Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, Members of Congress, and Members of the Cabinet in Meeting on Trade | Eastern North Carolina Now

    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, ArcelorMittal -

    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.
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