Remarks in an Exchange With Reporters Aboard Air Force One En Route to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland

The President. Hello, everybody.

Q. Hello, Mr. President.

The President. I hope you had a good time this weekend.

Q. Yes, it was great.

The President. We had a lot of very interesting things happen.

I think we're making a lot of progress on Ukraine and Russia, and that's always conflict, but I think we're making a lot of progress getting it stopped. We just want to see thousands of soldiers a week stop dying, because they're dying at numbers that probably haven't seen since the Second World War for no reason whatsoever. It's a shame. It's a shame.

So I think we are making progress. It's step by step. There's tremendous hatred between the—the leaders, if you call—call the whole situation "leaders," but I think we'll get that done.

And the Middle East—a lot of things are happening with respect to Iran, and we'll see if we can get something done. And if not, it's going to be a bad situation—very, very bad.

Q. Mr. President——

Q. You said bombing——

Tariffs/Iran/2024 Presidential Election

Q. On the additional oil sanctions that you mentioned today. When will they start?

The President. So we have a couple. We have the secondary tariffs on Iran. And we'll probably give it a couple of weeks, and if we don't see any progress, we're going to put them on. We're not putting them on right now. But if you remember, I did that 6 years ago, and it worked very well, to put it mildly.

And if the election weren't rigged, you would have a situation where there would be no problem with Iran today, but it was. Biden didn't know what he was doing, obviously. And we have a very rough situation in the Middle East because of that. You ended up with October 7, and you would have never had October 7 and you would have never had Russia going into Ukraine, likewise.

But we're going to make a decision on secondary tariffs on Iran based on whether or not they're going to make a deal. If they're going to make a deal, then we're never going to put secondary tariffs on. We're going to hope they have a great, long, and successful life as a country, but we'll see what happens. It's very, very interesting.

I can't imagine them doing anything else but making a deal. I would prefer a deal to the other alternative, which I think everybody in this plane knows what that is, and that's not going to be pretty. And I do not prefer that. So we're going to see.

Tariffs

Q. Mr. President—Mr. President, on the tariffs, you said that you were—at one point, that the tariffs Tuesday would be more conservative than what people might think. There's reports that you are maybe now looking to make the tariffs higher. So are you weighing higher tariffs or——

The President. No. No. The tariffs will be far more generous than those countries were to us, meaning they will be kinder than those countries were to the United States of America over the decades. They ripped us off like no country has ever been ripped off in history, and we're going to be much nicer than they were to us, but it's substantial money for the country, nevertheless.

Scope of Planned Tariffs

Q. On the tariffs that you're planning. So there are—you're expecting to hit something like 10 to 15 countries. Is that right?

The President. No. No.

Q. All countries?

Q. All of the countries?

Q. Is it across the board?

The President. Not 10. I don't know who told you 10 or 15 countries.

Q. Well, we heard that. So we heard that you were going to aim for the percent——

The President. Well, you might have heard it, but you didn't hear it from me.

Q. Okay. So how many countries will be in that initial tranche?

The President. Well, let's—you'd start with all countries, so let's see what happens. There are many countries in play.

Q. On the Russian——

The President. I haven't heard a rumor about 15 countries—10 or 15 countries.

Q. So you're starting with all countries?

The President. Well, essentially, all of the countries that we're talking about, yes. We'd be talking about all countries. There's not a cut off.

And if you look at the history and you look at what's happened to us, you go to certain places—go to Asia, and you take a look at every single country in Asia, what they've done to the United States in trade and, by the way, in military, in a certain way—you look at—you—but take a look at trade with Asia. And I wouldn't say anybody is treated as fairly or nicely, and—but we are going to treat them—we're going to be much more generous to them in terms of heart, going to be much more generous than they were to us.

Q. You said that you were not——

Q. Mr. President——

The President's Tenure of Office

Q. You—said you were not joking about a third term, about possibly wanting a third term. Does that mean you're not planning to leave office on January 20?

The President. Well, I'm not looking at that, but I'll tell you, I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which is, in a way, a fourth term, because the other election—the 2020 election was totally rigged. So it's actually sort of a fourth term, in a certain way.

I just don't want the credit for the second because Biden was so bad. He did such a bad job, and I think that's one of the reasons that I'm popular, if you want to know the truth.

I think I'm popular because we've done a great job. I think we've had the best almost hundred days of any President, and most people are saying that. And it's an honor. We're bringing back our country. We're respected as a country again, and we're strongly respected. And people are amazed.

They—I was with some very important people today, and they said that they've never seen a turnaround of a country as fast as this.

Even look at our border. We have nobody coming in. And you can come into our country, but you have to come in legally. But we have nobody coming into our country. It's almost shut down. They've never seen anything like this.

Q. Mr. President, the Constitution——

Q. Is that an appropriate precedent——

Q. The Constitution limits a President to two terms. Is it your understanding that they have to be——

The President. I don't even want to talk about it. I'm just telling you, I have had more people say, "Please run again." I said, "We have a long way to go before we even think about that."

Q. Can I just ask——

The President. But I've had a lot of people.

Q. Can I ask a clarifying——

The President. Yes, go ahead. Did you have something?

The President's Plans for the Future

Q. Yes, I just wanted to ask: Do you think that's an appropriate precedent to set, even if it wasn't you in this position, to see a President serve a third term?

The President. I don't want to talk about a third term now, because no matter how you look at it, we've got a long time to go. We have a long time. You know, we have almost 4 years to go, and that's a long time.

But despite that, so many people are saying, "You've got to run again." They love the job we're doing—most importantly, they love the job we're doing.

Q. Are you saying——

President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of Russia/Venezuela

Q. So you said you were upset with Putin.

Q. Are you—I just want to clarify——

Q. Would you say your relationship with Vladimir Putin is at its lowest point right now?

The President. No, I don't think so. I don't think—I don't think he's going to go back on his word. You're talking about Putin. I don't think he's going to go back on his word. I've known him for a long time. We've always gotten along well, despite the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.

It's a hoax created by Clinton and Schiff and all of these lunatics. And that really was a dangerous point. That was a very dangerous thing they did to this country. It was a pure, unadulterated scam, hoax.

But no, I think—I think he'll be okay. But if he isn't—I was disappointed, in a certain way, some of the things that were said over the last day or two having to do with Zelenskyy, because when he considers Zelenskyy not credible, he's supposed to be making a deal with him, whether you like him or you don't like him. So I wasn't happy with that, but I think he's going to be good.

And I certainly wouldn't want to put secondary tariffs on Russia, but if they were put on, it would not be very good for them.

[At this point, several reporters began asking questions at once.]

You know, we put secondary tariffs on, as you know, in Venezuela, and it's had a very strong impact on Venezuela. You know that. Every ship just got out and they left. A lot of them left. They dropped the hoses right into the ocean and they left. They didn't want to be there for a minute because they didn't want those tariffs to catch on, or they didn't want me to see them there. So the Venezuela secondary tariffs—all secondary tariffs are very strong, because essentially it says: If you disobey our orders, you cannot do business in the United States of America, and that's the cash cow.

Venezuelan Oil Supply

Q. Well, that is why the Chinese companies buying Russian oil as well, if you plan to go ahead with those?

The President. So, if—in the case of Venezuela, as you know, China pulled up anchor and left. They were there. They had two ships there, and they left. They left empty. They didn't want to take a chance.

No, we're not playing games.

Okay. Any other questions?

Q. Sir, will you clarify: Are you planning to leave office January 20, 2029, or are you saying you might not?

The President. Go ahead. Any other questions?

Q. On TikTok. TikTok.

Q. Mr. President—[inaudible]. Russian——

TikTok Application

Q. TikTok. On TikTok, the deadline is coming up——

The President. So we're working on TikTok. We have a lot of potential buyers. There's tremendous interest in TikTok. The decision is going to be my decision, as you know, through Congress. They've given me the power to make the decision. And we have a great team of people taking—essentially, taking bids. We have a lot of people that want to buy TikTok.

We're dealing with China also on it, because they may have something to do with it, and we'll see how that goes.

But it's something I think you're going to have—I'd like to see TikTok remain alive.

I mean, I'll be honest, selfishly speaking, I won the young vote by 36 points. Republicans generally don't do very well with the young vote. And I think a lot of it could have been TikTok. It could have been Joe Rogan, and it could have been a lot of things, but it was also TikTok.

TikTok is—it's very interesting and a lot of people want to buy it.

Q. If no deal, will you extend the deadline?

The President. Oh, there'll be a deal with TikTok. I'm pretty sure.

Q. So, on the——

Q. Mr. President——

The President. We would. We would.

Q. Mr. President——

Russia/Ukraine

Q. Do you have a deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin?

The President. Yes?

Q. Is there a deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a cease-fire?

The President. It's a psychological deadline. If I think they're tapping us along, I will not be happy about it.

Ukraine/Critical Minerals Supply

Q. Do you think they are right now?

The President. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think so. I think he wants to make a deal. And I think Zelenskyy, by the way—I see he's trying to back out of the rare earth deal. And if he does that, he's got some problems—big, big problems.

We made a deal on rare earth, and now he's saying, "Well, you know, I want to renegotiate the deal." He wants to be a member of NATO. Well, he was never going to be a member of NATO. He understands that. So, if he's looking to renegotiate the deal, he's got big problems.

Go ahead.

U.S. Automobile Industry/Manufacturing Investment

Q. Mr. President, have you had any more outreach from the automakers, and are you reconsidering that at all?

The President. The auto—no, no I never—the automakers are going to make a lot of money—the American automakers. Or international automakers, if you're talking about they're going to build in the United States. The people that are going to make money are people that manufacture cars in the United States. Outside of the United States, that's going to be up to them. That's—I don't care too much about that, but you have a lot of companies coming into the country to manufacture cars.

As you know, the autoworkers union, I did great. I won Michigan by a lot. But the autoworkers union, they were fantastic to me, but now they're really fantastic. And even Shawn Fain—who I don't know, but he obviously wasn't a supporter of mine; he's a Democrat—he said wonderful things about Donald Trump. He said, "I can't believe this is finally happening."

People that make, manufacture automobiles in the United States are going to make money the likes of which they've never seen before.

But beyond that, we have the computer companies, the chip companies, the pharmaceutical companies. We have lumber. We have everything—steel. They're all going to do really well as long as they do their product in the United States.

National Economy/Canada-U.S. Trade

Q. Mr. President——

Thank you very much, everyone.

Q. ——there's a lot of discussion about stagflation now. Is that something that you're worried about, given the impact of your efforts to readjust the economy?

The President. I haven't heard that term in years. No, I don't know anything about it.

This country is going to be more successful than it ever was. It's going to boom. We've got to—we're going to have boomtown, U.S.A. We're going to boom, and many industries—and we're going to bring manufacturing, and we're going to bring product.

For instance, we need pharmaceuticals in our company. We don't want to be buying our pharmaceuticals from other countries, because if we're in a war, we're in a problem, we want to be able to make our own. We want to bring—we have our own lumber. We have our own energy. We don't need energy from Canada. We don't need lumber from Canada. We don't need anything from Canada. We don't need cars from Canada, as an example.

So we are going to—I think we're going to have—I call it the "golden age of America." I believe this will be the golden age of America.

Thank you very much, everybody.