Remarks by President Trump at Signing of Executive Order, "Strengthening Buy-American Preferences for Infrastructure Projects" | Eastern North Carolina Now

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Q - (inaudible) wall finished -

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

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

    Okay.

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

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

    Q So why hasn't -

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

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

    Thank you very much, everybody.

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

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

    Q Are you concerned about legal challenges?

    THE PRESIDENT: Against who?

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    Q Are you concerned about legal challenges?

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

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

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

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

    Thank you all very much.


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