s really, really interesting about the manufacturing jobs that have been created by our policies — your policies — are that they’re scattered throughout America. The dark red part is a place where manufacturing jobs are up by 20 percent or more since you last took office.

THE PRESIDENT: Wow. That’s fantastic.

CHAIRMAN HASSETT: And then the lighter reds are 10 percent or more. And the lightest red is 5 percent or more.

But if you look at all the pockets all across the country, including in places that people used to call the Rust Belt, where manufacturing employment is booming, what it means is that there’s basically a boom belt from coast to coast that’s been created by our policies.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, Kevin, when I took over, the Rust Belt was really in trouble. Many people were saying it’s dying, it’s dead; people were leaving. And I love the Rust Belt, and the Rust Belt is no longer the Rust Belt as far as I’m concerned. It’s vibrant. It’s doing so well. You look at all of those red marks, those red marks are where it’s flourishing. Tremendous numbers. And that’s fantastic. We’re very proud.

I wish, frankly, that the media would report how well we’re doing in manufacturing, how well we’re doing with the economy. They don’t seem to report how well we’re doing. I think if you had another President, it would be the biggest story, because it really is the biggest story, or certainly one of the biggest stories. And you see the market, how it is. It hit 25,000 yesterday. We’re doing great. We’re doing great as a country.

And we have a lot of bite-back because other countries are not doing well. China is having a very hard time. They’re here now. We’re going to be seeing them a little bit later. We’re trying to work out a new trade deal with China. I think it will happen. Something will happen. But it’s a very big deal. It will be — if it does happen, it will be, by far, the largest trade deal ever made.

And we essentially didn’t have a trade deal with China. We lost $500 billion with China, for many years, a year. Anywhere from $300- to $500-, $505 billion a year was lost in our dealing with China. And I have a very good relationship with President Xi, and I think we’ll sit down at the end — at the end of the negotiation by our representatives — and do something with respect to making a deal with China. I think it has a very good chance of happening.

But China is having a very hard time with their economy, and the European Union is having a hard time. A lot of things going on. And we’re getting tremendous numbers. Tremendous unemployment numbers — among the best we’ve ever had in the history of our country. Individual groups the best: African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, women. Numbers that we haven’t seen before. The overall is the best numbers. Best employment numbers in 51 years.

So we’re doing really well. I wish the press would report it.

I’m going to sign this. Before I do, I think I want to just ask a few of you folks, would you like to say something? Anybody? Anybody want to become a congressman by (inaudible)?

MR. MULLER: Mr. President, I’d like to thank you for the tax cuts. It’s been rocket fuel for our business for manufacturing.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. That was great. Charlie? That was great.

MR. FORTNEY: Mr. President, I’d like to thank you for the — this Buy American push that you’ve got with federal funding for the infrastructure that’s Buy American. It’s jobs for us. And it puts us in a position where we can compete. Otherwise, we tend to walk to away from jobs where foreign competition is going to take our business.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. We’re changing that fast.

MR. FORTNEY: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Big difference. Big difference.

MS. HARRISON: And I’m with McWane, in Birmingham. We’re based out of Birmingham, Alabama. We have seen a tremendous uptick. We’re representing several divisions with McWane here, but thank you for everything you’ve done.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s great. Great group. Thank you. Thank you all very much. You want to say anything? Anybody else?

Anybody want to become a congressperson?

MS. MARTINEZ: Just that it gives us an opportunity to hire, obviously even more opportunities that we have to fill positions as jobs increase.

MR. FORTNEY: That’s Brenda Martinez with U.S. Foundry. She’s our HR, and she hires people when we get more work.

THE PRESIDENT: Big difference. Right?

MS. MARTINEZ: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much.

So how about our politicians? Now, they want to say, that I know. (Laughter.) These people — they’re not shy.

REPRESENTATIVE ADERHOLT: Well, let me say, first of all, that this is a very commonsense, a bipartisan piece of executive order that the President — we have worked on legislation in the past that’s worked this from the appropriations side from year to year.

But what this executive order does, it goes beyond that and it really tries to make sure that we — as the President said, American hands are doing the job and this is what we’re — when we go back home, we want to see our manufacturers do well. We want to see them grow. We want to see our workers do — have better jobs. So thanks, Mr. President, for doing it. So, thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Appreciate it.

MR. NAVARRO: Mr. President, if I may — this gentleman here has been a long-time leader on the hill carrying the Buy American banner, and his leadership is very much appreciated.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s why he wins by so much.

MR. NAVARRO: Yes. That is correct. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: That’s why he doesn’t worry too much about races. You know? Just wins.

REPRESENTATIVE ADERHOLT: It helps when you’ve got a district that he wins about 80 percent. So — (laughter).

THE PRESIDENT: I think I did very well. (Laughter.) Come to think of it.

REPRESENTATIVE ADERHOLT: The best of 435 districts, so —

THE PRESIDENT: That’s great. That’s very nice. Thank you very much. Say hello.

Linda?

ADMINISTRATOR MCMAHON: Well, thank you very much. I hear from small businesses, you know, all over the country, and they are very happy to be buying American and hiring American. And, you know, the job growth, it just speaks for itself. And our businesses are growing and starting and expanding.

THE PRESIDENT: Great job you’re doing too. She runs the Small Business, and they’re big business when you add it all up. She’s done a fantastic job — Linda McMahon.

Mr. Secretary?

SECRETARY ACOSTA: Mr. President, you know, in the past, we’ve encouraged individuals out there to buy American. But what you’re doing is so important because you’re leading by example. You’re saying the federal government will buy American. And we’ve seen the impact last year with, you know, a 10-year record low in foreign purchases. And this is going to take it to the next step, and it will translate into more jobs for individuals, just like those here today.

THE PRESIDENT: It’s having an incredible effect. I mean, people don’t realize it yet, but they’re seeing it more and more. We are mandating even pipelines and things that were made elsewhere. They’re starting to be made here because we have a steel industry again. But it’s having a tremendous effect.

Please.

REPRESENTATIVE JOYCE: Thank you, Mr. President, I have been co-sponsoring a bill for years with Daniel Lipinski. Couldn’t get it to go anywhere. I’m honored that you’re doing it today to force it into action because, as you said, these are American jobs. It’s American concrete, it’s American steel, it’s American asphalt. Thank you for doing so.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

REPRESENTATIVE ROUZER: Well, Mr. President, you can’t believe how much my folks back home in Eastern North Carolina appreciate your commitment to the American worker, and particularly the American farmer. And I personally really appreciate you taking it to China. They have eaten our lunch for a long, long time, and I appreciate you standing up and really fighting hard for our American workers, and the job creation that’s going to result from that. And keep plugging for America’s farmers.

THE PRESIDENT: So China, as you know, has opened up because of us to the financial services industry, which is a big thing. Nobody thought that was possible. And they’ve opened up to financial services and things of the like.

But I just want to let everyone know we won’t have a deal if we don’t open it up to the farmers, and we won’t have a deal if they don’t open it up to our manufacturers, and just all of it. And I think China is very prone to do this. So we’re going to have a talk. But we’ve already got financial services. A big impact. You have tremendous amounts of money. Tremendous amounts of people. It’s a whole different market, and a massive market. I guess you could certainly say the biggest, or one of the biggest markets in the world, but maybe the biggest market in a certain way in the world.

But we’re the number-one country in the world economically. I don’t want people to forget that. We’re the number one. And we were heading — we were heading south fast. We were going down, and we turned it around. And it started with the regulations that we cut. We cut more regulations than any administration in the history of our country in two years. And, actually, less than two years. And it also was helped by the tax cuts. Put a lot of people to work and really gave companies something where they’re now coming back into our country, they’re investing in our country, and they’re expanding in our country.

So, a lot of great things are happening.

Mario?

REPRESENTATIVE DIAZ-BALART: Mr. President, I, again, it’s amazing what leadership does. The economy is booming, you’re rebuilding our military, you’re leading around the world. Enough said.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. I’m liking this guy more and more. (Laughter.)

REPRESENTATIVE ADERHOLT: Let me just add one thing that I have — this makes my 22nd year serving in the House of Representatives. This President has stood up more for manufacturing jobs in Alabama and across the country — not just Alabama — than any President. So I thank you for standing up.

MR. NAVARRO: And Robert and Mario have been leaders on the Reciprocal Trade Act, as well, that you’re sponsoring.

THE PRESIDENT: I know. Reciprocal trade is going be very important. We’re going putting in a bill very soon, where when a country charges us tariffs that are massive, and we charge them nothing for the same exact product, we just say, “Hey, got to be equal. You charge us, we charge you.” You could call it a reciprocal tax, but some people call it a mirror tax.

So, if Europe, as an example — the EU charges us 72 percent tariff on corn, and they don’t even want it, and we charge them nothing — it doesn’t work that way anymore. So, you know, I’ve gone to many people that aren’t that familiar with it, including politicians that you’ll be dealing with soon. And I went to a couple that are always tough. I said, “What do you think of that? They charge us, we charge them.” They looked at me and they said, Robert, “Huh. Sounds fair to me.”

And, actually, you probably get rid of tariffs, because rather than charging 75 percent to nothing, now if you’re both at 75, you say, “Let’s call it quits. We’ll go to nothing.”

So it really has that impact too, as you know. Please.

REPRESENTATIVE GONZALEZ: Thank you, Mr. President. So, as you know, northeast Ohio is all about jobs and the economy. And Dave and I are from the same neck of the woods. And to see the cranes, buildings going up, to see steel jobs coming back — to your point, they said it couldn’t be done, and now wages are going up. When was the last time real wages went up? It’s been a while. So keep doing what you’re doing, and we support you in northeast Ohio on everything with the economy.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

REPRESENTATIVE GONZALEZ: So, thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: And they’re getting — it’s a beautiful thing because I opened up, as you know — the best iron ore, they say, virtually in the world is in Minnesota. The big mines. They were closed. President Obama decided to close them. I opened them. And we’re not bringing it in; we’re taking it right from our own home. And we’re having it made in Ohio. We have good ore in Ohio, too. But we’re having it made in Ohio, in Pennsylvania, in North Carolina, and all the different places. It’s been really incredible to see what’s happening. We don’t need anything from outside of our own boundaries. So that’s been really great.

Okay, let’s go. (Laughter.) Does anybody want this pen? Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here. I appreciate it.

(The executive order is signed.)

Okay, here you go. (Applause.) Thank you, everybody, very much. I appreciate it.

Q Mr. President, (inaudible) your intelligence officials yesterday. Do you still have confidence in Gina Haspel and Dan Coats to give you good advice?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I disagree with certain things that they said. I think I’m right, but time will prove that. Time will prove me right, probably. I think Iran is a threat. I think it’s a very big threat. And I think I did a great thing when I terminated the ridiculous Iran nuclear deal. It was a horrible, one-sided deal that was $150 billion, plus $1.8 billion in cash, and lots of other bad things.

If you remember, they took our 10 sailors out of waters that people are disputing, and made us look very bad. But, of course, the payment was due the following day, so they eventually let them go, which they had to. I disagree very much on that.

I also think — and you’ll be seeing something next week — because you look at what’s happened in Syria with respect to ISIS and the caliphate. We took over a lot of area in the last two weeks. We’ve done tremendous in the last couple of weeks. At the same time, we’re consolidating, and a tremendous amount of good things are happening.

You even look at what’s going on — and I can’t tell you that this is a guarantee because we’re going into close to 19 years in being in Afghanistan. And, for the first time, they’re talking about settling. They’re talking about making an agreement. And we bring our people back home if that happens. We’ll see what happens, but they’re in very serious negotiations for the first time. There’s a reason for that.

So I think we’re doing so well on a foreign policy basis. If you look at North Korea — and many of you are going to be traveling with us to North Korea and — for the meetings with North Korea. We’re going to a certain location. I think most of you know where the location is. I don’t think it’s any great secret. But we’ll be announcing the location and the date — the exact date. It will be at the end of February. And we’ve made tremendous progress with North Korea.

When I came in — or, let’s say, at the end of the last administration — frankly, it looked like we were going to war with North Korea. Now there’s no missile testing. There’s no rocket testing. There’s no nuclear testing. We got back our prisoners or our hostages. And we’re getting back our remains; they’re coming in. And we’ve had some beautiful ceremonies in Hawaii, other places.

So I just tell you that we are doing really well. Our military is being rebuilt. It’s very close to being rebuilt. We have tremendous amounts of new aircraft, new ships, new weapons of all kinds, which we need — because, hopefully, the stronger we get, the less you have to use it. I guess you know that from growing up in school. The stronger we are, the less we’re going to have you use it, and we don’t want to have to use it. But we’re going to have the strongest military, by far, that we’ve ever had.

So I didn’t see the report from the intelligence. When you read it, it’s a lot different than it was covered on in the news. But I think that Iran is somebody — is a nation that we have to watch very closely. They sent up a rocket the other day, and it failed. But it was sent up. Now, they can say they’re sending it up for civilian purposes, but I don’t think too many people believe that. They’re doing tests. And we don’t want to be in a position where we’re behind. We’re not going to be leading from behind anymore.

So that’s the story. I have great respect for a lot of people, but I don’t always agree with everybody. Okay?

Q What concessions has China made so far in the talks? Anything on IP theft?

THE PRESIDENT: So, it’s great. Well, we’re going to — look, we’re going to go into everything. You probably saw, this morning I put out a statement. We’re going into everything. This isn’t going to be a small deal with China. This is either going to be a very big deal or it’s going to be a deal that we’ll just postpone for a little while.

But we’ve been dealing with China. We’ve had a great relationship. I have a great relationship with President Xi. The relationship of my people to Chinese representatives has been very good. They’re negotiating now. They’ll be coming over here at about 4 o’clock, and we’ll be talking to, actually, one of the top leaders in China, as you know.

I think that probably the final deal will be made. If it’s made, will be made between myself and President Xi. But we’re certainly talking about theft. We’re talking about every aspect of trade with a country. And we’re talking about fentanyl, too.

As you know, most of the fentanyl — which is killing 80,000 Americans a year is — it comes through China. And, in China, it was not criminalized. And they’ve agreed to criminalize fentanyl and give it the maximum penalty. The maximum penalty in China, if you’re selling drugs, is death; it’s the death penalty. And they’ve agreed to do the death penalty for selling fentanyl. And if it’s shipped to the United States, that would be a very severe penalty.

So I think that’s going to have a tremendous impact. We put that one item into the trade deal — the fentanyl. I think that’s a very important item to put in. But they’ve agreed — they’ve agree, and agreed very readily — we really appreciate it — to criminalize the sale of fentanyl.

Steve?

Q Do you think you’ll make the March 1 deadline?

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know. I mean, it’s —

Q And you are going to add (inaudible)?

THE PRESIDENT: I can tell you, there’s — a lot of people are working. What happens — we’re charging large tariffs to Chinese products that are coming in, which hurts China. As you know — you saw the reports — out of the 25 points, we’re paying for four points out of the 25. They’re paying for 21. That’s a big difference. I’ve always said that.

We’re taking in billions of dollars. And, frankly, we’re creating a lot of industry. But the rate goes from 10 percent to 25 percent on March 1st. So they would like to do it, and I’d like to accommodate them. If we can, I’d like to accommodate China if we can get the deal done.

It’s a lot of work because this is a very comprehensive deal. This isn’t what we’re talking about, you know, they’re going to buy some corn and that’s going to be it. No, they’re going to buy corn. Hopefully, they’re going to buy lots of corn, and lots of wheat, and lots of everything else that we have. But they’re also talking heavy technology, heavy manufacturing, financial services, and everything else.

Q So you may have to extend the talks beyond March the 1st? Is that what you’re saying, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: I think we can do it by March 1st. Can you get it down on paper by March 1st? I don’t know. I can say, on March 1st, the tariff on China goes to 25 percent, and that’s a big tariff.

Q I’m just curious, what’s the tone looking like for the State of the Union, sir? And then, I don’t know if you’ve seen, the Democrats have tapped the rebuttal speech — Stacey Abrams, who ran for Governor of Georgia. Any thoughts on their pick, sir, or any of the messaging?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I campaigned against Stacey Abrams. I know that President Obama campaigned for her. Michelle Obama campaigned for her. And Oprah campaigned for her. And all Brian had was me. And he won fairly easily — you know, fairly easy.

So I hope that she does a good job. I mean, I respect her. I don’t know her. I haven’t met her. But I hope she does a good job.

Q And the tone for your speech, sir — can you tell us —

THE PRESIDENT: I think it’s unification. I think it’s industry. I think it’s about the people that you see right here. It’s also working with these people, because they’ve been incredible. We have had some incredible report. And we’ve have incredible Republican support.

The problem is, the Democrats — you know, when they say, “We don’t want to build…” — as an example, “We don’t want to build a wall because it doesn’t work or because it’s immoral.” Well, it’s also immoral the people that come into our country that shouldn’t be here and kill people. That’s immoral, too. That’s a lot more immoral.

So — but I really think it’s doing to be a speech that’s going to cover a lot of territory. But part of it is going to be unity.

Yeah, please.

Q Mr. President, Nancy Pelosi said this morning that there is not going to be a wall in this deal, but she did say she’d be open to other kinds of physical barriers. Would you accept that?

THE PRESIDENT: No, because if there’s no wall, it doesn’t work. She’s just playing games. So if there’s no wall, it doesn’t work.

And we’re building the wall right now. I mean, a lot of people don’t know that, but we have a lot of wall under construction. We’ve given out a lot of contracts over the last three, four weeks — good contracts. A lot of wall is soon going to be under construction.

We will be — we’re finishing up design on certain areas, the most important areas — the Rio Grande area and others. We are building a lot of wall. You know, I’m not waiting for this committee. And I’ve told a lot of people I don’t expect much coming out of the committee because I keep hearing the words that, “We’ll give you what you want, but we’re not going to give you wall.”

The problem is, if they don’t give us a wall, it doesn’t work. Without a wall, it doesn’t work. We have caravans right now coming up from Honduras, who we give a lot of money to — which is stopping, by the way. But we pay hundreds of millions of dollars to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. And then they have caravans leaving their country, coming up here.

And, by the way, if you go to Tijuana and you take down that wall, you will have so many people coming into our country that Nancy Pelosi will be begging for a wall. She’ll be begging for a wall. She will say, “Mr. President, please, please give us a wall.” It’d be very interesting. Some people have suggested: Let me take the wall along California, let’s move it to Arizona, let’s move it to Texas. And, you know, it’s going to — it would be a very interesting statement.

About Nancy: So, in California, they wanted the wall built in San Diego so badly. And we built it. And probably I should have waited, because as soon as it was finished, they started screaming, “We don’t want a wall. We don’t want a wall.” But they wanted the wall so badly. And, by the way, it worked. Nobody is getting through.

But the minute it was built, they started saying, “We don’t want a wall.” Without a wall, it doesn’t work. It’s very simple. I mean, I’m not saying this as a Republican. I’m not saying it as anything other than a fact-stater. Without a wall, it just doesn’t work.

Q Mr. President, after listening to the hardship from many federal government workers, as well as those who were contractors and who relied on the federal government employees’ finances to fund their businesses, are you willing to jeopardize the economy again, and also your presidency, with people who are fearful of another government shutdown over this wall?

And also, I want to ask you about Jussie Smollett. Have you heard about that story? In Chicago, a situation — the actor from “Empire” who was allegedly attacked with racist and homophobic —

THE PRESIDENT: That, I can tell you, is horrible. I’ve seen it last night. I think that’s horrible. It doesn’t get worse, as far as I’m concerned.

As far as the people are concerned, many of those people wanted me to stay out, but I didn’t want to do it because people were getting hurt.

People — what I think is the worst sin of all is the fact that we’re allowing people to come into this country and sell drugs and human traffic, and do all of these horrible things. That if we had the simplicity of a well-constructed, beautiful barrier or wall, they wouldn’t be able to come into our country. That, to me, is the great sin. And everybody knows it works. I watched this morning, early in the morning, somebody trying to justify walls are immoral.

I mean, if walls are immoral, maybe we should take down all the walls that are built right now. You will see a mess like you’ve never seen before.

So I only say this: I was elected partially on this issue — not as much as people say, but partially on this issue. This is a very important issue. Nothing to do with elections. Nothing to do with votes. Nothing. Only to do with common sense and only to do with security. And if we don’t put up a barrier or wall — a strong one, but one that looks good — in the old days, they used to build them; they looked terrible. Now we build them, they look really good.

If we don’t put up a physical barrier, you can forget it. Our country is going to be a very unsafe place. People are coming in. Drugs are coming in. Human trafficking is coming in, which is so horrible. Things are happening that won’t happen after the wall is constructed.

So we’re building a lot of wall. We’re building new sections that are starting in about two weeks. We’re building some brand new sections — large sections. And the wall is getting built. I would like to build it even faster, but it’s getting built, and it’s getting built very substantially, as some of you see because you’ve been there.

Yeah, please.

Q I have an immigration question. But first, if I could just clarify something you said about North Korea. Do you have an agreement with North Korea on the time and place for that next summit?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I do.

Q Can you share it?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, we’re going to very soon. We’re going to announce it pretty soon. We’ll be announcing it early next week.

Q Okay. And you also said that —

THE PRESIDENT: And they very much want the meeting, and I think they really want to do something. We’ll see. But I think they really want.

But again, remember, North Korea was a whole different story. When I came to office, many people thought we were going to war with North Korea. I would sit and listen, and I would read people saying, “Go to war with North Korea.” Well, you’d lose, I mean potentially, hundreds of millions of lives. You know, Seoul has 30-some-odd million people, and it’s literally right off their wall, by the way. But that wall works, I can tell you.

Q About the wall, you just said that people make that out to be a bigger deal on your election than you —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it was one of my points. I had — yeah.

Q I mean, you would consider that the biggest campaign —

THE PRESIDENT: Now they say it’s the wall, because I’ve accomplished practically everything else. Look, I accomplished the military. I accomplished the tax cuts. I accomplished the regulation cuts. I accomplished so much. The economy is the number-one economy in the world. We’re the number-one economy in the world. We’re the number one, not even close. Companies are pouring into our country.

I’ve accomplished so much. So now they say, “Oh, if he doesn’t get the wall…” — they make that the only issue. But it’s not going to work, because I’m building the wall. The wall is happening right now, okay?

Q The government has been reopened for several days now. Are you closer or farther apart on an immigration deal, now that — since you opened the government?

THE PRESIDENT: With respect to the committee?

Q Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: I would say we’re the same. Because I’m hearing they don’t want to do a wall, for political reasons. I actually think it’s bad politics. I mean, frankly, I think them fighting us on what everybody knows has to be done to have proper security.

And you can add the other things, but the other things only really work if you have the physical barrier. Without the physical barrier, you just won’t — what are you going to have? Drones flying over the 12,000 people? You’re going to have a nice drone flying — doing circles around the 12,000 people that are walking in from Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador? No, you don’t want that.

So I want to do real things, like the deal with China. I want it to be a real deal. I could do a deal with China, where people would say, “Isn’t that wonderful?” It’s not wonderful. I have to do the real deal. We have to open up China. We’re open to them. They have to be open to us.

So, it would be so easy for me to make a deal with China, but it wouldn’t be a real deal. I could get them to buy more corn than they’ve ever bought, and more soybeans than they’ve ever bought. And they’d be so happy if I did that. But they’re going to do that, but in even higher numbers. But we’re going to do a lot of other things.

And just remember, we are taking in billions and billions of dollars from China. We never took in 10 cents from China. China is being charged tremendous amounts of money for the privilege of coming in and doing what they do to our country. They’re being charged a tremendous amount of money. And we’re going to make a deal. I think we’re going to make a deal with China, but it’s going to be a very comprehensive deal. We’re going to cover everything, okay?

Q You mentioned all the economic indicators are going up. Why then is the — are U.S. deficits and the financial debt increasing at a time when the economy is —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the trade deals won’t kick in for a while. You know, number one, the USMCA hasn’t even been approved yet. It has to go before Congress and get approved. Now, it should get approved quickly. NAFTA was one of the worst deals ever made. During the campaign, I said I will either terminate NAFTA or negotiate a new deal. And we negotiated a good deal.

Now, if you went back to pre-NAFTA, that would be, frankly, okay with me. Pre-NAFTA or the new deal. But I won’t allow NAFTA. NAFTA was a horrible deal for this country. If you look at the scars all over our country, where you go to New England, you go to Ohio, you go to Pennsylvania, you see what — I mean, what happened in North Carolina — you have factories that are still empty from what happened with NAFTA. NAFTA was a horrible deal. The USMCA is a great deal.

But pre-NAFTA was — we had huge surpluses with Mexico. With NAFTA, we have huge deficits. We lose $100 billion a year on trade with Mexico. Does that sound good? And this has been going on for many years. So I stopped it. I stopped it a lot.

Q One more on the wall. You said the wall is being basically held hostage for political reasons by the Democrats. Is there anything you would have done differently in the first two years to get this —

THE PRESIDENT: No, there’s nothing — look, they had this from day one.

Q — (inaudible) wall finished —

THE PRESIDENT: Could I have done it differently? No, not really. I mean, I think what — by having the shutdown, we’ve set the table for where we are now. If I didn’t do the shutdown, people wouldn’t know — they wouldn’t understand the subject. Now they understand the subject. They realize what a humanitarian crisis it is.

It’s sort of — it’s called, like in deal-making, “setting the table,” or, you know, setting the stage. We’ve set the stage for what’s going to happen on the 15th of February. I don’t think they’re going to make a deal. I see what’s happening. They’re all saying, “Oh, let’s do this, but we’re not giving one dime for the wall.” That’s okay. But if they’re not going to give money for the wall, it’s not going to work. And if it’s not going to work, then the politicians are really wasting a lot of time.

Okay.

Q Mr. President, will you declare a national emergency if there’s no money for the wall?

THE PRESIDENT: I would do that. I would do that.

Q So why hasn’t —

THE PRESIDENT: We have money. Just so you understand: We have money. We’re building the wall right now — a lot of it. People don’t know that, and nobody reports it, but that’s okay. Because it’s not very exciting when you say it’s built. You know, people.

But let me just tell you: We’re building the wall right now. It’s going up fairly rapidly. We’re renovating tremendous amounts of wall, which is good stuff that’s in very bad shape with massive holes in it and fencing coming down. It’s being beautifully renovated. In some cases, we have to replace it. We renovate some. We replace some. We build some new. But the wall is going up right now in all different forms.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Q What’s been holding you back from declaring a national emergency?

THE PRESIDENT: We’re going to see what happens on February 15th.

Q Are you concerned about legal challenges?

THE PRESIDENT: Against who?

Q Are you concerned about legal challenges?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I’m not concerned. I’m not concerned.

Q But you still don’t think there’s going to be a deal, but you’re not going to declare it now. Don’t you think that —

THE PRESIDENT: I’m waiting — excuse me. I didn’t say that. I said I’m waiting until February 15th. On February 15th, the committee will come back, and if they don’t have a wall, I don’t even want to waste my time reading what they have because it’s a waste of time. Because the only thing that works for security and safety for our country is a wall.

Now, when you couple the wall with sensors and drones and all of these other things, that works, as a combination. But if you don’t have a wall, they’re all just wasting their time. It’s just politics.

Thank you all very much.

END 12:38 P.M. EST

President Trump delivers a video message in concert with a series of public tweets surrounding the ongoing issues with border security funding.

.