Yesterday it was revealed that Broward County School Police Officer Scot Peterson refused to enter building for over four minutes during the active shooter rampage.  Today we discover that an additional three more Broward County Deputies arrived yet did nothing.

Officers from neighboring Coral Springs police department arrived on scene, noted the four Broward Deputies refusing to engage, and the CSPD immediately went into the building.   According to a CNN report, the following day, February 15th, Coral Springs City Manager Mike Goodrum confronted Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel over the dereliction of duty and cowardice exhibited by the Broward deputies.

I wish I could tell you I’m surprised; but I’m not.  As we previously researched and outlined, the conduct by the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) is not unexpected.  Their behavior is shameful, but not unexpected. From the top down, officials within the BSO are focused on political objectives within Broward County and maintaining/defending a political status amid all county officials:

(Via CNN) When Coral Springs police officers arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14 in the midst of the school shooting crisis, many officers were surprised to find not only that Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson, the armed school resource officer, had not entered the building, but that three other Broward County Sheriff’s deputies were also outside the school and had not entered, Coral Springs sources tell CNN. The deputies had their pistols drawn and were behind their vehicles, the sources said, and not one of them had gone into the school.

With direction from the Broward deputies who were outside, Coral Springs police soon entered the building where the shooter was. New Broward County Sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene, and two of those deputies and an officer from Sunrise, Florida, joined the Coral Springs police as they went into the building.

Some Coral Springs police were stunned and upset that the four original Broward County Sheriff’s deputies who were first on the scene did not appear to join them as they entered the school, Coral Springs sources tell CNN. It’s unclear whether the shooter was still in the building when they arrived.  (read more)

The day after Coral Springs City Manager Goodrum confronted Broward County Sheriff Israel, Coral Springs Police Chief Anthony Pustizzi sent out this email to his staff Feb 16:

Everyone in the surrounding communities know exactly how corrupt Broward and Miami-Dade officials are.  No-one outside the area with any common sense is blind. The only difference amid outside observers is how much they know.   Only a few, like the CSPD, know how bad it really is because they encounter the participants during overlaps.

The Broward system of civic society has one filter, that filter is politics.  Everything else comes after that filter is applied.   Do some research and you’ll see it surface EVERYWHERE; not just in school administration and law enforcement, everywhere.

If reporters keep digging and asking questions people will discover they are only seeing the very tippy-top of the heavily politicized agenda within Broward County law enforcement, school administration and all around civic leadership. Citizens are co-dependents to their own abuse.

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel is just one cog in an institutional system that is fraught with corruption and negligence at multiple levels.   You don’t pull off this level of gross malfeasance, openly -in front of the entire population- for years,  without strong internal support mechanisms.

Factually I’m shocked this much has surfaced.  Normally Broward and Miami-Dade keep a tight cover on all these issues through their ideological friends and allies at the top of the media enterprises.  Obviously the local news media editorial boards and corporate owners are struggling to keep control over inquires from outside news agencies.

However, given prior experience don’t expect this sunlight to last much longer.

We can be relatively certain executives at news groups within the Miami-Dade and Broward affiliates are quickly calling their outside peers with instructions to remain focused on the larger political objectives.  Inquiries will stop soon…. all will be swept under the proverbial rug… the blood will be washed away….. and the citizenry will be lulled back to sheep…

That’s not cynicism, that is reality.

All your children are belong to them.

There is no Donald Trump type political strength of character in the area to confront the corruption.  The system will self-protect.

Just watch:

A relaxed, confident and jovial president enjoys his first visit to CPAC following a year of MAGAnomic policy implementation.  Lots of good stuff to talk about…. and even time for a recitation of “The Snake” poem.

[Transcript] Oxon Hill, Maryland – 10:16 A.M. EST – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you everybody. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Matt, for that great introduction. And thank you for this big crowd. This is incredible. Really incredible. (Applause.)

We’ve all come a long way together. We’ve come a long way together. I’m thrilled to be back at CPAC, with so many of my wonderful friends and amazing supporters, and proud conservatives. (Applause.) Remember when I first started running? Because I wasn’t a politician, fortunately. But do you remember I started running and people would say, “Are you sure he’s a conservative?” I think now we’ve proved that I’m a conservative, right? (Applause.)

For more than four decades, this event has served as a forum for our nation’s top leaders, activists, writers, thinkers. Year after year, leaders have stood on this stage to discuss what we can do together to protect our heritage, to promote our culture, and to defend our freedom.

CPAC has always been about big ideas and it’s also been about putting those ideas into action. And CPAC really has put a lot of ideas into action. We’ll talk about some of them this morning.

For the last year, with your help, we have put more great conservative ideas into use than perhaps ever before in American history. (Applause.) Right?

By the way, what a nice picture that is. Look at that. I’d love to watch that guy speak. (Laughter.) Oh, boy. That’s a — I try like hell to hide that bald spot, folks. I work hard at it. (Applause.) It doesn’t look bad. Hey, we’re hanging in. We’re hanging in. We’re hanging in there, right? Together, we’re hanging in.

We’ve confirmed a record number — so important — of circuit court judges, and we are going to be putting in a lot more. (Applause.) And they will interpret the law as written. And we’ve confirmed an incredible new Supreme Court justice, a great man, Neil Gorsuch. (Applause.) Right?

We’ve passed massive — biggest in history — tax cuts and reforms. (Applause.) You know, I don’t use the word “reform.” There was a lot of reform, too. Very positive reform. I don’t use it. And when we were first doing it, I told everybody — everybody gathered — I said, “Just talk about tax cuts. People don’t know what reform means. They think reform might mean it’s going up.” And I said, “Do tax cuts.”

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

AUDIENCE: Booo —

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. How did he get in here, Matt? Boy. Okay. Just for the media, the fake news back there, they took very good care of him. They were very gentle. (Laughter.) He was very obnoxious. It was only one person.

So we have thousands of people here. (Applause.) So listen — tomorrow, the headline will be, “Protestors disturbed the Trump…” — one person, folks. Doesn’t deserve a mention. Doesn’t deserve a headline. The headline tomorrow: “Disrupters of CPAC.” One person. And he was very nice — we looked at him, and he immediately left. Okay. (Laughter and applause.)

No, I’ve had it too often. You’ll have one person, and you can hardly even hear him. In fact, the biggest, really, disturbance are you people. You know why? He’ll say something; nobody hears him. Because it’s all — and then the crowd will start screaming at him. And then all of a sudden we stop for — and that’s okay. You have to show your spirit, right? You have to show your spirit. It’s true. (Applause.)

So we passed the biggest tax cuts in the history of our country. And it was called “tax cut and reform.” And I said to our people, don’t use the word “reform.” Because we were going to call it the “Tax Reform Act.” I said, “No wonder for 45 years nothing has been passed.” Because people want tax cuts, and they don’t know what reform means. Reform can mean you’re going to pay more tax. So I convinced politicians who have done this all their lives — and they do a great job, in many cases — but this was one — they were going, the “Tax Reform Act” of whatever year we want to put. Okay?

So they have the Tax Reform Act, and that was it. And now it was called the Tax Act — Tax Cut Act and Jobs. We had to add “jobs” into it because we’re picking up a tremendous number of jobs — 2.7 million jobs since the election. 2.7. (Applause.)

So now people hear tax cuts, and it has been popular. Remember, it started off a little slow. Then it got passed, and we had some great help. I will say, we had some great help in the Senate, in the House. We have guys here today — we have a lot of congressmen, we have a lot of senators. We had a lot of help. And we got it passed.

Just — it was not easy. We didn’t have one Democrat vote, and I think that’s going to cost them in the midterms. I know that whoever wins the presidency has a disadvantage, for whatever reason, in the midterms. You know what happens? I’m trying to figure it out. Because historically, if you win the presidency, you don’t do well two years later. And you know what? We can’t let that happen. (Applause.) And I know what happens. I finally figured it out. Nobody has been able to explain it. It just happens, statistically, almost all of the time for many years.

What happens is, you fight so hard to win the presidency. You fight, fight, fight. And now only two years — that’s a very short period. And by the time you start campaigning, it’s a year. And now you got to go and fight again. But you just won. So nobody has that same drive that they had. So you end up not doing that well because the other side is going — they’re crazed. And, by the way, they’re crazed anyway, these people. They are really crazed. (Laughter and applause.) Right?

So — because I kept trying to say, “Why is this?” But it’s just there. So the great enthusiasm — you know, you’re sitting back, you’re watching television. “Maybe I don’t have to vote today; we just won the presidency.” And then we get clobbered, and we can’t let that happen. We get clobbered in ’18, and we can’t let that happen — only because we are so happy, we passed so many things. Honestly, and I’ll say — I’ll use the word “my administration” as opposed to me — my administration, I think, has had the most successful first year in the history of the presidency. I really believe that. I really believe it. I really believe it. (Applause.) So, I mean, judges, regulations, everything.

And the beautiful thing about the tax cuts is nobody thought we could do it. Because again, we had to get 100 percent of our vote. And nobody thought we could do it. And, frankly — I mean, to me we got it and it’s turned out to be one of the most popular things. And, by the way, for the Republicans in this room, of which I assume — would you say, is it 99 percent, Matt, or 100 percent? Huh? I would hope it’s close to — you know what, hey, we probably have some Democrats that want to come over. We have a great governor from West Virginia that left the Democratic Party — Big Jim — and he came over to the Republican Party. (Applause.)

So people are sitting there, and they’re saying, “Oh, we just had that great victory. Eh, let’s not vote. Let’s go to a movie. We’re the Republican Party, we’re going to do great.” And then they end up losing.

So you got to keep up the enthusiasm. Now what happens, by the way, they lose. And then you have the presidential election coming up again, and you clobber them because everybody gets off their ass and they get out and they work. Right? And they work. And they work and work and work. And you end up winning the Presidency again. And we should do that — hopefully we’re going to do that very easily.

But never — we have to worry — right now, we have a big race coming up in ’18. You have to get out. You have to just get that enthusiasm. Keep it going. (Applause.)

See, the word, really, is “complacent.” People get complacent. It’s a natural instinct. You just won, and now you’re happy and you’re complacent. Don’t be complacent. Okay? Don’t be complacent. Because if they get in, they will repeal your tax cuts, they will put judges in that you wouldn’t believe, they’ll take away your Second Amendment, which we will never allow to happen. (Applause.) They’ll take away your Second Amendment. (Applause).

AUDIENCE: Donald Trump! Donald Trump!

THE PRESIDENT: Remember that. They will take away — thank you. They will take away those massive tax cuts and they will take away your Second Amendment. By the way, if you only had a choice of one, what would you rather have? The Second Amendment or the tax cuts? Go ahead, Second Amendment, tax cuts. Second Amendment. (Applause.) I’m going to leave it at the Second Amendment. I don’t want to get into that battle, all right?

We’re going to say you want — Matt, we’re going to say you want the Second Amendment the most. But we’re going to get them all. And remember this — (applause) — remember this: We’ve gotten — you know, somebody got on television recently and they said, actually, this is the first time I can remember — Trump made campaign promises. He may be the only person that actually fulfilled more promises than he made. I think that’s true. (Applause.) I fulfilled more promises.

But we have a very crooked media. We had a crooked candidate, too, by the way. But we have a very, very crooked media.

AUDIENCE: Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!

THE PRESIDENT: I will say this, folks: Everything that’s turning out, now it’s amazing that’s come full circle. Boy, have they committed a lot of atrocities when you look. (Applause.) Right? When you look. Have they done things that are wrong.

But remember this: Not only did we get the tax cuts, which everybody said we wouldn’t get — and, by the way, repealed, in that tax cut, the individual mandate, which is a tremendous thing. (Applause.)

This is where you’re forced to pay in order not to have healthcare. Okay? Is that great? You pay for the privilege of not having healthcare. So you’re subsidizing lots of other people. That’s gone. I know people came up to me with tears in their eyes; they’re saying, I’m forced to pay not to have healthcare. Very unfair.

And, by the way, we’re having tremendous plans coming out now — healthcare plans — at a fraction of the cost that are much better than Obamacare. (Applause.) And except for one Senator, who came into a room at 3 o’clock in the morning and went like that — we would have had healthcare, too.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: We would have had healthcare, too. Think of that. But I think we may be better off the way we’re doing it. It’s piece by piece by piece. Obamacare is just being wiped out. The individual mandate, essentially, wipes it out. (Applause.) So I think we may be better off. And people are getting great healthcare plans and we’re not finished yet.

But, remember, one person walked into a room when he was supposed to go this way, and he said he was going this way, and he walked in, and he went this way, and everyone said, “What happened? What was that all about?” Boy, oh, boy. Who was that? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t want to be controversial, so I won’t use his name. Okay? (Laughter.) What a mess. But it’s all happening anyway. It’s all happening anyway.

And we’ve, at the same time, eliminated a record number of job-killing regulations, and people are going back to work. (Applause.) Right? People are going back to work. So — and you know, the fake news always — if I say something that’s like, a little off, next day headline, “He misrepresents…” — I have to be careful.

But in the history of Presidents, no President — and I’m saying no President. Now, maybe they’ll find I was off by two but we’re here one year. (Laughter.) No President — well, I read it in lots of good papers, actually. (Laughter.) But they’ll change the story when I say it. No President has ever cut so many regulations in their entire term, okay — (applause) — as we’ve cut in less than a year. (Applause.)

And it’s my opinion that the regulations had as big an impact as these massive tax cuts that we’ve given. So I really believe it. (Applause.)

We’ve ended the war on American energy. We were in war. And we’ve ended the war on beautiful, clean coal. (Applause.) One of our great natural resources. And very important for our defense — coal — very important for our defense. Because we have it. We don’t have to send it through pipes. We don’t have to get it from foreign countries. We have more than anybody. And they wanted to end it. And our miners have been mistreated and they’re not being mistreated anymore. We’re doing tremendous business. (Applause.)

I was in Vietnam, and the Prime Minister and the President of Vietnam were there. And we have a massive deficit with them, like we do with everybody else because these Presidents have just let it go to hell. We have the worst trade deals you’ve ever seen. So we’re changing it.

So I said, we have too big of a deficit with Vietnam; I’m not happy. He said, “Well, but we’re going to…” — I said, “Buy coal. Buy coal.” They use a lot of coal. Buy coal. And he said, “You know, we have bought coal from West Virginia and other places, and it’s the finest coal we have ever used.” It’s interesting. And West Virginia now is doing great. You look at what’s happening in West Virginia. You look at what’s happening in Pennsylvania. You look at what’s happening in Ohio. (Applause.) And you look at what’s happening in Wyoming. You look at what’s happening all over. It’s like a — it’s like a different world.

And remember this: Virtually, as soon as I got into office, we approved the Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access pipeline, which would never have been approved. (Applause.) And we announced our withdrawal from the totally disastrous, job-killing, wealth-knocking-out — you know, it knocked out our wealth, or it would have. They basically wanted to take our wealth away. They didn’t want us to use our wealth power. We knocked out the Paris Climate Accord. Would have been a disaster. (Applause.) Would have been a disaster for our country.

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

THE PRESIDENT: You know, basically, it said, you have a lot of oil and gas that we found — you know, technology has been amazing — and we found things that we never knew. But we have massive — just about the top in the world — we have massive energy reserves. We have coal. We have so much. And basically, they were saying, don’t use it, you can’t use it.

So what it does is it makes us uncompetitive with other countries. It’s not going to happen. I told them, it’s not going to happen. And, you know, China, their agreement didn’t kick in until 2030. Right? Our agreement kicks in immediately. Russia, they’re allowed to go back into the 1990s, which was not a clean environmental time.

Other countries, big countries — India and others — we had to pay, because they considered them a growing country. They were a growing country. I said, “What are we?” Are we allowed to grow too? Okay? (Laughter.) Now, are we allowed to grow? (Applause.) They called India a “developing nation.” They called China a “developing nation.” But the United States, we’re developed — we can pay.

So, folks, if you don’t mind — I’ll tell you what — it’s amazing how many people understood the Paris Accord, because it sounds so good. It’s like some of the environmental regulations that I cut — they have the most beautiful titles. And sometimes I’d say, “Look, I’m just going to close my eyes and sign this because, you know what, I’m going to get killed on this one.” And I get so much thanks. The country knows what I’m doing. We couldn’t build. We couldn’t farm. If you had a puddle on your land, they called it a lake for the purposes of environmentals. (Applause.) I mean, it’s crazy. It’s crazy.

And I’d sign certain bills and I’d have farmers behind me and I’d have house builders, home builders behind me. And these are tough people, strong people. They fought hard. They’ve worked all their lives, hard. And they’d be — half of them would be crying because we gave them their property back. We gave them the right to earn a living. They couldn’t do it. They couldn’t do what they had to do. We gave them their property back. We gave them their dignity back. (Applause.)

By the way, you don’t mind if I go off script a little bit because, you know, it’s sort of boring. It’s a little boring. (Applause.) Got this beautiful speech, everything is wonderful but a little boring. We have to, you know —

But we gave them their dignity back. And that’s why our country is doing record business. We’re doing record business. We’re doing business — and you have to look at the fundamentals. Companies are pouring back into this country. They’re pouring back. Not like — I mean, when did you hear about car companies coming back into Michigan and coming to Ohio and expanding? (Applause.) When did you hear — you never heard that. You hear they’re leaving. I’ve been talking about it for 20 years.

I was a private sector guy. But for whatever reason, I always had — these guys always covered me much more than anybody else. I always got a lot of these characters. They used to treat me so good too, until I ran for office. I used to get the greatest publicity. A friend of mine said, “You know, you used to be the king of getting great publicity. What happened?” I said, “Well, I have some views that they’re opposed to for a lot of bad reasons.” (Laughter.) A lot of really bad reasons.

But when you look at what’s happening to our country, it’s incredible. And the fundamentals are so strong. The stock market — I just see with all of the ups and downs — since Election Day, is up 37 percent from Election — 37 percent. (Applause.) Now, it did a little bit of a correction. In fact, I started to say — you know, I was in it for like 13, 14 months from election. I say, “Is this sucker ever going down a little bit? This is a little embarrassing.” It was up 100, up 200, up 1,000, up 150, up 90, up 63. I said, “Good, that’s better.” (Laughter.) You know, hey, we’ve got seven years to go, folks. You know, we got a long time to go. (Applause.) So thank you, everybody. You’ve been amazing. You’ve been amazing.

You know what Matt didn’t say — when I was here in 2011, I made a speech, and I was received with such warmth. And they give — they used to give — I don’t know if Matt does that because he might not want to be controversial, but they used to give “the best speech of CPAC.” Do they do that still, Matt? Because you better pick me or I’m not coming back again. (Laughter.)

But — and I got these — everybody, they loved that speech. And that was, I think, Matt — I would say, that might have been the first real political speech that I made. It was a love fest — 2011, I believe the time was — and a lot of people remembered, and they said, “We want Trump. We want Trump.” And after a few years, they go by, and I say, “Here we are. Let’s see what we can do.”

And then everybody said, “He cannot get elected. He cannot do it.” You need 270 votes. You need Electoral College — which, by the way, is much tougher than the popular vote. The popular vote, actually, would be so much easier. You go three or four states, and you just go and you just do great job. Hillary forgets that. You know, she went to these states. I said, “What’s she doing? Why does she keep going back to California?” (Laughter.) Crazy.

Next time, they’re going to remember Iowa. They’re going to remember Ohio. (Applause.) Remember? They spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania to no avail. (Applause.) They spent a lot of money. They spent a lot of money in North Carolina, the great state of North Carolina. (Applause.) We did very well there. We have a great person in the room, Mark Meadows, from North Carolina. (Applause.) He’s around here. Where’s Mark? Where’s Mark? And Deb. And we have Jim Jordan. Warriors. Warriors all. (Applause.) We have a lot of great — we have a lot of great people here. But, you know, we just — we hit a chord.

And if you remember, 2011, probably that was the beginning of what we’ve done. And hopefully, at the end of a period of time, people are going to say thank you, because it is not easy. We’re fighting a lot of forces. They’re forces that are doing the wrong thing. They’re just doing the wrong thing. I don’t want to talk about what they have in mind. But they do the wrong thing. But we’re doing what’s good for our country for the long-term viability and survival. Like, for instance, $700 billion got approved for our military. Our military was going to hell. (Applause.)

We declined to certify the terrible one-sided Iran nuclear deal. That was a horrible deal. (Applause.) Whoever heard you give $150 billion to a nation that has no respect for you whatsoever? They’re saying “Death to America” while they’re signing the agreement. If somebody said “Death to America” while I’m signing an agreement, and I’m President, I immediately say, “What’s going on here, folks? I’m not signing.” (Laughter.) What’s going on?

They just kept going. Kerry — Kerry may be the worst negotiator I’ve ever seen. (Laughter.) How about this guy — how about — and Obama, of course — he’s the one. But how about $1.8 billion in cash? Did you ever see what, like, a million dollars in hundred-dollar bills? A lot of people do it as a promotion. It’s a lot. It’s big. It’s like big. (Laughter.) Now, take that, go to $1.8 billion in cash. $1.8 billion. For what? For what? Why did we do this? Why did we do it?

Anyway, we didn’t certify, and lots of interesting things are happening with that whole mess. But we have to treat — people that treat us well, we treat them well. People that treat us badly, we treat them much worse than they can ever imagine. That’s the way it has to be. (Applause.) That’s the way it has to be.

We officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. (Applause.) You know, every President campaigned on, “We’re going to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” Everybody — for many Presidents — you’ve been reading it. And then they never pulled it off. And I now know why.

Because I put the word out that I may do it. Right? I said, I’d do it in my campaign, so that usually means — unless I find something — I’m going to do it. I was hit by more countries and more pressure and more people calling, begging me, “Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.” I said, “We have to do it. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the right thing to do. We have to do it.” (Applause.) And I did it.

But every other President really lied, because they campaigned on it. That was always a big part of the campaign. And then they got into office; they never did it. So I understand why they didn’t do it. Because there was tremendous — the campaign against it was so incredible. But you know what? The campaign for it was also incredible, and we did the right thing. (Applause.)

So we’ve kept our promise, as I said, to rebuild our military, eliminating the defense sequester, which is a disaster. And I don’t know if you saw the number, $700 billion. You know, ultimately, that comes before everything else. We can talk about lots of things. But if we don’t have a strong military, you might not be allowed into this room someday. Okay? You may not have your houses, your homes, your beautiful communities. We better take care of our military. These are the greatest people, and we’re going to take care of our veterans. (Applause.) We’re going to take care of the vets. We’ve been doing a good job on the vets.

And after years of rebuilding other nations — we rebuild other nations — we rebuild other nations that have a lot of money, and we don’t ever say, “Hey, you got to help.” We’re finally rebuilding our nation. We’re rebuilding our nation. (Applause.) And we’re restoring our confidence and our pride.

All of us here today are united by the same timeless values. We defend our Constitution, and we believe in the wisdom of our Founders. Our Constitution is great. (Applause.) We support the incredible men and women of law enforcement. (Applause.) True. We know that a strong nation must have strong borders. We celebrate our history and our heroes, and we believe young Americans should be taught to love their country and to respect its traditions.

Don’t worry, you’re getting the wall. Don’t worry, okay? I heard some — (applause) — we’re getting the wall.

AUDIENCE: Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall!

THE PRESIDENT: I had a couple of these characters in the back say, “Oh, he really doesn’t want the wall. He just used that for campaigning.” I said, are you — can you believe it? (Laughter.) You know, I say, every time I hear that, the wall gets 10 feet higher. You know that, right? (Applause.) Every time. Every single time. Okay?

No, we’re going to have the wall or they’re not going to have what they want. You know, we have a problem: We need more Republicans. We have a group of people that vote against us in a bloc. They’re good at two things: resisting, obstruction. Resisting, obstruction. And they stick together. They do. They always vote in a bloc. You know, it’s very rare that you get a couple of them to come your way. Even on the tax cuts. I mean, we’re going to be fighting these people in the ’18 election. We’re going to be fighting people that voted against the tax cuts, because the tax cuts are phenomenal and popular, and helping people and helping our country.

You saw Apple just brought $350 billion in; Exxon brought $50 billion in. (Applause.) So we’re going to be fighting.

The fact is, we need more Republicans to vote. (Applause.) We want to get our agenda. Because, now, what we have to do is in order to get a vote to fix our military, we have to give them $100 billion in stuff that nobody in this room, including me, wants, in many cases. It’s terrible. We need more Republicans. That’s why you have to get out and you have to fight for ’18. You have to do it. (Applause.)

We salute our great American flag, we put our hands on our hearts for the Pledge of Allegiance. (Applause.) And we all proudly stand for the national anthem. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

THE PRESIDENT: Above all else, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are at the center of American life. We know that. (Applause.) Because in America, we don’t worship government, we worship God. (Applause.)

Our nation’s motto is, “In God We Trust.” (Applause.) And this week, our nation lost an incredible leader who devoted his life to helping us understand what those words really mean. Leader. He was a leader. He was a great man.

We will never forget the historic crowds, that voice, the energy, and the profound faith of a preacher named Billy Graham. (Applause.) Great man and great family. Franklin Graham. Great family. And they were for us — I’ll tell you, they were for us. Right from the beginning they were for us.

As a young man, Billy decided to devote his life to God. That choice not only changed his life, it changed our country. And indeed, it even changed the world.

Reverend Graham’s belief in the power of God’s word gave hope to millions and millions who listened to him with his very beautiful, but very simple message: God loves you. (Applause.) And a very special tribute — because it’s almost never done — on Wednesday, we will celebrate Billy Graham’s life as he lies in honor in the Rotunda of our Capitol. (Applause.) Very rarely.

One day — Wednesday until Thursday, about 11 o’clock on Wednesday. I bet those lines are going to be long and beautiful, because he deserves it. Not everybody deserves it. But very few people — you look back, Ronald Reagan was so honored. Very few people are so honored. That’s a big thing. And he really, almost more than anybody you can think of, he deserves to be in the Rotunda. So that’s going to be very special. Wednesday at 11 o’clock. (Applause.) And Paul, and Mitch, and the whole group, they worked very hard to make it all happen. So we want to thank them too.

Everywhere you go, all over the country, in cities small and large, Americans of all faiths reach out to our Creator for strength, for inspiration, and for healing. Great time for healing. In times of grief and hardship, we turn to prayer for solace and for comfort.

In recent days, our entire nation has been filled with terrible pain and sorrow over the evil massacre in a great community — Parkland, Florida. This senseless act of mass murder has shocked our nation and broken our hearts.

This week, I had the honor of meeting with students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, with families who have lost their children in prior shootings — great families, great people — and with members of the local community right here in Washington, D.C. Our whole nation was moved by their strength and by their courage.

We listened to their heart-wrenching stories, asked them for ideas, and pledged to them — and I can speak for all of the senators and congressmen and congresswomen, all of the people in this room that are involved in this decision — that we will act. We will do something. We will act.

With us on Wednesday was one of the families whose daughter didn’t come home last week — a beautiful young woman named Meadow Pollack. Incredible family. I had them in the Oval Office. Incredible people. You’ve probably seen her picture. She had a beautiful, beautiful smile, and a beautiful life. So full of promise.

We wish there was something — anything — we could do to bring Meadow and all of the others back. There are not enough tears in the world to express our sadness and anguish for her family, and for every family that has lost a precious loved one. No family should ever save — and ever have to go in and suffer the way these families have suffered. They’ve suffered beyond anything that I’ve ever witnessed.

A father drops his daughter off at school, kisses her goodbye, waves to her — she’s walking up the path — and never sees her alive again. Gets a call. Can’t believe it. Thinks it’s a nightmare. Wants to wake up from the nightmare.

So we want to hear ideas from Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs about how we can improve security at our schools, tackle the issue of mental health. Because this was a sick person — very sick — and we had a lot of warning about him being sick. This wasn’t a surprise. To the people that knew him, this wasn’t even a little bit; in fact, some said, were surprised it took so long. So what are we doing? What are we doing? We want to ensure that when there are warning signs, we can act and act very quickly.

Why do we protect our airports, and our banks, our government buildings, but not our schools? (Applause.) It’s time to make our schools a much harder target for attackers. We don’t want them in our schools. (Applause.) We don’t want them.

When we declare our schools to be gun-free zones, it just puts our students in far more danger. (Applause.) Far more danger. Well-trained, gun-adept teachers and coaches and people that work in those buildings; people that were in the Marines for 20 years and retired; people in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Coast Guard; people that are adept — adept with weaponry and with guns — they teach. I mean, I don’t want to have 100 guards standing with rifles all over the school. You do a concealed carry permit. (Applause.)

And this would be a major deterrent because these people are inherently cowards. If they thought — like, if this guy thought that other people would be shooting bullets back at him, he wouldn’t have gone to that school. He wouldn’t have gone there. It’s a gun-free zone. It says, this is a gun-free zone; please check your guns way far away. And what happens is they feel safe. There’s nobody going to come at them.

This way, you may have — and remember, if you use this school as an example — this is a very big school with tremendous floor area and a lot of acreage. It’s a big, big school. Good school. A big, big school. You’d have to have 150 real guards. Look, you had one guard. He didn’t turn out to be too good, I will tell you that. He turned out to be not good. He was not a credit to law enforcement, that I can tell you. That I can tell you. (Applause.)

But as I’ve been talking about this idea — and I feel it’s a great idea, but some people that are good people are opposed to it; they don’t like the idea of teachers doing it. But I’m not talking about teachers. You know, CNN went on, they said, “Donald Trump wants all teachers.” Okay? Fake news, folks. Fake news. Fake news.

I don’t want a person that’s never handled a gun that wouldn’t know what a gun looks like to be armed. But out of your teaching population — out of your teaching population, you have 10 percent, 20 percent of very gun-adept people. Military people, law enforcement people, they teach. They teach. (Applause.)

And something I thought of this morning. You know what else? And I thought of it since I found and watched Peterson, the deputy who didn’t go into the school because he didn’t want to go into the school. Okay? He was tested under fire, and that wasn’t a good result.

But you know what I thought of as soon as I saw that? These teachers — and I’ve seen them at a lot of schools where they had problems — these teachers love their students. And the students love their teachers, in many cases. These teachers love their students. And these teachers are talented with weaponry and with guns. And they feel safe. And I’d rather have somebody that loves their students and wants to protect their students than somebody standing outside that doesn’t know anybody and doesn’t know the students, and, frankly, for whatever reason, decided not to go in even though he heard lots of shots being fired inside.

The teachers and the coaches and other people in the building — the dean, the assistant dean, the principal — they can — they love their people. They want to protect these kids. And I think we’re better with that. And this may be 10 percent or 20 percent of the population of teachers, et cetera. It’s not all of them. But you would have a lot, and you would tell people that they’re inside. And the beauty is, it’s concealed. Nobody would ever see it unless they needed it. It’s concealed.

So this crazy man who walked in wouldn’t even know who it is that has it. That’s good. That’s not bad; that’s good. And a teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened. (Applause.) They love their students. They love those students, folks. Remember that. They love their students.

And I’m telling you that would work. Because we need offensive capability. We can’t just say, oh, it’s a gun-free school. We’re going to do it a little bit better. Because then you say, “What happens outside?” The students now leave school, and you got a thousand students — you got 3,500 at the school we’re talking about — but you have a thousand students standing outside. The teachers are out there also. If a madman comes along, we have the same problem, but it’s outside of the school. Or they drive cars. There are a lot of things that can happen.

I want to stop it. And I know it’s a little controversial to say — but I have to say, since I started this two days ago, a lot of people that were totally opposed to it are now agreeing. They love their students. They don’t want their students to be killed or to be hurt. (Applause.)

So we have to do something that works. And one of the big measures that we will do, and everybody in this room I think has to agree — and there’s nobody that loves the Second Amendment more than I do. And there’s nobody that respects the NRA — they’re friends of mine. They backed us all. They’re great people. They’re patriots. (Applause.) But they’re great people. But we really do have to strengthen up, really strengthen up background checks. We have to do that. (Applause.)

And we have to do — for the mentally ill, we have to do very, very — we don’t want to people that are mentally ill to be having any form of weaponry. We have to be very strong on that. (Applause.)

So we’re going to do that. And I really believe that Congress is going to get it through this time. And they have a different leader. They have somebody that wants to get it through; not somebody that’s just all talk, no action, like so many of these folks. This is somebody that wants to get it through.

But I also want to protect — we need a hardened site. It has to be hardened. It can’t be soft. Because they’ll sneak in through a window, they’ll sneak in some way. And, again, you’re standing there totally unprotected.

You know the five great soldiers from four years ago, three of them were world-class marksmen. They were on a military base in a gun-free zone. They were asked to check their guns quite far away. And a maniac walked in, guns blazing, killed all of five of them. He wouldn’t of had a chance if these world-class marksmen had — on a military base — access to their guns. And I’m going to look at that whole policy on military bases. If we can’t have — (applause) — all five were killed. All five. The guy wouldn’t have had a chance.

But we’re going to look at that whole military base, gun-free zone. If we can’t have our military holding guns, it’s pretty bad. We had a number of instances on military bases. You know that. So we want to protect our military. We want to make our military stronger and better than it’s ever been before. (Applause.)

We also need to create a culture in our country that cherishes life and human dignity. That’s part of what we’re talking about. (Applause.) A culture that condemns violence and never glorifies violence. We need to foster real human connections and turn classmates and colleagues into friends and neighbors that want to fight for us.

We’re not just having a conversation about school safety. You’ve had conversations — in all fairness, I’m pretty new on this job. We’re here a little more than a year. I’ve been watching this stuff go on for 20 years. The President gets up, everybody is enthusiastic for the first couple of days, then it fades, fades, fades. Nothing ever gets done. We want to see if we can get it done. Let’s get it done right. (Applause.) We really owe it to our country. And I’ve been watching for a long time. Seen a lot of words, and I’ve seen very little action.

And, you know, if you think about, most of its just common sense. It’s not “do you love guns, do hate guns.” It’s common sense. It’s all common sense. And some of the strongest advocates about what I’m saying are the strongest advocates — I know them very well — political people — the strongest advocates for the Second Amendment. But this is common sense.

In addition to securing our schools, we’re also implementing a strategy to secure our streets. We want our kids to be safe everywhere they go, whether they’re in a classroom walking home from school or just outside playing with their friends. (Applause.) Every child deserves to grow up in a safe community surrounded by a loving family and to have a future filled with opportunity and with hope. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Just not fair.

Reducing violent crime in America is a top priority for my administration, and we will do whatever it takes to get it done. No talk. We’re going to do what it takes to get it done. (Applause.)

As you’ve seen, pretty well reported, that we’re significantly increasing gun prosecutions by tremendous percentages, and we’re working to get violent offenders off our streets and behind bars, and get them behind bars quickly, for a long time, or get them the hell out of our country. (Applause.)

In 2017, we brought cases against more violent offenders than any administration in a quarter of a century — more than any administration. And we’re just gearing up. We have tough people. I’ll tell you what — when you deal with MS-13, the only thing they understand is toughness. They don’t want anything. All they understand is toughness. If that ICE agent or Border Patrol agent is tougher than them, they respect him. We got the toughest guys you’ve ever seen. We got tough. (Applause.) They don’t respect anything else. And they shouldn’t be in our country. They were let in for years. They shouldn’t be, and we’re getting them out.

Our administration prosecuted more people for federal firearm charges than has been done in more than a decade. And again, we’re just gearing up. We’ve convicted 1,200 gang members and nearly 500 human traffickers. (Applause.) You know what human trafficking — who would think that we have this in this age? And with our foreign partners, we’ve helped charge or arrest more than 4,000 members of the savage gang that we talked about — MS-13.

Now, they don’t like guns. You know why? They’re not painful enough. These are animals. They cut people. They cut them. They cut them up in little pieces and they want them to suffer. And we take them into our country because our immigration laws are so bad. And when we catch them — it’s called catch-and-release — we have to, by law, catch them and then release them. Catch-and-release. And I can’t get the Democrats — and nobody has been able to for years — to approve common-sense measures that, when we catch these animal-killers, we can lock them up and throw away the keys. (Applause.)

In 2017, our brave ICE officers arrested more than 100,000 criminal aliens who have committed tens of thousands of crimes. And believe me, these are great people. They cannot — the laws are just against us. They’re against — they’re against safety. They don’t make sense. And you meet with Democrats and they’re always fighting for the criminal. They’re not fighting for law-abiding citizens. They’re always fighting for the criminal. (Applause.) Doesn’t make sense.

Here are just some of the criminal charges and convictions for the aliens arrested by ICE: 11,000 charges or convictions for sex crimes; 48,000 for assault; 13,000 for burglary; and 1,800 for killing people.

We’re cracking down on sanctuary cities. Can you believe this? (Applause.) Where they protect — that’s another one. Because we want our cities to be sanctuaries for law-abiding Americans, not for criminals. (Applause.)

And, by the way, the Senate Democrats and the House Democrats have totally abandoned DACA. They’ve total — they don’t even talk to me about it. They have totally abandoned. You know, we get the reputation — like DACA, it’s not Republican. We’ll let me tell you, it is Republican, because we want to do something about DACA, get it solved after all these years.

The Democrats are being totally unresponsive. They don’t want to do anything about DACA, I’m telling you. And it’s very possible that DACA won’t happen, and it’s not because of the Republicans, it’s going to be because of the Democrats. And frankly, you better elect more Republicans, folks, or it will never happen. (Applause.)

The Democrats voted in favor of sanctuary cities. In other words, they voted to protect criminal aliens instead of voting to protect the American citizens.

To secure our country, we are calling on Congress to build a great border wall to stop dangerous drugs and criminals from pouring into our country. (Applause.) And now they’re willing to give us the wall, but they don’t want to give us any of the laws to keep these people out.

So we’re going to get the wall, but they don’t want to give us all of the other — chain migration, lottery. Think of a lottery. You have a country. They put names in. You think they’re giving us their good people? Not too many of you people are going to be in a lottery. So we pick out people. Then they turn out to be horrendous, and we don’t understand why.

They’re not giving us their best people, folks. They’re not giving us — I mean, use your heads. They’re giving us — it’s a lottery. I don’t want people coming into this country with a lottery. I want people coming into this country based on merit. Based on merit. (Applause.)

I want people, and we all want to be admitting people, who have skills, who can support themselves financially, who can contribute to our economy, who will love our people, and who will share our values, who will love our country. (Applause.)

I don’t want people who drive a car at 100 miles an hour down the West Side Highway and kill 8 innocent victims, and destroy the lives of 14 more. Nobody talks about that. Nobody ever talks about the people that have been so horribly injured, who lose legs and arms, in Manhattan, where I used to spend my time.

I know it very well, the stretch along the West Side Highway. People run in order to stay in shape. They want to be healthy, they want to look good. They’re running all the time; I see it. They run. We work in different ways. (Laughter.) But they run. No, but think of this — they run. And they’re so — they want to be fit. They’re proud people. They want to be fit, and they’re running up and down West Side Highway. It’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful thing.

And this maniac takes a car going down the highway, and just turns to a right, and he kills eight. But he really badly wounded 12 to 14 other people.

So somebody think of it: Runs to stay in shape, leaves the house, is jogging along, working hard, ends up going home two months later with no leg or with no arm, or with two legs missing. Nobody ever talks about that. They talk about the people, rightfully, that were killed. But they don’t talk about the people whose lives have been just changed — just changed. They don’t talk about that.

This guy came in through chain migration and a part of the lottery system.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: They say 22 people came in with him. In other words, an aunt, an uncle, a grandfather, a mother, a father, whoever came in. But a lot of people came in. That’s chain migration. Let’s see how those people are doing, by the way.

We’ve got to change our way. Merit system. I want merit system. Because you know what’s happening? All of these companies are coming into our country. They’re all coming into our country. And when they come in, we need people that are going to work. I’m telling you, we need workers now. We need workers. (Applause.)

But when I walked in today, did anyone ever hear me do the snake during the campaign? Because I had five people outside say, “Could you do ‘The Snake’?” And I said, well, people have heard it. Who hasn’t heard “The Snake”? You should read it anyways. (Laughs.) Let’s do it anyway. I’ll do it. All right? Should we do it? (Applause.)

Now, this was a rock-and-roll song — little amendments — a rock-and-roll song. But every time I do it, people — and you have to think of this in terms of immigration. We have to have great people come into our — I want people to come into our country. And I want people that are going to help us. And I don’t want people that are going to come in and be accepting all of the gifts of our country for the next 50 years and contribute nothing. I don’t want that, and you don’t want that.

I want people that are going to help and people that are going to work for Chrysler, who is now moving from Mexico into Michigan, and so many other — and Apple, by the way. (Applause.) And Foxconn up in Wisconsin. They’re going to need 25,000 workers. I want people that can come in, and get to work and work hard. Even if it means a learning period — that’s fine.

But I want people that are going to come in and work. And I want people that love us and look at security. And they want you to be safe, and they want to be safe. I want great people coming into this country. I don’t want people coming in the way they do now, because I want people that contribute.

So this is called “The Snake.” And think of it in terms of immigration. And you may love it, or you may say, isn’t that terrible. Okay? And if you say, isn’t that terrible, who cares? Because the way they treat me — that’s peanuts compared to the way they treat me. Okay? (Laughter.) Immigration.

“On her way to work one morning, down the path along the lake, a tenderhearted woman saw a poor, half-hearted, frozen snake. His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew. ‘Poor thing,’ she cried, ‘I’ll take you in, and I’ll take care of you.’

‘Take me in, oh, tender woman. Take me in, for Heaven’s sake. Take me in, oh, tender woman,’ sighed the vicious snake.

She wrapped him up all cozy in a comforter of silk, and laid him by her fireside with some honey and some milk. She hurried home from work that night, and soon as she arrived, she found that pretty snake she’d taken in had been revived.

‘Take me in, oh, tender woman. Take me in for Heaven’s sake. Take me in, oh, tender woman,’ sighed the vicious snake.

She clutched him to her bosom, ‘You’re so beautiful,’ she cried. But if I hadn’t brought you in by now, surely you would have died.’

She stroked his pretty skin again, and kissed and held him tight. But instead of saying thank you, that snake gave her a vicious bite.

‘Take me in, oh, tender woman. Take me in for Heaven’s sake. Take me in, oh, tender woman,’ sighed the vicious snake.

‘I saved you,’ cried the woman. ‘And you’ve bitten me. Heaven’s why? You know your bite is poisonous, and now I’m going to die.’

‘Oh, shut up, silly woman,’ said the reptile with a grin. ‘You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.’” (Applause.)

And that’s what we’re doing with our country, folks. We’re letting people in, and it’s going to be a lot of trouble. It’s only getting worse. But we’re giving you protection like never before. Our law enforcement is doing a better job than we’ve ever done before. And we love our country. And we’re going to take care of our country. Okay? We’re going to take care of our country. (Applause.)

So just in finishing, our country is starting to do very well. Our economy is blazing. Jobs are at a record level. Jobs are so good. 2.7 million jobs created since the election. (Applause.) Unemployment claims have reached a 45-year low. (Applause.)

African American unemployment has reached the lowest level in our history. (Applause.) Hispanic unemployment has reached the lowest level in our history. (Applause.) Women — women unemployment is at the lowest level in 18 years. (Applause.) Wages are rising for the first time in many, many years. (Applause.)

Small business confidence is at a record high. And thanks to our massive tax cuts, millions of Americans are getting to keep a great percentage of their money instead of paying it to a government that throws it out the window. (Applause.)

So I just leave you with this: We have to fight Nancy Pelosi. They want to give your money away. They want to give your money away. They want to end your tax cuts. They want to do things that you wouldn’t even believe, including taking your Second Amendment rights away. They will do that.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: So we have to get out there and we have to fight in ’18 like never before — just the way you fought with us. Just the way you fought with us. You fought so hard, and you were so tough, and you were so smart. You were so smart. And you know what? I know for a fact you did the right thing, because we’re looking at the numbers. And the numbers — even they have to give credit for the kind of numbers that we’re producing. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. (Applause.)

Under my administration, the era of economic surrender is over. We’re renegotiating trade deals that are so bad, whether it’s NAFTA or whether it’s World Trade Organization, which created China — that created — if you look at China, it was going along like this, then we opened, stupidly, this deal. And China has been like a rocket ship ever since.

And now, last year, we had almost a $500 billion trade deficit with China. We can’t have that. We can’t have that. I have great respect for President Xi, but we can’t have that. We have to go, and we have to do what we have to do. We just can’t let countries — as an example, Mexico. We have a $100 billion trade deficit with Mexico. What does that tell you? You know what it tells you? NAFTA is no good. It never was any good. But for some reason, nobody ever changed it. They emptied our factories — you got to see the car plants and the auto plants in Mexico. Like — you’ve never seen anything like it before.

I want those companies — and they’re starting — I want them back here. I want them back here. They’re going to come back here, too. (Applause.) And we want to make our neighbors happy. But we can’t continuously have other nations taking advantage of the United States like never before. And this has gone on for a long time. This has gone on for longer — the last administration was a disaster, but this has gone on for much longer than the last administration. And we got to change it. We’re going to change it.

So we’re renegotiating deals. And you know what? Hate to say it, but if we can’t make a fair deal for the United States, we will terminate the deal and we’ll start all over again. (Applause.) We have to do it. (Applause.)

So, under my administration, and with your help — don’t forget — you, many of you, were the forgotten people. You were the people that, when the polls came out, they didn’t know that you existed. The Democrats are trying to figure out who you are, because they want to get you back. But you are people — we’ve had people that never voted, but they’re great patriots — but they never saw anybody they wanted to vote for. Then they go to the election, they’ve got Trump-Pence, Trump-Pence. They got hats, they got all sorts of things. Trump over here — “Make America Great Again” hats. Right? (Applause.)

So our country is starting to do well. We are going to make it great, better, safer than it ever was before. The reason is you. This has been a great movement. They try like hell, they cannot stand what we’ve done. But we’re doing the right thing. We’re even doing the right thing for them. They just don’t know it yet. (Applause.) They just don’t know it yet.

Even the media — the media will absolutely support me sometime prior to the election. All those horrible people back there, they’re going to support me. You know why? Because if somebody else won, their ratings would go down, they’d all be out of business. (Applause.) Nobody would watch. They’d all be out of business.

So I just want to tell you that we are going to win. I’d love you to get out there, work really hard for ’18. We need more Republicans to keep the tax cuts and keep all of this going.

And I love you. I respect you. I appreciate everything you’ve done for the country. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate everything you’ve done.

I do want to say, because people have asked — North Korea — we imposed today the heaviest sanctions ever imposed on a country before. (Applause.)

And frankly, hopefully something positive can happen. We will see. But hopefully something positive can happen. But that just was announced, and I wanted to let you know. We have imposed the heaviest sanctions ever imposed.

So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for everything. You have been incredible partners. (Applause.) Incredible partners. And I will let you know in the absolute strongest of terms, we’re going to make America great again, and I will never, ever, ever let you down. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you. (Applause.)

END

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[06:25 of Video] SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, I’m delighted to be in Cairo, my first trip to Egypt as Secretary of State, and to really have very comprehensive discussions about this almost one-half-century relationship between the U.S. and Egypt and our commitment to strengthening this partnership in the years to come.

I’m also very pleased to be with Foreign Minister Shoukry, who has become a friend as we have engaged on a number of challenges in the region and to address those jointly and with a great deal of agreement between us as to how those issues need to be addressed. I look forward to my meeting with President al-Sisi and appreciate his receiving me as well.

We had a very productive discussion on our shared regional and security concerns. We spoke about opportunities as to how to strengthen our ties and, as the foreign minister indicated, mechanisms by which we can deepen those ties and further explore areas for mutual cooperation, first through the strategic dialogue which we’ve agreed we will have later this year, and then we’re going to explore also the possibility of a 2+2 dialogue to even allow us to further enhance these conversations both on a full range of issues of not just security concerns, but political and economic opportunities as well.

I did express to the foreign minister our condolences to the people of Egypt for the violence that they have been suffering from the terrorist attacks perpetrated by ISIS and other terrorist groups. Egypt’s been battling this level of extremism for many years, and we continue to be steadfast partners in their response to these attacks throughout this time.

We agreed that we would continue our close cooperation on counterterrorism measures, including our joint commitment to the defeat of ISIS, and Egypt has been a very important member of the Defeat-ISIS Coalition from the beginning. They – Egypt deals with the threats of ISIS themselves and are dealing with it certainly currently in the Sinai.

We also discussed the importance of the protection and promotion of human rights and the vital role of civil society in Egypt. With the presidential elections planned for the end of March, the United States, as it does in all countries, supports a transparent and credible electoral process, and all citizens being given the right and the opportunity to participate freely and fairly.

On Libya, the United States and Egypt support the UN’s Action Plan for Libya for credible and peaceful elections in their country. This will promote stability – much-needed stability for Libya and their economy to prosper. As the Security Council affirmed on December the 14th, the Libyan Political Agreement in our view must remain the framework for a political solution throughout Libya’s transitional period.

Foreign Minister Shoukry and I also discussed Syria and how we can work together to reinforce the UN-led Geneva political process, which is the only political framework through which this conflict can be resolved. And Egypt has played a very important role in supporting dialogue between opposition representatives and the central government in Damascus.

On the Middle East peace, I reiterated that the Trump administration remains committed to achieving a lasting peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Now, the foreign minister and I also discussed how we can intensify our countries’ economic engagement and support our private sectors to generate jobs and prosperity for both of our people, and I acknowledged and welcomed the very important – although we know difficult – steps towards reform that President Sisi has undertaken in order to create a very strong foundation for future prosperity and economic performance in Egypt, and those have been necessary, although difficult, to be fully – receive the full support of the IMF, and Egypt has met all of those requirements.

We’ll do what we can to continue to encourage the economic recovery and we hope that American companies are able to increase their investments in Egypt that will create jobs and opportunities here as well.

The United States, again, commits itself to standing with Egypt, standing shoulder to shoulder in these – in the fight against terrorism, but also standing together to create a more stable region for everyone as well, and I thank the foreign minister for our opportunity to meet and exchange on so many important issues. Thank you.

FOREIGN MINISTER SHOUKRY: Thank you very much.

MODERATOR: (In Arabic.)

QUESTION: (In Arabic.)

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, I think the commitment the U.S. has to Egypt’s security in the fight against terrorism should be evident, and both with the release of about a billion dollars of foreign military financing assistance to Egypt to continue to strengthen its capabilities, and also sharing of other approaches to countering terrorism, some of which we can talk about, some of which we can’t so easily talk about. But our joint commitment to defeat ISIS is steadfast and there has been no gap between Egypt and the United States in our joint efforts to confront terrorists and extremist – extremism in the region, but most specifically here in Egypt as well.

So I think the Egyptian people should be confident that the U.S. commitment to continuing to support Egypt in this fight against terrorism, in bringing security for the Egyptian people is steadfast, and that will continue, and we had a great deal of exchange today about how we can advance that. And we just mentioned the intent to have a strategic dialogue later this year. All of these are opportunities for us to identify other ways that we can strengthen and support Egypt’s fight against terrorism, but also, ultimately, to strengthen the economic development of Egypt as well.

MODERATOR: (In Arabic.) Carol, Washington Post.

QUESTION: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, given the concerns (inaudible) to run against the president (inaudible) election and who were arrested and disqualified, how (inaudible) do you believe those elections will be? And will the United States consider withholding more military aid from Egypt (inaudible)?

And Mr. Foreign Minister, sir, human rights groups have called this the most repressive era in modern Egyptian history. What did Secretary Tillerson tell you about democracy and civil liberty here in Egypt? And will anything change here in Egypt after your meeting today? Thank you.

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, I think as I indicated in my prepared remarks, and I would answer the same: We have always advocated for free and fair elections, transparent elections, not just for Egypt but in any country. And so the U.S. is always going to advocate for an electoral process that respects the rights of its citizens to make the choices the citizens want to make and the full participation of citizens in those elections. And nothing has changed about our advocacy for those types of elections.

FOREIGN MINISTER SHOUKRY: As relates to some of the comments that have been made by certain members of the human rights community and other activists, I would only recommend that you ascertain for yourself the nature and the current situation in Egypt as relates to human rights, and how the Egyptian people view this administration and its efforts to strengthen and protect human rights, and whether there is that sense of restriction that you alluded to. I think it is – it isn’t helpful that a certain group projects from a perspective of lack of information, lack of direct association to a society, but it is much, much more important the general conditions, the freedom of press that is available, the variety of television shows, the dialogue and the exchange. Development in the social and political field is an evolutionary process. I think over the last 11 years, the Egyptian people have shown their commitment and their determination and their ability to change their course and to indicate their dissatisfaction. If they deemed that they were dissatisfied, they have been able to change two governments in the last seven years, and they have undertaken legislative elections and know how to protect their rights and to advocate for those rights.

So it’s important that I think we recognize that it is the Egyptian people who should determine how they are applying their freedoms and their political activism, and I hope that you will have the opportunity while you’re here in Egypt to discuss this with the Egyptians on the street and ascertain from them directly whether they are satisfied with current conditions.

We had a discussion with the Secretary related to Egypt’s efforts to develop both politically, economically, and socially, and that we continue to do so out of our desire to see Egypt evolve into a place of – that can fulfill the aspirations of its people, and we will continue to rely on the support that we can depend on from the United States in this regard. These are commitments that this administration is confident it will fulfill, and it is responsible to the Egyptian people to continue to fulfill those commitments, as has been stipulated in our constitution.

MODERATOR: (In Arabic.)

QUESTION: (In Arabic.)

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, I think it’s important to note that in the announcement President Trump made regarding Jerusalem he also made two very important points as well, one of which was he was not advocating for any change to the status quo as to oversight of the holy sites, recognizing the proper role of existing authorities; and the second is that the final boundaries of Jerusalem are yet to be determined, and that those will be decided among the parties. And those – I think it’s oftentimes those two important points seem to have been overlooked in his announcement. And yes, the U.S. is still committed to the peace process and still believes we have an important role to play in bringing the parties together and seeing a resolution to this. And President Trump is committed to that.

FOREIGN MINISTER SHOUKRY: (In Arabic.)

MODERATOR: (In Arabic.) Wall Street Journal, Felicia.

QUESTION: Thank you. Secretary Tillerson, Vice President Pence, in an interview with The Washington Post, endorsed what you’ve described publicly as talks about talks with the North Koreans, and president – South Korea’s President Moon said he would go to Pyongyang. Is this the start of a diplomatic process in North Korea?

And then for Foreign Minister Shoukry, the U.S. has in the past raised concerns about Egypt’s ties with North Korea. What is Egypt doing to cut those ties?

SECRETARY TILLERSON: I’m not sure I could hear the last part of your question.

QUESTION: I was just asking if this – is this the start of a diplomatic process with North Korea?

SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, as to – as to the Vice President’s comments about potentially having talks and whether it’s the start of a diplomatic process, I think it’s too early to judge. As we’ve said for some time, it’s really up to the North Koreans to decide when they’re ready to engage with us in a sincere way, a meaningful way. They know what has to be on the table for conversations. We’ve said for some time that I think it’s important that we have – we’re going to need to have some discussions that precede any form of negotiation to determine whether the parties are, in fact, ready to engage in something this meaningful, in order for us to then put together the construct of a negotiation. So we’ll just have to wait and see.

FOREIGN MINISTER SHOUKRY: We did discuss with Secretary Tillerson the issues related to North Korea, the Korean Peninsula, and the security of that region. Egypt has had normal diplomatic ties with North Korea, as does many Western and NATO members, and those ties are, in terms of the relationship, limited to representation, and there is almost no existing economic or other areas of cooperation. But we are concerned with the current status with the threats emanating from the proliferation of nuclear weapons, a situation which we deem as threatening to the global nonproliferation regime, one that has to be dealt within our maintaining global security, also the threats of ballistic missile systems to South Korea and to Japan, and we believe that all of these issues must be resolved for the security of the region and the Korean Peninsula. And we will continue to discuss these issues and to take the appropriate measures to deal with these challenges.

Thank you very much.

[End Transcript]

Consider this a kick-off to my official NAFTA watch.  Readers will note my earlier spidey-sense prediction of NAFTA withdrawal announcement in/around the end of February through March.   I cannot see a delay in an announcement extending beyond March 2018.  Ergo, CTH is fine-tuning the radar to watch closely.

The fatal flaw within NAFTA has not been addressed.  Neither Canada nor Mexico has even slightly indicated a willingness to engage talks over the fatal flaw.

Exactly the opposite happened earlier this month when Canada signed up to the TPP deal.

The agreement has yet to be ratified by Canadian Parliament, and many are nervous, but it will likely get done.

The NAFTA decision will be the biggest political and economic decision in the Trump administration so far, and the corporate GOPe response is anticipated to be beyond ugly.  Additionally, it would be intellectually dishonest not to accept there are very specific interests watching these pages as part of their proactive strategy. (Hi, Tom)

That said, if you were Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and you noted the specificity of the current trade-policy planetary positions; and you were overlaying the preparatory action taken by Justin from Canada; and you understand there are factually hundreds of billions in play; you would be a fool not to go past past Economy Minister Ildefonso Guarjardo and directly engage the ultimate decision-maker, U.S. President Donald Trump, out of an urgent need to evaluate the survivability of your economic surroundings.  It would be imprudent not to prepare yourself:

(White House) President Donald J. Trump spoke today with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico to offer condolences to the families of the victims of the helicopter accident in Oaxaca. President Peña Nieto returned the sentiment and expressed Mexico’s solidarity with the United States following the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. President Trump underscored his commitment to expanding cooperation between the United States and Mexico on security, trade, and immigration.

The basic issue is a simple one – for the United States NAFTA has a fatal flaw.  Canada and Mexico are used by China, Europe and Asian nations as a way to work-around direct trade with the U.S. and those nations use NAFTA as a backdoor into the U.S. market. It works out great for Canada and Mexico, but terrible for the U.S.

It is a structural issue and no amount of negotiation is going to remove the fatal flaw unless Canada and Mexico agreed to terms that are directly against their prior financial interests.  Absolutely ZERO action has been taken to address this issue through six rounds of prior NAFTA discussion.  Round six ended with VERY terse words from U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer specifically over this issue.

Justin from Canada recently signed up to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  With that decision the fatal flaw -from a U.S. perspective- just became the final straw to end the U.S. participation in NAFTA.

The U.S. cannot make any bilateral trade deals with TPP nations while those same TPP nations have an alternative access route to the U.S. market through Canada via NAFTA.

Therefore the only way for President Trump to finish a trade agreement with South Korea (current tense negotiations – see Samsung etc.) is to first remove their NAFTA alternative. Anticipating this reality S-Korea also filed a WTO trade challenge earlier today.

Absent of massive last-minute economic concessions (I’m talking full-blown acquiescence) by Canada and Mexico there is no alternative other than for President Trump to withdraw.

Understandably, South Korea is currently hosting the U.S. Olympics and it would have been extremely poor form, very impolite, and economically very destabilizing for Moon Jae-in if POTUS Trump had made the NAFTA announcement in the months/weeks leading up to their international spotlight event.  [It’s not only CTH who follow the global tentacles of multinational trade decisions.]

However, with the Olympics ending next week that diplomatic hurdle is removed… the countdown clock now officially begins.

While speaking during a White House ceremony earlier today President Trump announced he has directed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to develop regulations surrounding “bump fire stocks”, noting the intended regulation would be an actionable step to help prevent future mass shootings.

During his remarks President Trump noted: “We cannot merely take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference, we must actually make a difference.” The decision to eliminate ‘bump-fire stocks’ is smart policy and politically.

On the policy side the regulatory move is in line with already existing rules on firearms that ban auto-fire weapons. On the political side the memorandum stops opposition from saying the President is not taking action; the regulatory memorandum reflects action taken by President Trump that was not taken by President Obama.

(From the memorandum) After the deadly mass murder in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 1, 2017, I asked my Administration to fully review how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulates bump fire stocks and similar devices.

Although the Obama Administration repeatedly concluded that particular bump stock type devices were lawful to purchase and possess, I sought further clarification of the law restricting fully automatic machineguns.

Accordingly, following established legal protocols, the Department of Justice started the process of promulgating a Federal regulation interpreting the definition of “machinegun” under Federal law to clarify whether certain bump stock type devices should be illegal. The Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was published in the Federal Register on December 26, 2017. Public comment concluded on January 25, 2018, with the Department of Justice receiving over 100,000 comments.

Today, I am directing the Department of Justice to dedicate all available resources to complete the review of the comments received, and, as expeditiously as possible, to propose for notice and comment a rule banning all devices that turn legal weapons into machineguns.

Although I desire swift and decisive action, I remain committed to the rule of law and to the procedures the law prescribes. Doing this the right way will ensure that the resulting regulation is workable and effective and leaves no loopholes for criminals to exploit. I would ask that you keep me regularly apprised of your progress.

You are authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register. ~President Donald J Trump (White House Link)

Earlier today President Trump hosted an event ceremony honoring Public Safety Medal of Valor recipients.  The President began his remarks with comments on the Parkland FL school shooting.

NAFTA is as precarious as a slow-spinning plate on a stick. Mexico and Canada are both  taking half-hearted turns recharging the momentum – while simultaneously looking for trade options due to, well,.. the inevitable.

The basic issue is a simple one; for the U.S. NAFTA has a fatal flaw. Canada and Mexico are used by China and Asian nations as a way to work-around direct trade with the U.S. and use NAFTA as a backdoor into the U.S. market.  It works out great for Canada and Mexico, but terrible for the U.S.  It’s a structural issue and no amount of negotiation is going to remove the fatal flaw unless Canada and Mexico agree to terms that are directly against their current financial interests.

Ergo POTUS Trump is positioned to withdraw.

Trying to keep the U.S. in NAFTA, but understanding the likelihood of exit, Justin from Canada originally approached China for a big trade deal.  Justin didn’t find Happy Panda in his discussions; instead he found The Red Dragon behind the Panda mask.  China was willing to talk trade, but China tiered their approach because Canada is only valuable to China as long as the NAFTA door is open.  Without NAFTA China has no use for Canada.

Justin left China with dragon burns and immediately realized his trade cards were getting weaker by the day…. so he had to sign-up for the Trans-Pacific-Partnership.  Unfortunately for Justin, though some think he didn’t realize the consequence, signing TPP guaranteed POTUS Trump would exit NAFTA.

Why?  Because if the U.S. stayed in NAFTA the TPP nations would now have a collective backdoor into the valuable U.S. market through Canada.  The NAFTA fundamental flaw just became more flawed.

Mexico discovered the same.  China will talk expanded trade, but only on tiered terms. One tier with NAFTA (good stuff for Mexico); one tier without NAFTA (not as good for Mexico).

The $20 trillion U.S. market is what China wants access to; Xi Jinping doesn’t care about Canada or Mexico – beyond how each of them can benefit China’s products entering the U.S. market.

China plays a zero-sum game; if it doesn’t benefit China, it isn’t done.

So Justin from Canada now realizes he nailed his nations’ trade feet to ASEAN economies [sans Trump’s BFF golf partner Shinzo Abe (Japan)], who care about Canada as a door to the U.S. more than an actual trade partner.  FUBAR eh’?

Simultaneously, Justin from Canada still has red-face from Beijing burns and has to accept he just guaranteed: “no U.S. NAFTA deal is possible”.

Where does rainbow socks turn now…. India.  Except, well,… there’s a problem.

You see, while Justin from Canada was trying to find his way through the China, ASEAN and  TPP trade matrix, POTUS Trump and India’s Prime Minister Modi were hugging it out on trade deals; with U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley courting the national Indian crowd.

Yup, Justin from Canada shows up in India, and the airport -much like the rest of the diplomatic venues- is empty.  POTUS Trump arrived early and stole all the trade hugging last year; then used a geopolitical strategy of punching Pakistan in the teeth to elevate his own Indian magnanimity.   A bazillion India peeps loves-them-some-Trump now.

More FUBAR eh’?

So Justin from Canada is traveling around India with his family and not getting any love.

Oh dear.

POTUS Trump began with China (Feb ’17). Outlines drawn. Handshakes. But he did so knowing he was dealing with Xi Jinping the dragon, not the panda.   Trump acted like he was accepting magnanimous panda, his granddaughter helped exhibit panda deference, but all while Trump was really viewing Xi with dragon-face.  Brilliant.

POTUS Trump then expanded economic influence through Saudi Arabia and the GCC creating new economic allies based on new definitions; and strategic security partnerships without the traditional U.S. cultural demands.  Stunning results ongoing.

POTUS Trump worked quickly through the economics of Europe gauging who was on-board and who was not.  France, Poland, Hungary all quickly joined up. Germany and the U.K. not-so-much… [Two visits to Macron and a reciprocal state visit soon] …Now go look at the economic results each EU state is facing; look who is winning.

POTUS Trump moved quickly on India as leverage with China trade discussions.  If China does stupid,… Trump hugs Modi tighter.   Trump kicks Pakistan in teeth with brutal truth over Afghanistan and their co-dependent enabling of Taliban.  Modi smiles bigger still.

POTUS Trump moved BIGLY in Asia.  Trump gave BFF Shinzo Abe first place. Japan has golden ticket to U.S. market based on reciprocity – everything is possible and Abe is on top of the world.  Trump knows China will *ONLY* do that which is in their interests… and he knows Xi Jinping needs the U.S. more than the U.S. needs China.  Worst part for Xi is he knows that Trump knows…

We always knew there was a generally good trade strategy visible from POTUS Trump, but it needs to be said that NO-ONE realized just how well thought out it really is.   Now I know what this guy does instead of sleeping… he maps out the matrix of trade leverage and economic strategy….. it’s almost absurd how keenly insightful Trump is on the geopolitical side of economics.

Our president has flaws and faults, we all accept that…. but he is engaging in international economics with a mastery never seen by a U.S. president.  EVER.

That truth is why the multinationals (corporations and banks) hate him so much, yet fear him a thousand times more.  If you doubt, or perhaps just need confirmation,  just look at what happened in Davos.

…“it is much safer to be feared than loved because …love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.”

~Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

Earlier today one of the more consequential meetings took place between President Trump and his economic team -vs- the professional UniParty apparatus consisting of multinational corporate-purchased Democrats and Republicans.

The policy discussion isn’t sexy or headline making from the perspective of the U.S. media; however, the resulting outcomes will have more of a bearing on you and your family than any other economic policy conflict in this administration.

On one side we have President Trump and a very focused policy and trade group containing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Robert Lighthizer. On the other side the corporate UniParty apparatus consisting of U.S. Chamber of Commerce Republicans and Democrats.

An encapsulated view would be Main Street (Trump) -vs- Wall Street (UniParty).

.

This is THE battle. This is the “trillions at stake“. Everything else is chaff and countermeasures; a war is being waged around this financial issue. Everything within the current conflict is downstream from the economic argument around these issues.

This is the epicenter of the entire institutional conflict against President Trump. This is why THE SWAMP, through all its various affiliated and indulgent enterprises – including the intelligence apparatus, are waging a battle against the disruption that is President Trump.

It is the money.

Period.

[Transcript] THE PRESIDENT: Okay, thank you very much. I’m delighted to welcome both Republicans and Democrats. Nice sound. Isn’t that a nice sound? And we won’t be discussing DACA, but there’s plenty of discussion right now going on about DACA from both the House and the Senate, to the White House.

We’re here today to discuss a matter of vital importance to our nation’s economy and security, and I’ve been discussing it for years. And I’ve certainly discussed it in great detail on the campaign trail. That’s America’s aluminum and steel industries, and many other industries where we are taken advantage of by other countries. And I alluded to it yesterday, too.

Last year, I directed the Secretary of Commerce to investigate whether steel and aluminum imports are threatening to impair U.S. national security. You see what’s happened with our steel and aluminum industries. They’re being decimated by dumping from many countries, in particular one, but many countries. They’re dumping and destroying our industry and destroying the families of workers. And we can’t let that happen.

Secretary Ross submitted the result of the investigations to me last month. My administration is now reviewing the reports and considering all options. And part of the options would be tariffs coming in. As they dump steel, they pay tariffs — substantial tariffs — which means the United States would actually make a lot of money, and probably our steel industry and our aluminum industry would come back into our country. Right now, it’s decimated.

It’ll make a decision, and I will make a decision that reflects the best interests of the United States, including the need to address overproduction in China and other countries. You have countries that are so overproducing, and what they’re doing is they are dumping it on us. And you look at empty factories, steel factories, and plants, and it’s a very sad thing to look at.

I’ve been watching — I’ve been looking at them for two years, as I went around campaigning. No matter where you go, you look at them and see what happened to U.S. Steel and these other companies. They were the giants and now they’re hanging on for their life.

I look forward to hearing your views, and I’d like to have some of you speak. And you have very strong — I know, Roy, you do, and we all do, probably, have pretty strong views on this.

I look at it two ways: I want to keep prices down, but I also want to make sure that we have a steel industry and aluminum industry, and we do need that for national defense. If we ever have a conflict, we don’t want to be buying the steel from a country that we’re fighting because somehow that doesn’t work very well.

But we hopefully won’t have any conflicts, but we still have to consider that. And we have to look at the national defense, and we have to look at a steel industry. We cannot be without a steel industry. We cannot be without an aluminum industry. And so what we’re talking about is tariffs and/or quotas.

I think maybe, Roy, would you like to start? We’ve discussed this over the past. Do you have any suggestion?

SENATOR BLUNT: Well, Mr. President, I think we do need to be careful here that we don’t start a reciprocal battle on tariffs. You know, we make aluminum and we make steel in Missouri, but we buy a lot of aluminum and we buy a lot of steel as well —

THE PRESIDENT: That’s right.

SENATOR BLUNT: — from bass boats to beer cans. There’s a lot of aluminum out there. We’ve got an aluminum manufacturer that closed down, but with special electric rates is reopening under new management.

And so, clearly, we’re concerned about those new jobs, but also concerned about all the jobs — whether it’s in the electric steel area or the aluminum area, are very, very price sensitive here.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. And I understand that very well. One thing I just — I do want to tell you, we just got this notice. General Motors in Korea announces the first step in necessary restructuring. They’re going to — GM Korea company announced today that it will cease production and close its Gunsan plant in May of 2018, and they’re going to move back to Detroit.

You don’t hear these things, except for the fact that Trump became President. Believe me, you wouldn’t be hearing that. So they’re moving back from Korea to Detroit. They’re moving.

Also, you saw Chrysler moving from Mexico to Michigan. And you have many other companies. They all want to be where the action is. The big tax cuts had a big impact. And Kevin knows that maybe better than anybody. But it had a big impact on that decision.

But when you see that General Motors — we have a very bad trade deal with Korea. Very, very bad trade deal. It’s a deal that — it’s incompetent that somebody could have made a deal like that.

So we have a horrible trade deal with Korea. But now, even before we do something with that — because we’re negotiating the trade deal with Korea, and we’ll either negotiate a fair deal or we’re going to terminate the deal. But before we do that, already General Motors is coming back into Detroit. That is a really significant statement. Many others to follow from many other countries.

Mike, go ahead.

REPRESENTATIVE BOST: Mr. President, let me tell you that 2,800 people were laid off in my district in 2015, in a steel plant that’s been operating for over 100 years. The concern that we have is, is that steel plant produces what’s known as the oil country tubular goods — OCTG.

OCTG, when we’re doing the expiration, and everything like that, in oil that we are — but Korea has dumped 200 percent in the last year in an overabundance into that particular market. Because of that, we’re not able to get those 2,800 jobs back. And like I said, those have been there. That group of people there —

THE PRESIDENT: So where did it go? It went to Korea?

REPRESENTATIVE BOST: All of the products that — they’re even coming from Korea now that we’ve turned up. And unless we use the power under 232 — because if something goes south, now all of a sudden, while we’re trying to become energy independent — but these plants don’t turn up overnight, and we’ve got to try to do something to work for a long-term goal with that.

THE PRESIDENT: The Korean Agreement — as you know, Mike, and most of the people at this table — that was done by the last administration. It was supposed to produce 150,000 to 200,000 jobs. And it did — for Korea. For us, it produced nothing but losses. It’s a horrible deal. All you have to do is look at it. You know it’s going to be bad.

So the Korea deal was a disaster. It was supposed to be good for us, and it turned out to be very bad for us. And just — you know, you’re one example of it, but there are many examples all over the country. So I just think that General Motors moving back into Detroit is just a fantastic thing. That’s just a sign of many other companies to come.

Mike Pence, would you have something to say?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Mr. President. I just want to thank all of the Republican and Democrats taking time to be here and their profound interest in this issue.

To your point, this is about our economy, but it’s about national security. And the President directed a 232 review to determine whether or not our national security has been affected by the dumping of steel and aluminum.

And today, it is very much the President’s desire, our administration’s desire to hear from each of you and the perspectives that will also inform the decisions that the President will make.

I think that it’s fair to say that we all support national security. I think that’s evidenced by the recent budget agreement that the President helped drive, and Republicans and Democrats have supported, for a historic increase in our national defense.

But we also all support American jobs. And we very much look forward to your counsel as the President approaches this decision, and I appreciate the bipartisan spirit of this meeting and the conversation that will follow.

THE PRESIDENT: And really, as Mike said, I want to hear from both sides. We have a lot of great representatives, both Democrats and Republicans. I want to hear from both sides before we make the decision.

In one case, you’re going to create jobs. You may have a higher price or maybe a little bit higher, but you’re going to have jobs. In the other case, you may have a lower price, but you’re not going have jobs; it’s going to be made in China and other places. So those are big decisions. But, to me, jobs are very important.

Todd, do you have something to say?

SENATOR YOUNG: Mr. President, thank you for having us here today. I represent a state that is not only a major manufacturer of steel — we have U.S. Steel, Arcelor Mittal, and others who are manufacturing it — but we have the downstream users, which you alluded to. So, clearly, you understand the need to balance the two, to come up with a balanced approach here.

I think the main target — and I’ll just speak plainly with you, sir — should be China. They’re violating the international rules, stealing our intellectual property, overproducing steel products and other products. And —

THE PRESIDENT: We’ve spoken to them very, very strongly. We’ve told them. We have something coming up in the very near future that you know. But we have told them it just can’t continue.

We have a trade deficit with China — that I inherited, by the way — but we have a trade deficit of $504 billion, okay? So, if you think of it, when you look at how well they do, and how many bridges they’re building, and how many jets they’re building, and fighter planes — we did it. We did it. People that sat in my seat allowed them to do this.

So we’re not going to allow that. We’re talking to them right now, very strongly. And hopefully we’ll have a great relationship, but we’re talking to them very strongly, Todd. You’re right — it’s a big percentage of our deficits. And the money that we’ve lost and the jobs that we’ve lost to China, it’s unthinkable that people allowed that to happen.

And this is over a period — not just Obama. This is over a period of many years this has happened.

So thank you very much, Todd.

Pat, would you like to say something?

SENATOR TOOMEY: Sure. Thanks very much, Mr. President. I would just urge us to go very, very cautiously here, especially with section 232.

As you know, our defense needs consume about 3 percent of domestic steel consumption. So I think it’s implausible to believe that we’re not able to meet the needs of our defense industry, which is absolutely essential.

Imports in 2016 were 16 percent of domestic consumption. So the vast majority of the steel we consume, we in fact produce ourselves — which is the way I prefer it, and it is the case today. China was down to 2 percent of the 16 percent, so a very, very small portion.

My main message —

THE PRESIDENT: But they have transshipping.

SENATOR TOOMEY: Absolutely. So —

THE PRESIDENT: They would ship to other countries, and their steel would come in from other countries so that you can’t see where the steel is coming from.

SENATOR TOOMEY: Right. So what I would urge is, any country that is violating our trade laws and our trade agreements, go after them. Countervailing duty and the dumping, if that’s happening.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s all countries. That’s all countries.

SENATOR TOOMEY: But the 232 is a different matter, and invoking national security, when I think it’s really hard to make that case, invites retaliation that will be problematic for us.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the word “retaliation,” Pat, is interesting. And I know you agree with this. We have so many countries where we made a product, they make a product, they pay a tremendous — we pay a tremendous tax to get into their countries — motorcycles, Harley Davidson — it goes into a certain country. I won’t mention the fact that it happens to be India, in this case. (Laughter.)

And a great gentleman called me from India and he said, we have just reduced the tariff on motorcycles, reduced it down to 50 percent — 5-0 — from 75, and even 100 percent. And we have — if you are Harley Davidson, you have 50 to 75 percent tax, tariff to get your motorcycle, your product in. And yet they sell thousands and thousands of motorcycles, which a lot of people don’t know, from India into the United States. You know what our tax is? Nothing.

So I say we should have reciprocal taxes for a case like that. I’m not blaming India. I think it’s great that they can get away with it. I don’t know why people allowed them to get away with it. But there’s an example that’s very unfair. And I think we should have a reciprocal tax.

That’s called fair trade. It’s called free trade. Because ultimately, what’s going to happen — either we’ll collect the same that they’re collecting, or, probably, what happens is they’ll end up not charging a tax and we won’t have a tax. And that becomes free trade.

So we have too many examples like that. And the word “reciprocal,” as Pat said — I mean, the world “reciprocal” is a very important word. We have countries that are taking advantage of us. They’re charging us massive tariffs for us to sell our product into those countries. And when they sell to us, zero. We charge them zero. We’re like the stupid people, and I don’t like to have that anymore.

So we’re going to change that, and we’re going to make it fair. And that, I call that fair trade. And, again, one of two things will happen. But I think what’s going to happen is they’ll just reduce their tax to the same as our tax.

Mike, would you like to say something?

SENATOR LEE: Yeah, sure. One of the things that worries me with regard to this proposed action is that there’s so many things manufactured in the United States; there’s so many jobs attached to so many things manufactured in the United States that use steel and aluminum as inputs.

Now in the case of steel, we’re talking about 16 percent that’s imported. But the availability of those imports and the absence of additional duties on those means that those goods can be manufactured and sold more cost effectively. That keeps a whole lot of people, including a whole lot of voters in each of our states — a whole lot in mine, certainly — in jobs.

And so, even though there may be some job winners from an action like this, I strongly suspect that, as has at times been the case in the past, you would end up with net job losses in the United States. And that’s what worries me here, particularly in light of the absence of what I can see as a real national security threat. Only 3 percent of what we’re able to produce domestically is what’s needed for our national security reasons, and I think that ought to be taken into account.

THE PRESIDENT: No, that number is going way up because of our big military spending now. You know we — something we all agree on. We had to do a lot of work on our military. Our military had not been taken care of properly, and now it’s being taken care of properly. So that 3 percent number will be going way up. But at the same time, it’s not a tremendous — you know, it’s not — as a percentage, it’s not a tremendous number.

I will say this: Steel and aluminum are interesting. It will create a lot of jobs. I believe that some of the dumpers will eat a lot of the tax themselves because they do it to keep people working. And we do it for that and other reasons.

But I will say that a finished product is a much simpler thing. As an example, Germany sends us cars. We send them cars; they practically don’t take them. I mean, how many Chevrolets do you see in the middle of Berlin? Not too many, folks. (Laughter.) Not too many. But they send Mercedes, they send BMW. They send them over here in tremendous numbers.

Japan sends us tremendous numbers of cars. They also make cars. In a way, there’s no tax. All they have to do, Mike, is, very simple — they do a factory here. There’s no tax. Now all of a sudden there’s no tax. So they’ll build factories here in order to avoid the tax.

But with cars, with television sets, with things like that, where they’re dumping them on us — we don’t make television sets anymore in this country. They come from South Korea, and they come from, to a lesser extent, Japan. Most of them come from South Korea. It’s not fair. And I believe that we should have reciprocal taxes on that, likewise.

That’s a different product, that’s a much simpler — you know, we did it with the washing machines, as you saw a couple of weeks ago. It’s had a huge impact on that industry. A huge impact. And, by the way, you know what’s happening? The people that made the washing machines outside of this country are now expanding their factories in the United States so they don’t have to pay the 25 and 30 percent tax.

And the same thing is happening with the solar panels. We’re starting to make — we had 32 companies. I think we’re down, Gary, to two, right? We made solar panels, but every one of our companies was wiped out. And I have to say this, and this is agreed to by — we made a much higher quality, a much better solar panel. We make them better, but we couldn’t compete. Now — and we’ve had a lot of good — a lot of places are opening up. They’re starting to make solar panels again.

So with a finished product, it’s a little bit different. But again, with steel and aluminum, which is what we’re talking about today — you know, that’s a good point, Mike. You’re right. The question is, would you rather pay a little bit more and create jobs all over the country? And it’s possible you won’t be creating — really, you won’t be having much of a problem in terms of pricing. Because I actually think a lot of the countries are going to eat it because they want to continue to, you know, export. And they’re making a fortune.

Look, we have rebuilt China. We have rebuilt a lot of — with the money they’ve taken out of the United States. We’re like the piggy bank that had people running it that didn’t know what the hell they were doing. And we have rebuilt countries, like, massively. You look at some of these countries — look at South Korea, look at Japan, look at so many countries. And then we defend them, on top of everything else.

So we defend Saudi Arabia. They pay us a fraction of what it costs. We defend Japan. We defend South Korea. They pay us a fraction of what it costs. And we’re talking to all of those countries about that because it’s not fair that we defend them, and they pay us a fraction of the cost of that defense. Separate argument, but a real problem.

Gary, would you like to say something?

MR. COHN: Senator Wyden, would you like —

THE PRESIDENT: Senator, go ahead.

SENATOR WYDEN: Thank you, Mr. President. We have Senator Brown, Senator Peters, Senator Casey. So you’ve got a good collection from the Finance Committee and the Commerce Committee.

I’ll just make two points really quickly, Mr. President. First, yesterday, you all released the infrastructure plan. And I looked at it very carefully, and I couldn’t see even any incentives, let alone requirements, to use American steel. Now, Senator Brown, I think, always says this is a great opportunity for bipartisanship. If we can work with you on that one, that ought to be a no-brainer.

THE PRESIDENT: We can. It’s a very easy one.

SENATOR WYDEN: And there’s one other thing, on that point, Mr. President. I’ll be very brief. And that is, actually, with respect to American steel, the way the plan reads now, it actually allows the states to walk back from commitments to use American steel. So point one would be, could we work with you on that?

Point two is, the Secretary and Ambassador Lighthizer have been very forthcoming in working with us. But we have been trying to see this 232 report. And we appreciate your asking us for our advice. We will need to see that report in order to give you more specifics. But I come back to Senator Brown’s point, I think there’s an opportunity for real bipartisanship here, and those would be two areas.

THE PRESIDENT: I agree. And I’d like you to come back with a suggestion on infrastructure and the plan. And I think that’s a bipartisan plan.

I will tell you, when I approved the two pipelines — the Keystone and — you know, we did the two big ones. And when I approved them, I said, “Where’s the steel being made?” And they told me a location that did not make me happy. And I wrote down that from now on steel is being made for pipelines — as you know, it’s got to be made in the United States. And it’s got to be fabricated in the United States. And so I’m a believer in that also.

But if you would come back with a suggestion, that would be great.

Bob, what about 232?

AMBASSADOR LIGHTHIZER: Well, I think we could put out the report. But rather than focus on that, let me just say, I want to, sort of, second what the Senator says. Trade has always been bipartisan in this country and just until the last few years. And I really think, with this and with NAFTA and the other things we’re doing, we can have Democrats and Republicans vote in large number together and start a new way to approach this.

That really is the point that I wanted to make. I think Senator Wyden and I think Senator Brown feels exactly —

PARTICIPANT: And Senator Casey.

PARTICIPANT: Can I speak on that, too?

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead.

SENATOR BROWN: Thank you. I very much appreciate the work that Ambassador Lighthizer has done, generally and specifically, on 232. And Secretary Ross has worked on 232. And I want to talk for a moment about NAFTA. Not too much, but Ambassador Lighthizer has been so good on that.

I mean, trade, as he says, has always been nonpartisan. And I think good evidence of that is what Senator Portman, my colleague from Cincinnati — I’m from Cleveland — what we’ve been able to do together on Level the Playing Field Act; on trade remedy; on trade enforcement; on currency; and most recently, on Clyde, Ohio, on the washing machine case. And we appreciate what you’ve done here.

I sent the President and the transition staff — three days after the election, sent him a letter outlining what we can do together in trade. And the President — thank you — sent back a nice handwritten note about that. I appreciate working together on everything from TPP, to non-market economy status, to 232, to the washing machine case, to all of those issues. And I asked, in the washing machine case, it’s 3,000 jobs in a small town in Northwest Ohio, and an hour from Toledo. So that really matters to a lot of families.

I’m hopeful we can do quick action on 232. It needs to be comprehensive; aimed, as Todd said, certainly at China. But beyond China, 232 needs to apply more broadly.

And I also — I will just conclude that we can work on NAFTA together. Well, I will work if NAFTA is written in a way that supports workers, as I’m confident it will be, with Ambassador Lighthizer’s handprints on it, that we can deliver Democratic support. It will be bipartisan if done right. And that’s my reputation and that’s what I’ll continue to fight for.

And I know Senator Wyden, and Senator Casey, and Senator Peters are on board with that.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. I actually think that we can go bipartisan on infrastructure, maybe even more so than we can on DACA. Because the difference is we want to help DACA; you don’t. Okay? (Laughter.) I’m kidding. I’m sure you do. I hope we can.

By the way, while we’re at a table, I hope we can do DACA. That’s currently up. Everybody is in there working hard on it right now. I think we can have a chance to do DACA very bipartisan. I think that can happen, and I hope we’re going to be able to do that, Senator.

SENATOR BROWN: It’s important (inaudible).

THE PRESIDENT: And I think we will.

On infrastructure, which is the purpose of what we’re doing today, come back with a proposal. We put in our bid. Come back with a proposal. We have a lot of people that are great Republicans that want something to happen. We have to rebuild our country.

You know, I said yesterday, we’ve spent $7 trillion. When I say “spent,” and I mean wasted, not to mention all of the lives — most importantly — and everything else. But we’ve spent $7 trillion, as of about two months ago, in the Middle East — $7 trillion. And if you want to borrow two dollars to build a road someplace, including your state, the great state of Ohio — if you want to build a road, if you want to build a tunnel or a bridge, or fix a bridge, because so many of them are in bad shape, you can’t do it. And yet, we spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. Explain that one.

SENATOR BROWN: We’ll have a bipartisan — we have a bipartisan proposal.

THE PRESIDENT: We can do it fast.

SENATOR BROWN: With real dollars on it in infrastructure. We’re glad that (inaudible) —

THE PRESIDENT: We can do it fast.

SENATOR BROWN: — and work together on a real infrastructure bill with real dollars, plus what you can leverage in the communities and the private sector.

THE PRESIDENT: Right. Do a combination.

SENATOR BROWN: It needs real dollars.

THE PRESIDENT: I would love to have you get back to us quickly, because we can do this quickly. And we have to rebuild our country. We have to rebuild our roads and our bridges and our tunnels. So the faster you get back, the faster we can move. Focus on DACA this week, if you don’t mind. Right? But the faster you get back, the faster we move.

Jackie, you were going to say?

REPRESENTATIVE WALORSKI: Thank you, Mr. President. I’m grateful for you willingness to sit down, listen, and just talk today.

But I represent the recreational vehicle industry in northern Indiana, Elkhart County. We have 85 percent of that market. And I’m a defense hawk, I get what you’re saying, I get what we’re all saying around this table. We’re one of the largest manufacturing districts in this country.

And the problem is, right now, even the mere — when we look balance and we talk about balance, the mere threat of tariffs, right now, from some of my folks that are manufacturing right now — they employee some 15,000 people just in my district in Indiana. And a guy — one of my guys called me this morning, and he said, the mere threat of tariffs, right now, has already raised aluminum and steel costs by 25 percent. Canadian softwood has raised 20 percent. The labor cost to the industry is already up 10 to 15 percent because the job market is so tight.

And this is a market that was 21 percent unemployment when we really had the financial crisis in this country, and now we’re down to 2.1 percent. Their concern, my concern, is if we seriously have a balanced effort, and be able to keep and retain a momentum in a place like northern Indiana, and be fair at the same time, I am 100 percent supportive of what you do.

I would just ask that you look at that balance of what it’s doing to current employees and giant growth that our tax reform helped just two months ago.

THE PRESIDENT: But what you have to ask your manufacturers too —

REPRESENTATIVE WALORSKI: Sure.

THE PRESIDENT: — and I know some of those manufacturers. They were great to me.

REPRESENTATIVE WALORSKI: Absolutely, yeah.

THE PRESIDENT: And they’re friends. And they voted. And they — they’re great people. But you have to ask them one question. When you build your product and you send that big, beautiful product that they make like nobody else, and you send that to another country, how much tax does that other country charge them? And therefore, they don’t sell it there very much because the tax is so high.

And one of the things we want to do is we want fairness. We don’t want what’s been happening. Because you look at it and you do well here, but they come in and they compete with you, and we take their product for nothing. And you want to sell your product overseas — which is probably triple the market for you if you ever could get it. But a lot of manufacturers have given up. They’ve given up on that. They don’t even talk.

I will tell you, Harley Davidson — I was saying, well, what’s the story? They were saying it’s a 75 and 100 percent tax. They got used to it for so many years. For so many years, they weren’t even asking me to do this. I mean, I’m doing it for them and others, but they weren’t even asking because they’ve gotten used to it. And your folks have gotten used to it too. Because you take that great product and you sell it overseas, they make it almost impossible for you to do that — not only monetarily with the tax, but they also have other criteria which make it impossible.

REPRESENTATIVE WALORSKI: I understand. But I would say, Mr. President, there’s also the second issue that has developed in this country with these corporations in producing the quality of vehicles that they do is, the true-American smelters left. And in reference to the costs here, they won’t even fill the products of some of these customers because they don’t have to, because they got people standing in line to buy — there are so few, right?

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Let’s —

REPRESENTATIVE WALORSKI: So if you can’t buy the specs, you’re out of a job.

THE PRESIDENT: No, I get it. We want a combination of big competition, including competition from within our country competing against that. And we want to take outside sources. But we want competition and we want the jobs.

REPRESENTATIVE WALORSKI: We want customer service.

THE PRESIDENT: And we want customer service. That’s right. Any questions?

Yes. Senator — Lamar.

SENATOR ALEXANDER: Mr. President, thank you so much for —

THE PRESIDENT: How’s healthcare going?

SENATOR ALEXANDER: Good. Thanks.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. That’s what I hear.

SENATOR ALEXANDER: Thank you for your support and for sticking with us. I talked to Senator Murray about it —

THE PRESIDENT: Good.

SENATOR ALEXANDER: — earlier, and we’re making progress.

THE PRESIDENT: Good.

SENATOR ALEXANDER: Thank you very much, and thanks to the Vice President for his work on that.

If I could use two 60-second stories just — I don’t know exactly what the tariff is proposed. And I thank you for having us down here before you’ve made your decision; that’s a big help. I thank you for that.

So here are the two examples: I hope you will look carefully at what President George W. Bush did in 2002 when he imposed 30 percent steel tariffs — 30 percent increase — on tariffs from China, South Korea, a couple of other places. The effect was, one, that even though that was only 5 percent of the imported steel, it raised the price of almost all steel in the United States.

Two, at the same time, auto-parts manufacturers who used the steel began to cut jobs and move outside of our country because they could buy the steel there, make the part, and ship the part back in without any tariff. And we found there were 10 times as many people in steel-using industries as there were in steel-producing industries. And so according to the auto manufacturers, they lost more jobs than exist in the steel industry.

So that’s — so the questions would be, will it raise prices —

THE PRESIDENT: Lamar, it didn’t work for Bush, but nothing worked for Bush. (Laughter.)

SENATOR ALEXANDER: Well, no, I wouldn’t–

THE PRESIDENT: It didn’t work for Bush but it worked for others. It did work for others. But you’re right, it did not work for Bush.

SENATOR ALEXANDER: Well, it’s a — I’m not recommending any solution. I’m just saying it’s worth looking at what happened because it backfired, raised prices, and lost jobs.

And then the other 60-second story is, my dad worked for Alcoa in the smelting plant in Tennessee. We don’t have smelting plants for aluminum anymore because you have to use a lot of electricity to make them, and they’re never coming back really. I think we only have six left.

So now we’re lucky enough there to be making auto parts from aluminum, for cars. Jobs are coming back up. But if we put a tariff on the ingots that come in from overseas, that will raise the prices and that will hurt. Our aluminum comes from Canada. None from China. So I hope you’ll look carefully at where the aluminum comes from.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay.

SENATOR ALEXANDER: So thank you very much for —

THE PRESIDENT: And you’re right. Now, I have to say this: Canada has treated us very, very unfairly when it comes to lumber and timber. Very unfairly. So we have to understand that. You know, it’s not just one thing or another. Canada has been very tough on this country when it comes to timber, lumber, and other things.

And they have not been easy when it comes to Wisconsin and our farmers. Because you try and ship product into Canada, if you’re a farmer — if you are a farmer up in Wisconsin and other places — you try and ship your things up to Canada, it’s been a very tough — it’s been a very tough situation for them, I will say that.

But I agree with what you’re saying. It’s very much a double-edged sword.

Ron.

SENATOR JOHNSON: Well, you mentioned Wisconsin, so —

THE PRESIDENT: Good.

SENATOR JOHNSON: — you understand that I was obviously manufacturing for 30-some years. And I’ve exported a lot of products though. The fact of that matter is, Mr. President, Wisconsin operates a trade surplus with both Canada and Mexico, because we not only export manufacturing products but also agricultural products. And trade works very well for Wisconsin.

I agree with the concerns that you just pressed, as well as the concerns of Senator Toomey and Senator Lee. What we have is the basic root cause of this problem is a massive overcapacity — primarily China, that’s true. How do you address that? And I think we need to be very cautious without raising increase — without raising prices.

Senator Alexander was talking about 2002. Spot prices increased somewhere between 69 and 82 percent. Producer prices went up from 19 to 27 percent.

Now, let me add just another dimension to this nobody has really talked about. We’ve talked about jobs; absolutely, we want the highest paying jobs. I think tax reform is going to juice the economy. And with such a tight labor market, I think wages are already increasing.

In Wisconsin, a big manufacturing state, in seven years I have not visited one manufacturer that could hire enough people. That was certainly my experience in the last 20, 25 years. For a host of reasons, we tell our kids you have to get a four-year degree. We pay people not to work. So we do need to be concerned about, in such a tight labor market, do we have enough workers in manufacturing.

So my final point is, it makes no sense for me to try and bring back high labor-content manufacturing to America. We need to do the value added things. And so I would just say, proceed with real caution there. Trade abuses — address those, attack those. Try and figure out how to address this massive over-supply in the steel industry, but do it very carefully, because we have experienced —

THE PRESIDENT: You’re right, Ron. I agree.

SENATOR JOHNSON: Okay.

THE PRESIDENT: I agree with you 100 percent. I do have to say that we do have a pool of 100 million people, of which some of them — many of them want to work; they want to have a job. A lot of them do better not working, frankly, under the laws. And people don’t like to talk about it. But you’re competing against government. And they have great potential. They sort of want to work, but they’re making less if they work than if they stay home and do other things.

So we have to address that situation. That’s a big problem.

But we have a pool of 100 million people, a lot of whom want to work. We will also have a much more merit-based immigration policy, where we’re going to bring in people that are going to be great workers, and they’ll really fill up Foxconn and all of the places. Like, I was very instrumental in getting you Foxconn, as you know, through my friendships with that great company. And they’re going to Wisconsin; it’s going to be incredible. They’re going to employ tremendous numbers of people. They’re going to build one of the biggest plants in the world. So it’s going to be very exciting.

But people will move there, but we do have a big pool of people that want to work, and they can.

Just to address the one other point — we have a trade deficit with Canada. We have a big imbalance of at least $17 billion. And with Mexico, we have an imbalance, we have a trade deficit of $71 billion, and I believe that number is really much higher than that.

I might ask Bob Lighthizer to just discuss that. But were you going to say one other thing, Ron?

SENATOR JOHNSON: Sure. Just as long as you brought up the whole immigration debate, there is absolutely no doubt that we have to fix our horribly broken legal immigration system. One of my proposals is literally a three-year guest worker visa program, managed by the states. Let the states determine what industries — they can set the wage rates, and they can completely control that process.

So I’m hoping, as part of this bipartisan process, that we actually fix our horribly broken legal immigration system so we do have the workers, and it has to be merit-based. So I ask my Democratic colleagues, please work with us, let’s fix the DREAMer problem, but let’s also fix our horribly broken legal immigration system.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. Thank you, Ron.

Yes, go ahead.

SENATOR CASEY: I just want to make a point about — back to 232. I’ll focus on steel 232 in Pennsylvania. In your opening, you talked about the job impact, as well as the national security impact, and I’m glad you raised both. I’ll just focus on national security.

In Western Pennsylvania, as well as in Eastern Pennsylvania, you have two examples among several. But the two are AK Steel in Western Pennsylvania. They are the last remaining manufacturer of electrical steel, meaning the steel that goes into our electricity grid. They’ve been hammered by this, as you know.

In the eastern part of the state, as Senator Young from Indiana mentioned, Arcelor Mittal —

THE PRESIDENT: They’ve been hammered by what?

SENATOR CASEY: Hammered by not having the remedy — the 232 remedy.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay.

SENATOR CASEY: To the extent that you can focus on that, I think the steel executives — the letter they sent you on the 1st of February, I think, outlines the problem. But this really is a national security issue.

THE PRESIDENT: Why didn’t the previous administration help the steel workers? Why didn’t the previous administration work on 232?

SENATOR CASEY: Well, look, I think there are a lot of us that had disagreements over the years, with the administration then, about being more aggressive on this issue.

THE PRESIDENT: Tremendous disservice.

SENATOR CASEY: I just hope that in this — I know it’s a 90-day period you’re in, but I hope you can promptly determine it.

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

Rob.

SENATOR PORTMAN: Mr. President, I agree with Bob that that’s a good example. AK Steel is the last electrical steel manufacturer; 101 percent increase over the last year in electrical steel coming into our country. It’s a small market, but it’s a critical market. They tell us that if they don’t get relief, they’re going to pull out of this business, so we won’t have the steel that goes into our transformers and our grid.

And so I think it is a good example. But what I would say, sir — and we’ve talked about this before — any response here needs to be targeted, and electrical steel is the place to target it. The other place, I think, is the oil country product that was talked earlier. This is pipe and tube. Eighty-two percent increase there. And, frankly, most is coming from Korea, and Korea doesn’t have a single rig. In other words, they’re taking Chinese steel for the most part, and it’s, in effect, transshipping it to us.

THE PRESIDENT: They’re doing a lot of transshipping.

SENATOR PORTMAN: And that’s hurting our ability to continue to have this energy independence we talked about.

So those are two specific areas where I do think that there’s an opportunity to do something and to use 232, which is a national security, as opposed to 201, which is what President Bush used.

But let me tell you, with regard to rolled steel and with regard to other products, as Senator Brown said, we’ve had some pretty good success by going after them with regard to unfair trade practices. And that’s the Level the Playing Field Act, which is just now being implemented. And as I told you before, I think even stronger enforcement of that would be great because that will enable us —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, they had little enforcement before. We’re very strongly enforcing it now. And, Wilbur, you might want to talk about that. But we are very strongly — but they have had not good enforcement previous to this.

SENATOR PORTMAN: And the second part of this — and you’re right — is with regard to the Enforce Act. And that’s — and again, Ron Wyden and Senator Brown and I and others have worked on this. But what it says is that if a country transships — in other words, sends their steel, say, to Malaysia, which we believe happens with regard to Chinese steel, puts a different stamp on it, “Made in Malaysia,” and then sends it here — we need to be more aggressive in going after them. And it’s just a matter of Customs and Border Protection having so many other responsibilities right now.

But we can do more with our existing laws as well. And I think 232 is part of the overall response, but it needs to be targeted. I agree with what Senator Alexander and others have said about the balance, Senator Toomey and others. You got to be careful because we don’t want to increase the cost to our consumers of all these steel products that go into our other manufacturing. But there are areas, like electrical, like pipe and tube, where we’ve got to stand up and help to defend, in the case of electrical, our last American manufacturer.

THE PRESIDENT: Right. Well, you know, Rob, we have steel coming into our country from countries that don’t even know what steel is. They don’t make it, they never made it. It’s transshipping. It’s coming from China and some others, but mostly from China. And they send it through countries that don’t make steel, and it comes pouring into our country — and free. Free. And it’s a very bad — very bad situation.

Kevin.

REPRESENTATIVE BRADY: Yeah, so, one, I think everyone in this room supports you aggressively holding China accountable for its overcapacity in a major way. Thank you for that.

232 is a little like old-fashioned chemotherapy. It isn’t used as much because it can often do as much damage as good. And an example — it happens all around the country — but we send steel pellets from Corpus Christi over to Austria, to this company that does this amazing job — super-refined, specific job.

We bring it back to Navasota, Texas — my district — refine it even further. Sell it to many American energy companies who use that specialized steel to compete and win against Russia and China and all the other countries. If transactions like that, that are pretty typical around the country, get caught up, in that case we punished three American manufacturing industries for that, all of whom, by the way, are looking at expanding because of your tax reform plan.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s right.

REPRESENTATIVE BRADY: And so my point is — so we have to be really targeted. You have to be really targeted here. Also, we’ve got allies with us against China’s unfair trade practices. We have to be careful, as you look at these decisions, to target it, to make sure our allies are with us as we do this.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Very good. Thank you, Kevin.

Go ahead, Rick.

REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD: Thank you, Mr. President. One thing I want to point out — we had the conversation about the national security imperative, and I think we’ve looked at it in the context of the defense industry.

And I just wanted to add one thing to that: It’s our ability to address our own inputs — not just addressing the needs of the defense industry, but our ability to produce for our own consumption as we take on infrastructure projects and so on.

THE PRESIDENT: Right. That’s right.

REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD: So I think we don’t just need to focus on those percentages but also, broadly, how this impacts our ability to provide for our own inputs.

And then, one other thing I wanted to mention is, 74 percent capacity right now here in the United States. The steel industry is losing market share, and that translates to —

THE PRESIDENT: Rapidly.

REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD: — economic loss in communities, as Representative Bost — he and I co-chair the steel caucus, and so we’re very keenly aware of what this can do to these communities when we don’t have that kind of certainty.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. Thank you, Rick. Thank you very much.

Senator.

SENATOR PETERS: Hello, Mr. President. I appreciated your comments about Michigan and the auto industry. I’d like to say that a big reason why those jobs are coming back is because we have the best workers anywhere in the world here.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, that’s also true. I agree.

SENATOR PETERS: That’s why we’re here. And they can build it on time and build it with outstanding qualities, as long as the rules are fair.

So I appreciate this issue. And it should be —

THE PRESIDENT: You do have great workers. The problem is you didn’t have good policy, and that’s why so many jobs left. But now they’re coming back. And they like coming back to Michigan.

SENATOR PETERS: Well, they’d love coming back to Michigan, as long as we have fair rules and —

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

SENATOR PETERS: — so have to continue to push this forward.

I would like to pick up on Senator Alexander’s comments, too, is that we also have to be concerned about the auto parts industry as well.

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

SENATOR PETERS: We have probably more jobs in auto parts in Michigan than any other of the industrial sector, so they all go together.

We’ve got to deal with the steel pricing issue. I agree with everything that’s been said here. But then we can’t have the dumping of auto parts that will take away Michigan jobs as well as jobs around the country.

THE PRESIDENT: You’re right.

SENATOR PETERS: And if I could just bring up one other issue that I think we should take a look at. I’m working in a bipartisan way with Senator Burr on an issue related to the Commerce Department having the ability to self-initiate trade enforcement actions smaller than industries like steel or aluminum or washing machines — is that we have small businesses that don’t have the resources, quite frankly, to bring a trade enforcement case —

THE PRESIDENT: Good point.

SENATOR PETERS: — to go through the lawyers to do that. In Michigan, for example, we have cherries. Right now, we’ve got the dumping of cherries that’s making it very difficult for our growers in Michigan. But they don’t have the resources to bring those kinds of enforcement actions.

So we’re working on legislation to give Secretary Ross, the Department of Commerce, more tools to help our small businesses.

THE PRESIDENT: I like that.

SENATOR PETERS: And I’d love to have your help.

THE PRESIDENT: You have my help. I think it’s a fantastic idea. Because you’re right — they can’t hire the lawyers, it’s too small. But it’s — you know, in a double way, it’s very, very big.

Wilbur, are you working on that?

SECRETARY ROSS: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Good.

SECRETARY ROSS: As you know, for the first time in many years, the Commerce Department did initiate — self-initiate — it happened — it was in a big industry. It was in aluminum.

But there are limitations to what a conventional trade case can do, and the main limitation is it doesn’t prevent people from the trans-shipment through other countries. And of lot of what 232 can do for us is to solve that problem.

And 232 doesn’t have to mean the same tariff on every single country. It doesn’t have to mean the same tariff on every single product. It can be applied in a much more surgical way. And we presented the President with a range of alternatives that goes from a big tariff on everything from everywhere, to very selective tariffs from a very selective group of countries.

There are one of two countries that figure quite prominently in all of the lists, and those names will come as no surprise to you. But, for example —

THE PRESIDENT: And the problem you have with that, though, is transshipping.

SECRETARY ROSS: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: You think you’re going to put a pinpoint on a country, but then they ship it to other countries that you’re not even thinking about.

SECRETARY ROSS: Right. And so —

THE PRESIDENT: So you have to be careful with that.

SECRETARY ROSS: Yeah. So what the 232 would let us do is to have quotas on the countries that we weren’t putting a tariff. (Inaudible) at what they’re shipping in now. So it’s not going to restrict supply, but it would prevent the evildoers from transshipping more goods through that country.

THE PRESIDENT: Evildoers. That’s a good word. Of which there are many. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY ROSS: Yes, there are — there are, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: You’re doing a good job, Wilbur. Thank you.

SECRETARY ROSS: Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: We’ve been very — we’ve been tough.

Go ahead. Fellas.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHNSON: Mr. President, the comments that have been made here — been made today about balance is absolutely essential. I mean, managing job creation and controlling cost at the same time has got to be the major factors in this mix.

Two points that I’ll make.

THE PRESIDENT: And deficits too? Deficits too?

REPRESENTATIVE JOHNSON: Absolutely.

THE PRESIDENT: You know, there are some people who don’t believe in deficits. They think it doesn’t matter. To me, I think it matters a lot.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHNSON: I think it matters a lot.

Two points that I’ll make. One, to, kind of, put a stamp on what Senator Portman said, AK Steel is the only manufacturer in America that makes the electrical steel that is necessary for the transformers that feed and produce electricity in our electric grid. China — we are at risk of losing that industry; and if we lose that, we are absolutely, potentially at hostage by the Chinese for management and maintenance of our electrical grid.

Number two, you’ve made a big case, and I think you have, rightfully so, told the world that America is open for business. And the regulatory reforms that you’ve done, the tax reforms that you have done, has put America back in business.

One of the biggest businesses that is promoting job creation today is the oil and gas industry.

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHNSON: And in Eastern and Southeastern Ohio, big projects like ethane cracker plants, they require a tremendous amount of steel.

We’ve got to make sure that whatever we do in this formula keeps cost down because those projects are huge. I mean, they are massive. You’re talking about $6- to $8-billion projects, and big cost increases in steel could be a big deal.

So we got to balance the job creation with the cost.

THE PRESIDENT: I agree. I agree. And I know that area very well. You’re right.

Yes.

REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: Thank you, Mr. President. At home in Southeast Missouri, we have a real example of where we lost 900 jobs in March of 2016 because our aluminum smelter closed. And I believe that these aluminum smelters can be reopened.

I don’t fall underneath the premise —

THE PRESIDENT: And for a different reason, too. Because of what we’ve done, our energy prices are going so low, our electric costs are going so low, that other countries aren’t going to be able to compete with us. We’re really doing a great job of bringing them down. And a lot of that had to do with the tax cuts, but it has to do with lots of other things, too.

REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: Exactly.

THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. Tell me about that.

REPRESENTATIVE SMITH: When you look at Southeast Missouri, the median income household is $40,000. It’s one of the poorest congressional districts in the country. And when we lost 900 jobs, with the average salary of $70,000 a year, that hit home in the Bootheel of Missouri.

And without a doubt, if you just look at the numbers of the aluminum production in China that in 2000 was 10 percent of the world’s production, and in 2015 was 54 percent, there’s a problem, Mr. President. And I believe that we can have the production back, and we have a vacant facility in New Madrid, Missouri that we want to open, and we want to create more jobs.

And I applaud you for looking at 232, and looking at a reasonable approach to make sure that we’re open for business in all industries, not just one.

THE PRESIDENT: Well we all have to remember that there is no tax or there is no tariff, if they come in and build plants in this country. So there is no — we’re just talking about something, but there is nothing.

Steel is a little bit different than a car. It’s a little bit different than a washing machine or any of the other things that we’re doing or talking about doing. But nevertheless, you build your factory, you build your plant in the United States, there is no tax. So that’s a big difference. That’s why I think you’re going to see General Motors — they’re coming back. A lot of companies are coming back, and they’re coming back to areas that you represent. It’s a good feeling. That’s a really good feeling.

Maybe I’ll just have Bob finish up. Do you want to do that? Roy, were you going to say something real fast?

SENATOR BLUNT: I was just going to say, like the AK Steel, we need to be very careful here. There is only one American producer, but there are lots of American buyers. Those electric motors in the washing machine, the generators, the grid — all of that is dependent, currently, on a lot of electric steel coming from somewhere else.

I think the balance of keeping that company in business —

THE PRESIDENT: It’s a good balance.

SENATOR BLUNT: — while you keep all these other companies — it’s going to take a long time to either expand or have more competitors here. So we need to be very thoughtful about all the other buyers of that product that has only one American source. So it is a great example, but it’s a great example to remember that washing machine motor, as well as all the other things that electric steel is used for, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s a good point. The word “balance” is a very important word.

SENATOR BROWN: Can I add one other point —

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, go ahead.

SENATOR BROWN: — taking off on what Roy said. As you apply — as you and Secretary Ross apply 232 — and I understand the cautionary notes from some of my colleagues — I think it’s important that we always keep in mind China’s excess capacity. And China’s excess capacity doesn’t mean you aim 232 just at China. Because China’s excess capacity, as you point out, is spread elsewhere. And the best example was your comment on oil country, tubular steel through Korea. As Rob said, Korea doesn’t drill itself. It’s just the pass-through point.

But because China’s excess capacity has, in some ways, affected steel production — or steel sales, not production — throughout the world, it’s important that 232 be aimed at China’s excess capacity and countries all over the world.

THE PRESIDENT: Right. I agree with that. Maybe you could just — a very brief discussion of where you are with NAFTA. Because this is the group that is very interested in NAFTA.

AMBASSADOR LIGHTHIZER: Well, I’ve spoken to some of these members here. And, Mr. President, I think we’re making progress on NAFTA. There was a lot of anxiety at one point as to whether or not we’d be in a position where would have to withdraw in order to get a good agreement.

Our view is, number one, that NAFTA has not served the United States well in all respects. It has served some people very well, but other people and overall it has not done a good job. I think we’re making real headway. I feel like, particularly with respect to the Mexicans, that we are making headway. We have a number of issues that we still have to work our way through, but I’m hopeful that we’ll be in the positon — I think that most important — to get a good deal, one that you’ll find acceptable.

But most importantly, I want it to be an agreement that the vast majority of Republicans and Democrats support. I think this is very important that we have a new paradigm in steel, that we get 20 or 25 Democrats in the Senate and a large number of them in the House to vote for this deal, as well. Of course (inaudible) and I think that’s very much in reach; it’s something that we can do.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I want to thank everybody very much. I really would like to see you come back with a counterproposal on the infrastructure. I think we’re going to get that done. I really believe that’s — we’re going to get a lot of Democrats; we’re going to get a lot of Republicans. We’re going to get it done. It’s something we should do. We have to fix our country. We have to fix our roads and our tunnels and bridges and everything.

So, if you can, work together on that. And I am ready, willing, and able. It’s very important.

And then, of course, this week I know you’re working very hard on DACA. Everybody in the room wants DACA. And let’s see if we can get that done, and it would be a great achievement. They’ve been talking about it for many years, and, if we could do it, it would be a great achievement. And it would be something — on a humane-basis, would be excellent.

So I want to thank you all for being here. If you have any suggestions, call me, call Gary, call Wilbur, call Bob. But I very much appreciate you being here. And if it’s necessary, we’ll have another meeting to iron out some points.

But on infrastructure, that is such a natural for us to get done, and I think we can probably do it.

Thank you all very much. Thank you.

[End Transcript]

Hopefully everyone will note in the discussion above that our allies are NOT the republicans in attendance.  Every one of the Republicans was arguing the position of the multinational corporations.  As much as Democrats are on the wrong side of multiple issues, on the trade front the smart Democrats become MAGA allies; and the Decepticons become our adversaries.

Roy Blunt, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, Pat Toomey, Lamar Alexander and all the GOPe crew are purchased by the multinational interests of BIG Corporations (the U.S. CoC).  They are the duplicitous enemy of the American heartland.

Eyes Wide Open !

It’s all right there to witness.

Earlier today President Trump hosted a White House discussion meeting to outline an infrastructure initiative with state and local leaders.  The initiative is part of a $1.5 trillion proposal to join with federal, state, local and private investment toward rebuilding American critical infrastructure, roads and bridges.

[Via White House] BUILDING AMERICA’S INFRASTRUCTURE: Today, President Donald J. Trump released his legislative goals to rebuild our Nation’s crumbling infrastructure. The six principles include:

• $200 billion in Federal funds to spur at least $1.5 trillion in infrastructure investments with partners at the State, local, Tribal, and private level.
• New investments will be made in rural America, which has been left behind for too long.
• Decision making authority will be returned to State and local governments.
• Regulatory barriers that needlessly get in the way of infrastructure projects will be removed.
• Permitting for infrastructure projects will be streamlined and shortened.
• America’s workforce will be supported and strengthened.

STIMULATE INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT: President Trump’s plan will lead to at least $1.5 trillion in investments to rebuild our failing infrastructure and develop innovative projects.

• $200 billion in Federal funds will spur at least $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure investments.
  • Federal infrastructure spending will promote State, local, and private investments and maximize the value of every taxpayer dollar.
• Of the $200 billion, $100 billion will create an Incentives Program to spur additional dedicated funds from States, localities, and the private sector.
  • Applications for the Incentives Program will be evaluated on objective criteria, with creating additional infrastructure investment being the largest factor.
  • The Incentives Program will promote accountability, making Federal funding conditional on projects meeting agreed upon milestones.
• $20 billion will be dedicated to the Transformative Projects Program.
  • This program will provide Federal aid for bold and innovative projects that have the potential to dramatically improve America’s infrastructure.
  • The program will focus on projects that could have a significant positive impact on States, cities, and localities but may not attract private sector investment because of the project’s unique characteristics.
• $20 billion will be allocated to expanding infrastructure financing programs.
  • Of the $20 billion, $14 billion will go to expanding a number of existing credit programs: TIFIA, WIFIA, RRIF, and rural utility lending.
  • $6 billion will go to expanding Private Activity Bonds.
• $10 billion will go to a new Federal Capital Revolving Fund, which will reduce inefficient leasing of Federal real property which would be more cost-effective to purchase.
• A new fund will allow some incremental revenues from energy development on public lands to pay for the capital and maintenance needs of public lands infrastructure.

INVEST IN RURAL AMERICA: Rural America’s infrastructure has been left behind for too long, and President Trump’s plan will make sure it is supported and modernized.

• $50 billion of the $200 billion in direct Federal funding will be devoted to a new Rural Infrastructure Program to rebuild and modernize infrastructure in rural America.
  • The bulk of the dollars in the Rural Infrastructure Program will be allocated to State governors, giving States the flexibility to prioritize their communities’ needs.
  • The remaining funds will be distributed through rural performance grants to encourage the best use of taxpayer dollars.

INCREASE STATE AND LOCAL AUTHORITY: President Trump’s proposal will return decision-making authority to State and local governments, which know the needs of their communities. 

• Funds awarded to State and local authorities, such as through the Incentives Program and the Rural Infrastructure Program, will be allocated to infrastructure projects they prioritize.
  • This empowers States and localities to make more infrastructure investment decisions and prioritize projects based on the needs of their communities
• The plan will expand processes that allow environmental review and permitting decisions to be delegated to States.
• The plan will also allow Federal agencies to divest assets that can be better managed by State or local governments or the private sector.

ELIMINATE REGULATORY BARRIERS: The President’s plan would eliminate barriers that prevent virtually all infrastructure projects from being efficiently developed and managed.

• The President’s plan will:
  • Provide more flexibility to transportation projects that have minimal Federal funding but are currently required to seek Federal review and approval.
  • Incentivize the efficient development and management of water infrastructure, in part, by providing more flexibility to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its partners.
  • Give the Department of Veterans Affairs the flexibility to use its existing assets to acquire new facilities by allowing it to retain property sale proceeds and exchange existing facilities for construction of new facilities.
  • Expand funding eligibility for land revitalization projects through the Superfund program and establish tools to help manage their legal and financial matters.

STREAMLINE PERMITTING: President Trump’s infrastructure proposal will shorten and simplify the approval process for infrastructure projects.

• Working with Congress, we will:
  • Establish a “one agency, one decision” structure for environmental reviews.
  • Shorten the lengthy environmental review process to two years while still protecting the environment.
  • Eliminate certain redundant and inefficient provisions in environmental laws.
  • Create two new pilot programs to test new ways to improve the environmental review process.

INVEST IN OUR COUNTRY’S MOST IMPORTANT ASSET – ITS PEOPLE: The President is proposing reforms so Americans secure good-paying jobs and meet the needs of our industries. 

• The President’s plan would reform Federal education and workforce development programs to better prepare Americans to perform the in-demand jobs of today and the future.  This includes:
  • Making high-quality, short-term programs that provide students with a certification or credential in an in-demand field eligible for Pell Grants.
  • Reforming the Perkins Career and Technical Education Program to ensure more students have access to high-quality technical education to develop the skills required in today’s economy.
  • Better targeting Federal Work-Study funds to help more students obtain important workplace experience, including through apprenticeships.

(White House Link)