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

The President. Hello, everybody.

Q. Mr. President.

Q. Hello, Mr. President.

The President. Good. Any questions?

Mar-a-Lago Club Senior Club Championship Golf Tournament in Palm Beach, Florida

Q. How was the golf tournament?

The President. Very good, because I won. [Laughter] It's good to win. You heard I won, right? Did you hear I won?

Q. What was your score, sir?

Q. Yeah.

The President. Just to back it up. You were there. I won.

The President's Golf Game

Q. What's your handicap these days?

The President. I like to win.

Very low. I have a very low handicap.

Okay, let's go.

Q. Sir, the Chinese foreign——

The President. Back up a little bit, okay?

China-U.S. Trade/Stock Market Volatility

Q. Sure. The Chinese foreign ministry said that the market has spoken when asked about the tariffs. What do you make of that?

The President. The market has spoken when they look at the fact that we have a billion-dollar trade deficit. When you look at the—the trade deficit that we have with certain countries—way over a billion per country. But with China, it's a trillion dollars, and we have to solve our trade deficit with China. We have a trillion-dollar trade deficit with China. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year we lose with China. And unless we solve that problem, I'm not going to make a deal.

Now, I'm willing to deal with China, but they have to solve their surplus. We have a tremendous deficit problem with China. They have a surplus of at least a trillion dollars a year. I think it's like a trillion one, and I want that solved.

And no other President has taken it on. I had to take it on the last time, and then we had a rigged election. No other President is taking it on.

And so China is—you know, they say the market has spoken. The market—China is, right now, taking a big hit, because everyone knows we're right. We—they have to pay tariffs because, otherwise, we have a surplus—that they have a surplus with us that is not sustainable.

Q. Mr. President——

The President. And we're talking about a trillion dollars. You know that, right? We're not going to lose a trillion dollars for the privilege of buying pencils from China.

Stock Market Volatility/China/European Union/Manufacturing Investment

Q. On the idea of crashing the markets on purpose. There's been some speculation, partly because of the video that was posted on Truth Social, that there was some sort of deliberate effort on your part to have the market sell off. Can you talk about that, whether that——

The President. No, that's not so. But I do want to solve the deficit problem that we have with China, with the European Union, and other nations. And they're going to have to do that. And if they want to talk about that, I'm open to talking. But otherwise, why would I want to talk?

And, as you know, because of the tariffs, we have $7 trillion already committed to be invested in the United States, building auto plants, building chip companies, and all sorts of companies are coming into our country at levels that we've never seen before.

Biden had nothing coming in. He was—this was a dead company with—this was a dead country with Biden. He didn't know what he was doing, and that's now been proven, at least.

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

Trade Negotiations/Tariffs/Automobile Industry

Q. This weekend—you talked to a lot of leaders this weekend. Can you tell us, sir, were there any deals made?

The President. I spoke to a lot of leaders—European, Asian, from all over the world. They're dying to make a deal. But I said, "We're not going to have deficits with your country." We're not going to do that, because, to me, a deficit is a loss. We're going to have surpluses, or we're, at worst, going to be breaking even.

But China would be the worst in the group, because the deficit is so big. And when it—it's not sustainable.

And you know, I was elected on this. This was one of the biggest reasons I got elected—was exactly because of this. And we're going to put tariffs—we've already put them on. It's not a question of we will. We're going to put them on, and those tariffs, next year, will make us $1 trillion. In addition to the $1 trillion, thousands of companies are going to relocate back into the United States.

In North Carolina, already, furniture people are starting to move back in. In Detroit, in Michigan, which I won because of what I said—what I'm telling you—car companies are starting to open up. In Indiana, a big one is under construction, as an example. Honda. But they're moving in like nobody has ever seen this before.

So it's unsustainable for us to allow China to have surpluses of a trillion dollars. We will be taking in over a trillion dollars over the next short period of time with the tariffs that I've already instituted. They're already in place.

Now, what's going to happen with the market, I can't tell you. But I can tell you our country has gotten a lot stronger. And, eventually, it will be a country like no other. It will be the most dominant country, economically, in the world——

Q. Mr. President, is there——

The President. ——which is what it should be.

Q. Elon—Elon Musk——

National Economy

Q. Is there a Trump put, though? Is there a market—is there pain in the market at some point you're unwilling to tolerate? This idea of a "Trump put," is there a threshold?

The President. I think your question is so stupid. I mean, I think it's—I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something. And we have such a—a horrible—we have been treated so badly by other countries because we had stupid leadership that allowed this to happen. They took our businesses, they took our money, they took our jobs. They moved it to Mexico, they moved it to Canada, they moved a lot of it to China, and it's not sustainable. We're not going to do it.

Now we have—hundreds of billions of dollars is pouring into our country on a monthly basis. It's pouring. It's already started because I put tariffs on. And eventually, it's going to straighten out, and our country will be solid and strong again.

European Union/China

Q. Elon Musk has said he hopes for zero tariffs between the U.S. and Europe. Is that a place you'd like to also get to?

The President. Well, the problem is that Europe has made a fortune with us. You know, Europe also has had a tremendous surplus with the United States. Europe has treated us—it's a little smaller, but they've treated us very, very badly. China has, but Europe has also. Europe has been very, very bad to us. Europe has taken our leaders for a ride.

They don't take our cars, they don't take our food products, they don't take anything. And we take their cars: Mercedes, Volkswagen, BMW. You know, we take their millions of cars. They take no cars. They don't take our farm product. They don't take anything. Europe has treated us very badly.

We put a big tariff on Europe. They are coming to the table. They want to talk, but there's no talk unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis—number one, for present, but also for past—because they've taken a lot of our wealth away, and we're not going to allow it to happen.

Technology Company Executives/Europe

Q. Sir, have you talked to any tech leaders over the weekend about the tariffs?

The President. Yes, I talked to the biggest in the world. I talked to the biggest of them all. Many of them. But I've talked to, I would say, four or five that are considered the biggest. They don't—and you know what they said? "We don't blame you."

Q. Who did you talk to?

The President. I don't want to say. I'll put it out. I may give it to you to——

Q. Nvidia—Nvidia CEO?

The President. I have to find out if they mind. You know, I don't know if that was a confidential call or not. But we had five or six.

I've spoken to many countries. They all want to do—just so you understand the power of what I'm doing: Every country is calling and being very solicitous of us. Very, very nice. They're being very nice.

And we have to be able to justify—we—this is not sustainable. The United States can't lose $1.9 trillion on trade. We can't do that and also spend a lot of money on NATO in order to protect European nations. We cover them with military, then we lose money on trade. It's—the—the whole thing is crazy, and I got elected on that basis. We explained it.

You know, the American people understand it a lot better than the media. But the media understands it, and much of the media writes correctly about it, I must say.

Q. Sir——

The President. Okay.

Russia/Ukraine

Q. Sir, when do you—when are the next set of talks with Russia, and who will participate? And where are we in terms of making progress, in terms of peace?

The President. We're talking to Russia. We'd like them to stop. I don't like the bombing. The bombing goes on and on. And every week, people are—thousands of young people are being killed, and it's a horrible thing that should have never started. It would have never started if I were president, 100 percent.

Q. On the tariffs. Is it a negotiation now?

The President. Who are you with?

Q. Bloomberg, sir. Is it a negotiation or rules of the road?

The President. Go ahead. Another question, please.

Q. Sir, about the——

Q. Sir, about TikTok.

The President. She asks too many questions.

TikTok Application/Tariffs

Q. Sir, about TikTok. There was a report that there was about to be a deal, but China changed his mind because of the tariffs.

The President. I'd say it was largely true. The report is that we had a deal, pretty much, for TikTok—not a deal, but pretty close—and then China changed the deal because of tariffs. If I gave a little cut in tariffs, they'd approve that deal in 15 minutes, which shows you the power of tariffs, right?

Former Governor Christopher T. Sununu of New Hampshire

Q. Mr. President, former New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu is saying that he'll win the open Senate seat in New Hampshire and that he has "no doubt" you'll support him if he runs. Is that true?

The President. True. I told him. He came to my office—came to the Oval Office and met with Chris Sununu, and I support him fully. I hope he runs. He's been very nice to me over the last year or so. But no, I hope he runs. I think he'll win that seat.

Inflation

Q. Sir, when we get into late summer, early fall, and people are doing their back-to-school shopping, do you think they'll have inflation to worry about at that point?

The President. I think there's not going to be—I don't think inflation is going to be a big deal, because if you look at me, I took in hundreds of billions of dollars. This is not new to me. I took in, during my 4 years, hundreds of billions of dollars from China, and we also took in a lot of money from other countries—but, in particular, China, because it was just getting started. And there was—we had no inflation.

Who had inflation was Biden. Biden had the worst inflation in the history of our country. I had no inflation. We had a perfect country. We had no wars. I ended them all. I defeated ISIS. Everything was good.

And then when this numbskull got in, as they really call themselves now, "numbskulls"—but when he got in, bad things happened to our country, including our—our open border that now we're doing very well with. You know, we have the best numbers on the border that we've ever had.

Immigration Enforcement Actions

Q. Speaking of the border, have you talked to Attorney General Pam Bondi recently about the cases going on with the deportations?

The President. Yes, sure. It's really sad when you think that Biden allowed millions of people to come in, and if they find one—now, I will tell you, the one—somebody said he's a member of MS-13, not Tren de Aragua. He's a member of MS13, and therefore, he should immediately brought back. Well, MS-13 is just as bad as Tren de Aragua. So they say: "Oh, we made a mistake, because he's not with them. He's with MS-13. Bring him back. Bring him back." MS-13 is a very bad group.

Q. Sir, how concerned——

The President. Maybe as bad, actually.

Measles Outbreak

Q. How concerned are you about the measles outbreak? There was another fatality today. And what else would you like to see in terms of the response?

The President. Well, I think they are doing reports on it. It's, so far, a fairly small number of people relative to what we're talking about. It's something that people have known about for many, many years. I mean, measles has been—you know, this is not something new.

And we'll see what happens. But certainly, if—if something—if it, you know, progresses, we'll have to take action, very strong action.

President Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez of El Salvador

Q. El Salvador's President said on X that he'd been invited to the White House on April 14th for a working visit to discuss Tren de Aragua and MS-13 and other ways we can support each other, the U.S. and El Salvador. I was curious if you could expand more on what some of these other ideas you have for El Salvador?

The President. Well, I think—yes, I think—you know, you're in the way of that camera, by the way. Am I—oh, you should at least say that—the camera operator should probably say that he's—she's shooting the back of your head, you know? [Laughter]. I don't know why she doesn't say it. I have to say it instead.

I have great respect for him. I know him. I've known him for a long time. He's a young leader, and he's very tough on crime. Very, very tough on crime. And in their system—their prison system, they spend a tiny fraction of the money that this country spends.

So—but he is coming in. I don't know when, but he is coming in sometime over the next couple of weeks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel/Gaza Conflict

Q. What are you and Prime Minister Netanyahu going to speak about tomorrow?

The President. We're going to talk about trade, and we're going to talk about the obvious subject. You know what the obvious subject is, right?

Q. Do you have any news for us on the obvious subject?

The President. I'm trying to—I'm trying to do trade just to keep it down. No, look——

Q. Will there——

The President. ——there's a lot of things going on with the Middle East right now that have to be silenced.

You know, we had no problem with the Middle East. Everything was done. We had no problem with Iran. We had no problem with anybody. And then you had October 7, and that was all because Iran, as you know, was not giving money to anybody because they had no money. Now they have a lot of money.

So we'll see what happens.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

El Salvador Offer To House U.S. Prisoners/Criminal Justice System

Q. To go back to El Salvador, the President there said he would be willing to take American citizens in the Federal prison population. Is that one of the ideas you're going to be discussing?

The President. Well, I love that. If we could take some of our 20-time wise guys that push people into subways and that hit people over the back of the head and then purposely run people over in cars—if he would take them, I'd be honored to give them. I don't know what the law says on that, but I can't imagine the law would say anything different.

If they can house these horrible criminals for a lot less money than it costs us, I'm all for it. But I'd only do according to the law.

But I have suggested that, you know, why should it stop just at people that crossed the border illegally? We have some horrible criminals, American grown and born. And if we have somebody that bops an old woman over the head, if we have somebody that is in jail 20 times and goes back and shoots people all over the place, and then has a bad judge or a bad prosecutor that do nothing about them—all they worry about is politics; they don't worry about that—I think if we could get El Salvador or somebody but—to take them, I'd be very happy with it, but I have to see what the law says.

Okay, what else?

Tariffs

Q. Mr. President, can you say, did you agree to lowering tariffs for any of the countries that you——

The President. No, no.

Q. ——spoke to today?

So we—[inaudible]?

The President. What you understand—Jennifer [Jennifer Jacobs, CBS News], you have to understand this. We have massive surplus countries that we're dealing with. We have massive deficits. We've got to straighten that out, because you can't continue to be that way. It's been that way for years now, and it can't go on any longer.

And we're the piggy bank. We have all the advantages. Forget markets for a second. We have all the advantages. We'll get it straightened out. We're going to become a wealthy nation again. Wealthy like never before. And we're not going to let other nations that have been ripping us off, whether it's China or the European Union—with all of the European nations that have just made—it's been like a feast.

Look, the European Union was formed for one reason. You know what that was? To rip off the United States. So put that in your bonnet.

I hope you had a good flight. Have a good time.

Q. Thank you, sir.

Q. Thank you for your time, Mr. President.

The President. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.