Remarks by President Trump at Foxconn Facility | Eastern North Carolina Now

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    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, everybody. You know, 18 months ago this was a field, and now it's one of the most advanced places of any kind you'll see anywhere in the world. It's incredible.

    And I want to be thanking Terry Gou, Chairman of Foxconn and a friend of mine. One of the most successful businessmen in the world. Very few people even close. And I want to thank him for investing in Wisconsin and investing in the United States. (Applause.)

    And this is just the beginning. I know Terry. This is just the beginning. This is one of the largest plants in the world. And when you think in terms of 20 million feet - if you build in Manhattan a million-foot building, that's a very big building. They don't get much bigger. And here you're talking about more. Think of it: more than 20 million feet. And that's probably going to be a minimal number.

    So I'm thrilled to be here in the Badger State with the hardworking men and women of Foxconn working with you. Moments ago, we broke ground on a plant that will provide jobs for much more than 13,000 Wisconsin workers. (Applause.) Really something. Really something. Thank you, fellas.

    I want to also thank Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who's here. Thank you, Steve. (Applause.) Secretary Wilbur Ross, Secretary Alex Acosta - (applause) - and Administrator Linda McMahon. A friend of mine for a long time, Linda. Where's Linda? Where's Linda? (Applause.) Thank you. And also, Paul just left. I said, "Go," because we got to pass legislation. We're passing so much. Look at what's happening with our Supreme Court. Look at the victories we've had. Look at the victories we've had. (Applause.)

    And Terry, I didn't speak to him about it, but he'll be in particular happy about one of those victories. Do you know which one we're talking about? I think you do.

    So I want to thank Paul Ryan. I want to thank our great Congressman Glenn Grothman. Where's Glenn? Glenn, thank you very much. Great job, Glenn. (Applause.) And we have so many other officials.

    But I have to thank a man who I gave it to - I handed - it's like handing the football off. And he ran for 2,000 yards that game. Because most people couldn't have done it. Terry and I have had a great relationship. And Terry was thinking about doing this.

    And Masa Son - you want to talk about another successful guy - he was in my office. He said - a friend of mine set it up - said, "I want to invest $50 billion in the United States." I said, "You don't mean $50 billion. You mean $50 million." And that would have been okay. That would have been worth about a five-minute meeting. $50 million. (Laughter.) And so I thought he was saying $50 million.

    I went over - and when it was set up, it was $50 million and I wanted to make it quick. But I heard about him. He, along with Terry - they're best friends - he came out, and I said, "So, good. What are you going to invest in?" He said, "Yes, we're going to" - I said, "You can't do that for $50 million." He said, "No, no. I'm going to invest $50 billion." And he misrepresented to me - (laughter) - because he's - I can tell you, he did. Because he spent much more than $50 billion in the United States. And that was two years ago. And now they're going to do a lot more.

    So I want to thank Masa Son. Masa, are you back there? Come. Come. I got to get him up here. Come on up here, Masa, if you can understand what I'm saying. Come here. (Applause.)

    MR. SON: You are fantastic.

    THE PRESIDENT: He doesn't play games. He doesn't like small numbers, right? You proud of Terry?

    MR. SON: Yes, I am.

    THE PRESIDENT: Say something about Terry. Come on. (Laughter.)

    MR. SON: Terry is my best friend, and we are the brothers.

    THE PRESIDENT: What about me? No?

    MR. SON: Of course. (Laughter.) So I promised the first time I met President Trump, just before you became official President -

    THE PRESIDENT: That's right.

    MR. SON: - I think I was the first CEO who came to celebrate you.

    THE PRESIDENT: It's true. It's true.

    MR. SON: And I said, "$50 billion investment and 50,000 jobs to the United States." Because I said, I couldn't have decided such a thing before this new President, because I said, "Now I see the passion. I see the opportunity. I'm more energized." So I made a volunteer - he promised. And now I'm very happy. We're making great success. And I said, "I have one more thing to promise, which is Foxconn."

    THE PRESIDENT: That's right.

    MR. SON: So those three things I promised. And I did not have official, official permission from Terry, but I promised. (Laughter.)

    THE PRESIDENT: We brought him along, right?

    MR. SON: Yes.

    THE PRESIDENT: We brought him along.

    MR. SON: But I'm so happy today that my promise came to truth. So this is a great historical moment, because I think United States did not have the ecosystem for new technology last 20 years. And now, this is a beginning new ecosystem of high-tech manufacturing back into the United States. (Applause.)

    THE PRESIDENT: Thanks. I'll see you back.

    Thank you, Masa. One of the great businessmen of the world, also - those two. That is some combination standing backstage. I said, "Woah." But they like each other; they love each other. And his $50 billion turned out to $72 billion so far - he's not finished yet - and that doesn't include Foxconn. (Applause.) So, big stuff.

    I want to thank another very special man. I hope he can hear me because I want him to come on stage - because I handed the ball over. Terry is a friend of mine and I recommended Wisconsin, in this case. And I'll be recommending Ohio, and I'll be recommending Pennsylvania, and I'll be recommending Iowa, and I'll be recommending - but this was something that just seemed right.

    And the reason is that you have a car plant in a very nice location. And I flew over that plant with another great Wisconsinite, Reince - you know Reince. Good man. (Applause.) I think he's around here someplace. He's a great guy. And I said, "That would be a good site." The only problem was that site is about one one-hundredth the size of what they did here. You could have put one of the smaller buildings on that site. This is big stuff.

    But I handed it over, Terry - I said, "Terry, this place is such a great place." You know, I just realized the other day, they told me - when we won the state of Wisconsin, it hadn't been won by a Republican since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. Did you know that? And I won Wisconsin. And I like Wisconsin a lot, but we won Wisconsin. (Applause.) And Ronald Reagan - remember, Wisconsin was the state that Ronald Reagan did not win. And that was in 1952. And I've gotten to know the people here - they're incredible. And I said to Terry, "This would be an incredible place."

    Then I started hearing the magnitude of what he's doing. This is magnitude like nobody has ever seen. Some of you have been able to see it. This is just the beginning. This is just the absolute beginning.

    So I had this incredible company going to invest someplace in the world - not here necessarily. And I will tell you they wouldn't have done it here, except that I became President, so that's good. But they wanted to do it someplace now in the United States. And I immediately thought of the state of Wisconsin.

    Terry came up, fell in love with the people, fell in love with the location, fell in love with the concept here. You know, he's going to make robotics here. They're doing many other things including full television sets. They're doing many things here. And they'll do a lot of expansion.

    But I had to hand off the ball. And in private life, you know, you hand off the ball and sometimes they do a good job and sometimes it's like, "What happened?" "Didn't work out." "Why didn't it work out?" "Because they didn't know what they were doing." And sometimes that happens.

    And there are very few governors that I could have said, "Good luck, you're going to build one of the largest operations in the world - over 20 million feet. Good luck." I gave it to Scott Walker. He literally didn't have to make a phone call to me for the last year and a half. He is an unbelievably talented guy. I'm telling you. Scott Walker. (Applause.)

    Scott, come here. Is Scott around? Please. Scott Walker. Governor Scott Walker. (Applause.) Come here. Come here.

    Whatever he said, he should say.

    GOVERNOR WALKER: Well, thanks, Mr. President. As you mentioned, you got the ball rolling. Foxconn would not be in America if not for you. Back on April 27th, when you met with Terry Gou and told him about not only being in America, but told him there was that pretty good site - that's an honest truth. In fact, Reince Priebus will tell you he looked at that site. The only thing we said was we got to get a bigger site than that because this is much bigger than we ever thought.

    And your team, your team in the White House - Jared, your Cabinet, everybody - was just hands-on-deck, great team effort here. And we couldn't be more proud to have Foxconn's 8K technology LCD panels for the first time ever, outside of Asia, made in the USA, proudly in the state of Wisconsin.

    Thank you, Mr. President. (Applause.)

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Scott. So I gave Scott the ball, and he carried the ball. And if that were football standards, NFL standards, he ran for about 2,000 yards in one game. (Laughter.) Special guy. Special talent. Forget about special guy. He's a special talent. So I hope he doesn't run against me, because that comment - (laughter) - that comment will come back to haunt me. He is a special talent and a special person.

    As Foxconn has discovered, there is no better place to build, hire, and grow than right here in the United States. America is open for business more than it has ever been open for business. Between our low taxes, our cutting of regulation - and we're not finished with the regulations. And we'll have regulation, but it's sensibly regulation. You'll be able to get things approved quickly, or disapproved. Sometimes it's going to be disapproved.

    We have clean air. We have crystal-clean water. We're going to do all of the things you have to do, but we're going to speed up the process. You have people that wanted to build a plant like this. It would have taken them 25 years to get approvals. Twenty-five years. They got them almost immediately. And the federal government had a lot to say. We had to get going, and they did. And here we are. And they're starting other sections right now.

    So we're open for business. Made in the USA. It's all happening, and it's happening very, very quickly. We've created 3.4 million jobs since the election, including over 300,000 manufacturing jobs. And as you saw, the recent poll just came out, the highest percentage of happiness by manufacturers in the history of the poll, which is a very old poll.

    Unemployment claims are the lowest they've been in 44 years. Unemployment for African Americans is at the lowest level in history. Unemployment for Hispanic Americans, the lowest level in history. Unemployment among women - and I've been saying it; it just changed today - is at the lowest level - and I've been telling you 21 years. It's now at the lowest level in 65 years, and is going to be in history very soon. "History" sounds even better. (Applause.)

    For the workers, after 20 years, wages are rising. Remember, I used to say they did better 20 years ago than they did 2 years ago. Now they're starting to do better, and they're having their choice of jobs where they can enjoy what they're doing. And a recent study found that 95 percent of manufacturers, they want to get going, and they're going to get going. And we have a lot of these things happening in the United States.

    But to me, this is always going to be the special one, because people that are highly sophisticated, businesspeople that have come out - look, I had a friend came out two weeks ago because he heard about it. He's a highly sophisticated businessperson that you all know. He could not believe it. He called me up. And he would love to tell me, "It's nothing." He's that kind of a guy. Not really a nice guy, but he's a great businessman. He could not believe what he's seeing.

    We are demanding from foreign countries, friend and foe, fair and reciprocal trade. We have been very much taken advantage of as a country. We've lost our companies. We've lost our jobs. They build a product; they send it in. That's why this is so beautiful because this is as great as there is anywhere in the world, and we do it within our country.

    And I just want to let you know we've put tariffs on steel and aluminum. Those businesses are through the roof. U.S. Steel called me up. They're expanding or opening six plants. They haven't done that in 35 years. Georgetown Steel, in South Carolina, closed four years ago. Closed and shuttered. They're open for business. Six-hundred people. That's happening all over the country. All over the country. (Applause.)

    So I want to level out - and I'm doing it - level out the playing field. And all of the things you hear, some - I mean, frankly, the smart people love it. Some people don't understand it. But we're going to be treated fairly. When our great farmers in Iowa, Wisconsin, Upper New York State, when we want to sell our dairy products into Canada, they charge us 275 percent - 275 percent. Essentially, what they're saying is, "We don't want your product." Because who's going to pay that? So we're going to level out the playing fields, folks. They send us a lot of stuff, no tax. We're going to work it out. It's going to be friendly. We love Canada. We love Canada. I love Canada. But we're going to work it out.

    Mexico, last year, made $100 billion, plus they have a 17 percent, almost, VAT tax that nobody even thinks about. So we were behind the eight ball, because that tax was there at the beginning. Right from the beginning, we were behind the eight ball. Mexico wants to make a deal. We're going to make a deal with a lot of people.

    China. I have a lot of respect for China. I think it's great. And President Xi, I think he's great. He's a friend of mine. But we lost $500 billion over the last number of years - $500 billion a year. We've helped rebuild China. Someday they'll say thank you. But we don't want to do that anymore. We want to have a fair and balanced situation. And it doesn't have to happen immediately, but it has to be fair. Because our country has never done better than it's doing right now.

    European Union, last year, trade imbalance. We had a deficit of $151 billion. They send us Mercedes, they send us - by the millions - the BMWs - cars by the millions. We send them a bushel of corn, and they reject it. They have a barrier. They don't want our corn because they have their farmers. Okay, I understand. But you know, if you don't want our agricultural product, we don't want your cars. I mean, you know, it's not such a complicated formula. And they're going to come back, and they're going to say, "Let's talk." Frankly, don't tell them I said it, but they already have. Don't ever tell them I said that. You'll screw up my negotiations. (Laughter.)

    But we're doing good. European Union - they're great. They're great people. And it will all work out. Many, many other cases. We've actually made a deal with South Korea. We took the deal. I expired it. It was a terrible deal. It was supposed to give us 250,000 jobs, done by Hillary Clinton. And she was right. It did give 250,000 jobs. So she was right. It gave it to South Korea; not to us. This was not a good deal. But we've renegotiated the deal, and subject to signing - I always say subject to signing because lots of things happen. And if it did happen, that's fine. But we made a new deal with South Korea. Wonderful deal for both. And our farmers now are protected. And our tariff - which has been paid for years, which was expiring - has now been extended for a long period of time, on trucks.

    At the center of America's economic resurgence are the massive tax cuts that I signed into law six months ago. We slashed tax rates for individuals, and we did numbers for business. We did tremendous, tremendous amount of work. And it's the largest tax cut ever approved, ever gotten, in the history of our country. Tax cuts and tax reform. Included in there is ANWR, the largest drilling site, potentially, in the world, in Alaska.