So, on the train, they have a solution. The solution was:
"We'll make it shorter." (Laughter.) So instead of going from San Francisco to Los Angeles - beautiful; right in the middle - they cut all of that out. They cut all - and now you go from this tiny little town to another tiny little town. (Laughter.) For billions of dollars. And they think they can do it for just billions of dollars more than the original projection. These people are crazy. (Laughter and applause.)
So I told the great Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation - doing a fantastic job - I said,
"Elaine, it's over for them." This has been going on for many - it was long before I got there. I would have told them - I would have said,
"Listen, if an airplane is much faster, what are we doing? No, what are we doing?" And I also would have done the super-modern thing, and we would have had it built on time and we would have had it built on budget. And it just didn't work out that way. It's a mess. And we're not paying any more money into that one. That's a disaster if you've ever seen it. (Applause.)
"Make it shorter." How do you like that? John, is that a good idea?
"Cut the big cities out. A little too much, too expensive. Let's make it, like, real short." You'll have three people on it a day. (Laughter.)
So we're reversing years of calamitous trade policies that gutted the American middle class. Nearly two decades ago, politicians in Washington placed China into the WTO - the World Trade Organization - one of the great catastrophes in the history of our country as far as trade is concerned - between that and NAFTA, you had two real beauties - allowing it to largely do whatever they want to do to the American marketplace.
During that time, we lost nearly one in four manufacturing jobs and racked up trillions and trillions of dollars in trade deficits. But those days are now over, folks. (Applause.) And we're taking action.
And you see what's happening; I don't have to talk about it. But it's expensive for them and it's going to have to be. It's going to have to be. We actually had a deal and they broke it. Okay? I mean, I'm used to that. I've done it many times myself. (Laughter.) But we had a deal and they broke it. But I tried to do it a little bit nicer. (Laughter.) Then I try and take the lumps out, you know? Try nice and easy. Just,
"Let's have dinner. Let's talk about it." (Laughter.)
"I want to re-trade you. Let's talk about it."
But they took out a lot of the things that we negotiated that were done, and I said,
"Can't do that. Sorry, you can't do that. You've been doing that too long to our poor Presidents that had no clue what was happening. And you can't do that." So we're putting tariffs - we have 25 percent tariffs on $250 billion. And they're paying it. And believe me - you know, so many people say our people pay. They'll pay a little bit. But it's worth it. It's really worth it. But, you know, China subsidizes these big plants so it's not really coming. And they keep the price the same and they subsidize it.
And also, you take a look at what's happening: If we build here, there are no tariffs. You know, people don't realize that. If we build here - you know, right now we're - you become dependent on buying things from outside. If we put a little factory or whatever, to make whatever product they're buying - and a lot of people are now looking at it. And the other alternative: You buy from another country where they're not tariffed, where they're treating us more fairly and we don't tariff them.
So it's hundreds of billions of dollars. And out of that, we're going to give a portion of it to our farmers, because these are great patriots. These are people that don't want anything. They just want a fair playing surface. And our farmers are doing - going to do really well. I mean, they're doing well, but they're going to do really well. (Applause.)
Between that and the USMCA, our farmers are going to be very happy, very shortly. But you're talking about maybe $15 billion to our farmers, out of $125 billion. And they're really - you have to understand: They've taken the brunt because China, to negotiate with us, said,
"Well, we're not going to buy any of your farm products." So I called Sonny Perdue, our great Secretary of Agriculture, and I said,
"Sonny..." - (applause) - I said,
"Sonny, what's the biggest amount they've ever spent in this country?" He said,
"About $15 billion. People could say 18, 19. But basically $15 billion." And I said,
"So let's take $15 billion, set it aside out of the 100 or 125 billion, whatever it may be, and what we'll do is, the farmers will sell at a lower price because of competition. And what we do is we make up the difference. We have a little bit of a difference. We make up the difference."
So they do great; we do incredibly great. But you have to understand, they use the farmer because the farmers were all for Trump. And the farms - what people don't realize: You go back 18 years; the farms have been going like this. Been going steady. It's not just - you know, I'm here two and a half years.
But you can go back 18 years, and you see what's happened. How has it worked out? NAFTA has been bad for the farmers. A lot of people don't realize it. They get stuck on it, out of habit. But we're taking care of our farmers, and everybody is happy about it. I've never heard a complaint, literally.
But these are patriots. I watched some people on television today, because some of them don't even know what I just told you. They said,
"Yeah, we're hurting, but I know that China is doing terrible things to us for many, many years. And we want our President to fix it, and this is the only President that's had the courage or the guts to fix it. And we're behind our President all the way." (Applause.) That's the farmers say that. That's the farmers. That's the farmers. Farmers are incredible.
I don't know, they may even be better than the realtors, as far as I'm concerned.
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: I think they're better than the realtors.
I'll tell you a quick story about farmers, though. I had - recently, I had about 22 of them in my office, in the White House, in the Oval Office, the room right next to a beautiful conference room. And we were sitting there, and they're explaining how, you know, they're not doing the business with China; they're, frankly, not doing the business with Canada, Mexico. Because immediately, you know, in order to negotiate, they stopped buying from the farmer, right? Because that puts political pressure. You know. They think it's very unique. It's not unique at all.
But I said to them,
"So, how're we doing?" They said,
"Well, we're not going well." I said,
"Well, we're going to help you, and we're going to give you subsidy. I'm going to try and get you subsidy." And one of them looks at me and says,
"Sir, we don't want subsidy. We don't want a handout. We don't want that." I said,
"You got to be kidding. You're the only group that's ever said that to me." (Laughter.) Countries come in, they want help. Everybody wants help. They want free.
"What do you mean by that?" "We don't want that. We want to produce - I've been on this land with my family for 150 years." He said,
"My family has been here for 152 years," or something. He said,
"We just want a fair playing field. It's not fair what they've done to us with Canada charging us 285 percent tariffs." We took care of that.
With all of the things that happens - and then China, every time they want to negotiate with the United States, they stop buying farm product. And China is massive. You know, they can buy a lot or stop buying a lot. And they use the farmers to negotiate - and especially with me, because they know I love the farmers. And they know the farmers - you look in the middle of this country; that whole thing is beautiful Republican red. That whole thing. (Applause.) So they use them.
But I thought it was incredible. They said,
"We don't want subsidy. We don't want a handout, sir. We don't want this. We want just a level playing field. Let us do what we do better than anybody in the world." I said,
"Man, is that nice." And every single person in that room agreed with him. It was great. So I had to tell you that story. It's not a real estate story, but it's a - (applause).
I found it to be pretty amazing, because I'm on the other side all the time. Every day, people come in and they all want something. Countries want military protection. Really? You want it? Wealthy countries.
"You're going to pay for it?" "No, no, we would think you'd pay." "Oh, really?" Those days are over too, folks. (Applause.) Those days are over. That's almost as bad as trade, if you want to know the truth. But we're getting it all fixed up.
After years of building up other countries, we're finally building our country. (Applause.) And I've directed federal agencies - thank you. (Applause.) Thank you.
AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!
THE PRESIDENT: You just - you know - smart people. (Laughter.) Aren't we - hey, seriously, aren't we tired of being ripped off? (Applause.) We're being ripped off by everybody.
You know, I tell people about NATO - NATO is fine. But I got them to spend $100 billion more. We were paying, essentially, for most of NATO. I got them to pay $100 billion. And believe it or not, that's not nearly enough. You know, it's big stuff.
But the European Union treats us, I would say, worse than China. They're just smaller. Can you believe it? They have trade barriers. They don't want our farm products. They don't want our cars. They don't want - they send Mercedes Benzes in here like they're cookies. (Laughter.) They send BMWs here. We hardly tax them at all, John. We hardly tax them at all. Yet, you want to send our cars over there? Forget it. You want to send our agricultural products over there?
"Oh, I'm sorry. We don't want them. We have our own farmers." It's a very unfair situation.
Medical equipment is a big business, believe it or not. You know, all the big equipment - medical stuff. They - we make the best in the world. Well, they changed the standard so that our equipment doesn't qualify. They made it not a higher standard, just a different standard, so that our equipment now doesn't qualify without these companies going and spending a fortune to make equipment that's not as good. So it's a very unfair thing.
So we protect them. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars protecting them. And then they take advantage of us on trade. It's not - it's not fair. We lost $180 billion with the European Union. And we all love Europe. We love Europe. I think they got to be careful with Europe, frankly. But we all love Europe. But it's not fair the way they treat us. So I just tell you that.
I've directed federal agencies to drastically accelerate the approval process for new roads and bridges so that our families can get where they want to go, safely - (applause) - and our economy can keep running full speed ahead.
I mean, highways that were taking 21 years to get an approval. There's a highway in a state not so far away - took 20 years to get it approved. And they had an opening, fairly recently - not a big road - it's, sort of, not even a highway. It's less than a highway. But by the time it ended up, it was 20 years late. They spent tens of million dollars on environmental impact statements. The road was a dead-straight road - the first road, dead straight - so that, if you had a rough night, you can go straight. (Laughter.)
Now it's a road that goes this way - (laughter) - because of nesting - different things. Nesting. Who the hell knows what's nesting? But whatever it is - (laughter). So the road ends up being twice as long and curving like hell. And unless you're 100 percent sharp, you're in deep trouble. (Laughter.) They got these barriers, right? You know, the barriers? These - bwah, wah. (Laughter.)
So my father and I would have built that thing for nothing. For nothing. And it cost, I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars and just years. And you look at the environmental impact statements. I actually brought one to one speech. I brought one. And it was - literally, it was this high, and there were like three other sections. It was just - just nonsense, okay? Just total nonsense.
So we're stopping that. We're trying to get it down. It takes 17, 18 years to get a highway approved. We're trying to get it down to one. We have it down to two. We think we can get it down to one. (Applause.)
And we're getting rid of the quadruples. You know, you have many quadruples. You have some where you need 10 agencies to approve the exact same thing. So let's say you're doing really well; you get Carson to approve it, you get all these different people to approve it. And then you have one agency you can't get. That's the end of that project.
So we're simplifying it. And we've done, I think, Ben, a great a job on that. And we have it down to a much lower number. Probably two years. We'd like to get it down to one.
And it may get rejected. You know, if it's not environmentally good, if it's not good, we're going to get - we'll reject it very quickly. But at least you know.
So we have - we've done a good job with that. A very good job. I think, again, a lot of jobs are being created. A lot of people are doing things that they never thought they could do before.
We've freed local lenders from the heavy-handed regulations also - you know what was going on there - (applause) - that were crushing community banks and threatening the housing market. Pocahontas had an agency that was - (laughter) - I mean, she was a disaster. She was - she enjoyed destroying these local lenders. I mean, I think she got pleasure out of destroying beautiful local lenders who have been lending to your clients, and probably yourselves, for years. And they were going out of business and they were living in fear. Pocahontas - that's another beauty. (Laughter.) She's doing really well so far, isn't she? Her and her beer commercial. (Laughter and applause.)
How about the kid? Did you see the way she got the kid? Did anybody see that? Did anybody see? Where she wanted the child brought in front of her.
"Fwah!" (Laughter.) Boy, that kid moved quickly. (Laughter.) Nah, she's got a lot of pent up anger. She's an angry person. But you know what? Making it very tough on people that you know. You know exactly what I'm talking about. And now we have that running beautifully and they're loaning, and they're nice people. You know, they're nice people again.
By some estimates, under the previous administration, CFPB regulations cost credit unions a stunning $6 billion. Well, that's what we're talking about. That was her baby. And she had the man that was in charge of that running in the great state of Ohio.
But Mike did a good job, and I did good job. We fought, and your current governor came from behind and he was down by six or seven points with a couple of days left. We went out, we made a rally like you wouldn't believe, in the great state of Ohio. And he ended up winning by six or seven points. (Applause.) And that was a great day for Ohio. We love Ohio. That was a great day.
Last year, we rolled back the Dodd-Frank regulations that were crippling local banks - (applause) - that millions of homebuyers and small businesses rely on. I didn't know this was a banking convention. I thought this was - this is a real estate convention.
But, you know, you know what was happening to bankers, right? John - I mean, you know what was happening to bankers. The bankers were being crushed and they were being threatened. And these are people that were phenomenal. They were being destroyed.
