THE PRESIDENT: I have to study it. I'm not happy about it. It's not doing the trick. But I'm adding things to it. And when you add whatever I have to add, it's all going to happen where we're going to build a beautiful, big, strong wall that's not going to let criminals and traffickers and drug dealers and drugs into our country. It's very simple. It's very simple.
We're building a wall. And now I'm saying we're finishing the wall. We just started a big, big section on the Rio Grande. You probably saw it. Some of you were there when they started. You went there; you didn't believe it. You went there, and you see trucks all over the place. You said, "Hey, he's not kidding." I don't kid. I never kid about construction. I love construction. (Laughter.) And I know how to do it for the right price. And we're getting a beautiful-looking structure that's also less expensive to build and works much better. That's a good combination of events, because it was crazy what they were putting up.
In fact, I happen to think that the walls that they were building were so unattractive and so ugly that walls got bad names. Okay? If that means anything. But they were so ugly, with rusted steel and big ugly plates on top that were all tin-canned. It's called tin-canned, where they're wavy, because the heat makes them expand and contract, and they're tin-canned.
I said, "Why didn't you paint the steel?" "Well, sir, we save money by not painting." And I said, "Yeah, but it's going to rust. You have to paint." I've never seen - I've ordered a lot of steel - I've never seen, in my whole life, steel come to me that was unpainted. This can only happen at the border. It wasn't me; it was our past geniuses.
So, I can tell you that, am I happy at first glance? I just got to see it. The answer is no, I'm not. I'm not happy. But am I happy with where we're going? I'm thrilled because we're supplementing things and moving things around. And we're doing things that are fantastic and taking from far less - really, from far less important areas. And the bottom line is we're building a lot of wall. Right now, we're building a lot of wall.
And you think it's easy? We're building in the face of tremendous obstruction and tremendous opposition from a small group of people. And one thing that happened that was, I think, very revealing - we had the biggest and best border agents and experts come up and see the committee. And they said, more than anything else, "You need a barrier. You need a wall." And the recommendation was unacceptable to the committee. So that tells you more than anything else.
Q Mr. President, are ruling out the possibility of a government shutdown?
Q Do you really want to go through another shutdown?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think you're going to see a shutdown. I wouldn't want to go to it, no. If you did have it, it's the Democrats' fault. And I accepted the first one, and I'm proud of what we've accomplished because people learned during that shutdown all about the problems coming in from the southern border. I accept - I've always accepted it.
But this one I would never accept if it happens, but I don't think it's going to happen. But this would be totally on the Democrats. Okay?
Q Mr. President, are you saying that you may amend and send back the proposed compromise, or that you may grudgingly accept it and then move forward with the executive action?
THE PRESIDENT: It's always nice to negotiate a little bit, right? So, you know, whatever you get. But I would hope that there won't be a shutdown. I am extremely unhappy with what the Democrats have given us. It's sad. It's sad. They're doing the country no favor. They are hurting our country very badly. But we certainly don't want to see a shutdown. But you'll be hearing fairly soon.
The bottom line is - on the wall - we're building the wall. And we're using other methods, other than this and in addition to this. We have a lot of things going. We have a lot of money in this country, and we're using some of that money - a small percentage of that money - to build the wall, which we desperately need.
Q Mr. President, do you plan to meet with President Xi at the end of March?
THE PRESIDENT: Not at this moment. We have our people over there now. I just got a report. Things are going well with China. China wants to make a deal very badly. I want it to be a real deal, not just a deal that makes - you know, cosmetically looks good for a year. We have a chance to really make a deal - a real deal with China. We've never been in this position before. We've always been the lame duck. And we're not the lame duck anymore. And we've gone up tremendously in value as a country, in economic value. Tremendously.
Larry, we've gone up what - $11 trillion, $14 trillion? And China has gone down close to $20 trillion since we've started this whole -
MR. KUDLOW: Worst performing stock market in the world.
THE PRESIDENT: Say it?
MR. KUDLOW: China - worst performing stock market in the world.
THE PRESIDENT: Has anybody ever heard of Larry Kudlow? (Laughter.) That voice. I hear that voice, and you think money. Right, Larry? (Laughter.)
MR. KUDLOW: Thank you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: So, I didn't even know that. That's - China, he said, has the worst performing stock market right now in the world. And we don't want that. We want China to do - but - and that's because of us. And we're - have to be one of the best performing stock markets, but we are the best performing country and we have a lot of potential for further growth.
So we're doing very well over in China. Our people are there. You know the people very well. And I think we're going to have some good answers. I think - either way, I'm happy. I'm happy either way. I could live receiving billions and billions of dollars a month from China. China never gave us 10 cents. It was always the opposite way. Now they're paying billions of dollars a month for the privilege of coming into the United States and, honestly, taking advantage of our country. So we'll see how it works out.
But at some point, I expect to meet with President Xi - who I have a lot of respect for and like a lot - and make the parts of the deal that the group is unable to make. That's the way deals happen.
Q Will the March 1st deadline slide, do you think?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thus far, I've said - as you know, the tariffs tick up for us. In other words, we take in much more money because the tariff - and there's nothing they can do that's comparable, so it's not like tit for tat. The tariffs kick in; they go up.
Right now, they're paying - they're paying 25 percent on $50 billion. Okay? And they are paying 10 percent on $200 billion. So we have $250 billion. We have $267 billion that we were very nice about and we're not taxing. On the $200 billion, we're paying the 10 percent. The 10 percent on $200 billion goes up to 25 percent on March 1st. And so far, I've said don't do that.
Now, if we're close to a deal where we think we can make a real deal, and it's going to get done, I could see myself letting that slide for a little while. But generally speaking, I'm not inclined to do that. Okay?
Q If Congress sends you a deal that you disagree with, would you consider declaring a national emergency to build the wall?
THE PRESIDENT: I consider everything. I'm considering everything. You know, we already have national emergencies out there. You know, President Obama, President Clinton, President Bush - they've declared many national - this is not unique. They've declared many national emergencies. Many, many. And you have some out there that we can use in addition to one that we can declare if we want to do it.
Thank you very much everybody. Thank you. Thank you.
Q Sir, were you aware that AMI was investigating Jeff Bezos?
THE PRESIDENT: No. No, I wasn't.
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