Remarks at an Executive Order Signing Ceremony and an Exchange With Reporters

The President. Hello, everybody.

So we have a very special group of wounded veterans who are amazing. I've actually visited many of them in the hospital, and they came out better than me. They came out looking good. I had that look, I would have been President 20 years ago. I wouldn't have had to wait so long. [Laughter]

No, you look great, fellas. But we have many of them. I didn't even realize it at the time, but I visited many of you in the hospital. They did an incredible job. The doctors are absolutely unbelievable, the job they do.

So we were having a little meeting, and, at the same time, we're signing some very important legislation—what will become legislation—and right now it's an Executive order—and having to do mostly with education.

And we have our Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, who's been so incredible over the last few weeks. I've been watching her on television. I'd like to tell her she could do better, but she can't. [Laughter] She can't do any better. So I want to thank you, Linda. Fantastic.

Secretary of Education Linda E. McMahon. Thank you, sir.

The President. And we also have Commerce, and we have Labor with us today. And you have been—thank you, Lori, very much.

Secretary of Labor Lori M. Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. And, Howard, thank you very much.

And we'll take some questions after we're finished. Maybe I'll ask Will to step forward, and you can go through some of these.

White House Staff Secretary William O. Scharf. Yes, sir.

The President. Also, Lindsey, you'll work with Will, two very talented lawyers, as you all know by now.

Staff Secretary Scharf. Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. And we'll go through them. And, Linda, why don't you come over here. In fact, why don't the three of you come over here.

Staff Secretary Scharf. We also have a special guest with us today, sir.

[At this point, Staff Secretary Scharf passed the President a notecard.]

The President. Oh, that's right. Annette Albright. Where is Annette? Annette Albright, Charlotte-Mecklenburg schoolteacher. A very special one.

Retired Charlotte, NC, teacher Annette Albright. Thank you.

The President. Thank you very much. It's a great honor to have you. You have all sorts of awards for talent. That's good. Thank you very much for being with us.

Ms. Albright. [Inaudible]—absolutely.

The President. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay. Please.

Staff Secretary Scharf. Sir, the first Executive order we have prepared for your attention. There are currently laws on the books requiring certain disclosures of universities when they accept large foreign gifts. We believe that certain universities, including, for example, Harvard, have routinely violated this law, and this law has not been effectively enforced. So this Executive order charges your departments and agencies with enforcing the laws on the books with respect to foreign gifts to American universities.

[The President signed an Executive order titled, "Transparency Regarding Foreign Influence at American Universities".]

The President. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We'll put it right here.

Staff Secretary Scharf. Next for you, sir, university accreditation is currently a process controlled by a number of third-party organizations. That's by statute, by law. Many of those third-party accreditors have relied on sort of woke ideology to accredit universities, instead of accrediting based on merit and performance. This Executive order effects a number of changes to the university accreditation process. It also applies to law schools and other sort of graduate programs.

But the basic idea is to force accreditation to be focused on the merit and the actual results that these universities are providing, as opposed to how woke these universities have gotten. So we're setting up new accreditation pathways. We're charging the Department of Education to really look holistically at this accreditation mess and hopefully make it much better.

The President. Will we look into the past people that they've taken? For instance, I hear all about certain great schools, and then we read where they're going to teach people basic math that we could all do very easily, but they can't do. They're, you know, going to the top school, and they're going to—they come out with a program of teaching basic math to somebody that got into a Harvard or a Princeton or a Yale. Is that part of this?

Staff Secretary Scharf. When universities are not performing appropriately, whether that's in admissions or whether that's in their actual instructional activities, that's certainly something that accreditors should be considering that right now we believe they're not doing a good enough job of. And I think Secretary McMahon could probably speak to that better than I could, sir.

The President. What about that, Linda? So they're allowing people into school that can't do math, and yet kids who work really hard and are number one in their class at a high school someplace in New Jersey or in Mississippi, they can't get into the best schools. What is that all about?

Secretary McMahon. Yes, I think that gets to your policy, sir, of meritocracy, that we should be looking at those who have real merit to get in, and they—and we have to look harder at those universities that aren't enforcing that.

The President. Okay. Thank you. And this pretty much does it, right?

Secretary McMahon. Yes, sir.

The President. Thank you.

[The President signed an Executive order titled, "Reforming Accreditation To Strengthen Higher Education".]

Okay.

Thank you.

Staff Secretary Scharf. Sir, during your first administration, you made promoting Historically Black Colleges and Universities, HBCUs, a major priority. This Executive order takes existing law on HBCUs and brings it into effect. We're going to be setting up a White House initiative on HBCUs. The basic idea here is making sure that every aspect of your administration is working to ensure that HBCUs are able to do their job as effectively and as efficiently as possible.

The President. Okay.

[The President signed an Executive order titled, "White House Initiative To Promote Excellence and Innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities".]

Okay.

All right.

Staff Secretary Scharf. This next Executive order relates to artificial intelligence education, sir. You've obviously done a lot in the artificial intelligence space already. The basic idea of this Executive order is to ensure that we properly train the workforce of the future by ensuring that schoolchildren, young Americans are adequately trained in AI tools so that they can be competitive in the economy years from now, into the future, as AI becomes a bigger and bigger deal.

The President. That's a big deal because AI is where it seems to be at. We have literally trillions of dollars being invested in AI. And there—somebody today, a very smart person, said that AI is the way to the future. I don't know if that's right or not, but certainly, very smart people are investing in it heavily.

[The President signed an Executive order titled, "Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth".]

Good.

Okay.

Staff Secretary Scharf. Next, sir, we have an Executive order on workforce development. This Executive order is going to charge numerous departments and agencies within the Government to reshape the way that we do workforce development.

One example from the Executive order, for instance: We're looking to get the total number of apprenticeships—new apprenticeships up to a million in the country to ensure that, in critical jobs areas and areas where we currently don't have enough trained workers, that we're recreating that pipeline to ensure that, particularly, as we onshore industrial jobs and new industries, that those industries have the workforce they need to be competitive globally.

The President. Great. Very important.

[The President signed an Executive order titled, "Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future".]

Secretary of Commerce Howard W. Lutnick. And this is the EO that we're all here working together.

The President. And in a way, this is like a training center—right?—for what we're trying to do, which is jobs and great salaries. These are great salaries too.

Secretary Lutnick. Right. That's exactly. So all those factories that you're bringing in because of your trade policy——

The President. Right.

Secretary Lutnick. ——we're going to train people in trade craft. Bring back trade craft to America so that people can work in these factories with great-paying jobs, and we're going to train them, and we're going to remake the American dream for all these people. We're working together.

Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. That's right.

Secretary Lutnick. Right, Lori?

Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Absolutely. This plays right into "America at Work" tour, which I have kicked off. We will work with our State partners and work with our businesses to see exactly who they need in that workforce, and we will skill and upskill these apprentices so they can get right to work and get in the field and build back this economy for exactly the—living the American dream.

The President. Good, Lori.

Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Yes. Thank you, sir.

The President. Thank you, Lori.

Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. Thank you, Mr. President.

Staff Secretary Scharf. Next, sir, we have an Executive order on school discipline policies. Under—I believe it was the Biden administration—first Obama and then Biden—the Department of Justice issued guidance that made it almost impossible for schools to enforce adequate discipline—disciplinary policies. This created issues in the classroom for teachers and students alike. Basically, they focused on CRT and sort of diversity ideology instead of actually just enforcing the rules in classrooms to ensure a safe learning environment.

This Executive order revokes that prior guidance and puts us back in a place where, hopefully, the Department of Education can focus on education and teachers can focus on teaching in a safe environment.

The President. Yes, this was important for you, Linda, as I understand it.

Secretary McMahon. Yes, absolutely, because it gives teachers the authority now to have discipline in their classroom and discipline the person who is being disruptive.

The President. That's great.

Secretary McMahon. We took that away.

[The President signed an Executive order titled, "Reinstating Common Sense School Discipline Policies".]

The President. Okay. Nice. Here, Linda, you should hold that one. [Laughter]

Staff Secretary Scharf. Lastly, sir, we have an Executive order on disparate impact theory. This is a theory that underlies a lot of the modern DEI- and CRT-driven diversity culture. The basic idea here is instructing your departments and agencies to no longer rely on disparate impact theory as they're regulating, as they're issuing guidance, as they're making rules. We want to focus on results. We want to focus on actual fairness. We want to focus on merit, not things like disparate impact theory and the whole sort of diversity, equity, and inclusion cult.

The President. That's getting out of that, huh?

Staff Secretary Scharf. Yes, sir.

The President. After being in that jungle for a long time.

[The President signed an Executive order titled, "Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy".]

Okay.

Thank you.

Very good job. Thank you very much.

Staff Secretary Scharf. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

The President. Thank you very much.

Would you like to introduce, again, Annette, and perhaps Annette wants to say something having to do with that.

Secretary McMahon. To I ask her?

The President. Annette is right here.

Secretary McMahon. Yes, Annette—yes, please come over.

Would you like to have some comments to make? I know you're a former Charlotte Mecklenburg schoolteacher. I'm a North Carolina girl, so it's nice to see you.

Ms. Albright. Yes, New Bern.

Secretary McMahon. Yes, from New Bern.

Ms. Albright. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much. I am so honored to be here.

This has been an 8-year journey for me to raise awareness to the violence that's in public schools and the critical need to address violence in public schools. Again, been doing it 8 years because most administrations like to keep the violence hidden.

We have three students that should be here with us today. We have Austin Metclaf—Mecalf [Metcalf; White House correction]—I'm sorry if I say his name wrong; Serenity Baker; and Nahzir Taylor from Charlotte, North Carolina, who was shot in the back as he was getting off of a schoolbus because they thought he was a part of a big brawl that happened inside a public high school.

So this is very important and critical legislation that we have to keep our educators safe, we have to keep our students safe, and public schools have to be safe environments.

So I thank—like I said, I've done this journey alone. I've been on it, but I have a whole team behind me now. I spoke at the RNC, and I told millions that Donald Trump and his administration was going to make schools great again, and I feel that we're on the right path. And I'm just honored to be here.

The President. Thank you very much.

We're giving this to the—our great vets that are with us, and is it okay if I give her one? What do you think?

Participant. Absolutely.

Ms. Albright. Thank you.

The President. Thank you very much.

Ms. Albright. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

The President. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Ms. Albright. Thank you. Thank you. What a honor.

The President. Great job.

Can I ask Sarah to speak—Verardo?

Independence Fund Chief Executive Officer Sarah Verardo. Yes, sir. Thank you.

The President. Tell us a little bit about these great gentlemen.

Mrs. Verardo. These heroes, Mr. President, are extraordinary. This is my husband Michael and so many of our dear, dear friends who are here today.

The President. Great.

Mrs. Verardo. Many of them have met you, sir, in your first administration in the hospital many times at Walter Reed.

The President. Right.

Mrs. Verardo. And they've had long recoveries. Tomorrow, for my husband, marks 15 years since he was wounded in Afghanistan.

The President. Wow.

Mrs. Verardo. And on that day, about 6 years ago, he had his 120th surgery post Afghanistan.

The President. Oh, wow.

Secretary McMahon. Oh, my gosh.

Mrs. Verardo. And you came to see him at Walter Reed——

The President. I did.

Mrs. Verardo. ——and so many others. And we saw great reform in the VA: access—same-day access to prosthetics, mental health care, and we know that that is back. We're going to—these gentlemen were saying—Alex here earlier was saying, in the last few years, when he's gone to get a wheelchair, the VA has asked him—this gentleman—they've asked him to prove that he still has his injuries, as though maybe his limbs would grow back. And they—

The President. Wow.

Mrs. Verardo. ——unfortunately did not. Yes. And we've seen that many times.

And so, we're excited for you bringing back the VA accountability, MISSION Act, community care that were the hallmark of your first term. And we're so excited, sir, to be here. We're honored to be here. And thank you for all you do for our Nation's heroes.

The President. Well, thank you.

Who is that picture on there? [Laughter]

Army veteran Alejandro "Alex" Jauregui. That is Joe Biden, and it says, "Let's go, Brandon." [Laughter]

The President. I'm looking at that, and I'm saying, "What was that picture?" [Laughter] That's great.

Mrs. Verardo. I told him he wasn't allowed to ask you——

The President. That's great.

Mrs. Verardo. ——to sign it. [Laughter]

The President. That's very good.

Well, thank you all very much. Would you like to say anything, fellas? There's a big chance of——

Mrs. Verardo. Alex, go ahead.

Mr. Jauregui. I——

The President. ——a lot of good people watching that believe in you. They happen to be the media, but they believe very much in you, like I do. [Laughter] Anybody?

Mr. Jauregui. Mr. President, we just—we're very happy with the energy that this administration is bringing, and it's an administration that says—does what it promises. And so, we're behind you, we believe in you, and we all—I think we all love you.

The President. Thank you very much.

Mr. Jauregui. I'm going to speak for everyone.

The President. Thank you very much. And I'm going to get you a better hat so you'll have a better hat. [Laughter] That's a good one. That was the original.

Mr. Jauregui. It was. I've——

The President. That means he was there right from the beginning——

Mr. Jauregui. I've been wearing it before it was cool. [Laughter]

The President. That's right. That was—that's an early one. We'll save that one, though, right?

Mr. Jauregui. Yes, Mr. President.

The President. And thank you. Anybody, please?

Marine veteran Daniel Gilyeat. I'd like to say——

The President. Yes.

Mr. Gilyeat. ——oh, go ahead.

Army veteran Shawn Testa. Oh, I was just going to say thank you for loving America, sir.

The President. Thank you very much.

Mr. Testa. Thank you so much.

The President. Very nice. Thank you very much, truly. Thank you.

Army veteran Tim Kennedy. Sir, the man that just spoke saved Michael Verardo's life. And of course, he goes immediately to say thank you, as he was the one that saved Michael Verardo from the helicopter and got him off the combat zone.

The President. Wow.

Mrs. Verardo. He's right there. Shawn Testa.

Mr. Kennedy. So the selflessness of these men is unspeakable.

Mrs. Verardo. Thank you.

The President. That's great. So you——

Mrs. Verardo. Yes, he's alive because of that man right here.

The President. That's right.

These are amazing people, great heroes. So that's really great.

Anybody else? Yes, please.

Mr. Gilyeat. I'd like to say it was an honor to serve. You are worth it. This country is worth it, and it's because of what Christ paid for it.

The President. Thank you. And we have a spirit that people haven't seen in many years—at least 5. [Laughter] They haven't seen—I think, even then, because we've been through so much for the last 4 years together.

It was so bad. It was so bad. What they've done to the borders, what they've done all over the place. And it's really an honor to be with you, all of you. Incredible. And I'm going to give you these coins, and I think you're going to really like them. I think they're the best. These are the best coins.

You have your choice. This is gunmetal. I don't know, soldiers like the black——

[The President began distributing challenge coins to the veterans.]

Mr. Gilyeat. [Inaudible]

The President. ——but I think you'll like this one. It's okay. A lot of soldiers like the black. Here you go.

What do you like?

Army veteran Jared Lemon. I'll do the black, Mr. President.

The President. Okay. See, I told you. [Laughter]

Have that. These are choices.

Army veteran Derick Hurt. I'll take a black one, sir.

The President. Okay. Look at this. [Laughter] Oh, that rarely happens.

Mr. Hurt. Thank you, sir.

The President. You're different, huh?

Army veteran Dillon Cannon. I'll take a black one, sir. [Laughter]

Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. There you go.

The President. That's great.

Secretary Lutnick. They're called the military—[inaudible].

The President. No, but—I always say, the soldiers, they do like—it's gunmetal.

Secretary McMahon. That's what I heard, that it was gunmetal.

Armey veteran Michael Verardo. I don't know, sir. I think the Trump gold is what I should——

The President. I'm giving you—I'm giving him two. [Laughter] One——

Mrs. Verardo. We have three girls.

The President. ——one for this one right here.

Mrs. Verardo. They're going to fight. [Laughter] Thank you.

The President. We'll get another one for you.

Okay. This is actually fun.

Mr. Jauregui. I'll take the gold, Mr. President.

The President. Okay. I thought you were going to take that gold. Okay.

Marine Corps veteran Chris Fleming. Gold one, sir.

The President. Okay. You've got it.

Mr. Fleming. I had an opportunity to sail across the Gulf of America 2 days after you named it right.

The President. Oh, wow. Is that great? [Laughter]

It's been an honor. And now people say it routinely.

Mr. Fleming. Yes.

The President. They don't even think about the other. They say it routinely.

Mr. Fleming. Well, it's ours.

The President. That's been great honor for me. Okay.

Army veteran Matthew Castillo Del Muro. I'll take a gold one, sir.

The President. Okay. It's almost even. I think gold has an edge.

Mr. Testa. I would love a gold one, sir.

The President. You've got it. [Laughter]

Mr. Testa. Thank you so much. Thank you.

The President. The gold, it picked up at the end, right? [Laughter] You all okay? That's good.

So I want to thank you very much. And especially—that's a great story, huh?

Mr. Verardo. Yes, sir.

The President. What do you think of a guy like that? Pretty good.

Mr. Verardo. Oh, we actually—him, him, and him, we all served together.

The President. Wow.

Mr. Testa. And Jared over there too.

Mrs. Verardo. And Jared over there.

The President. So, you guys—

Mr. Verardo. And Jared—oh, I forgot Jared.

The President. So you guys got hit—huh—pretty good. You got hit.

Mr. Lemon. Pretty good.

The President. Amazing. Amazing.

Mr. Jauregui. We were in a pretty tough area in Kandahar province—in the Arghandab River Valley, right outside Kandahar.

The President. Yes, that's tough.

Mrs. Verardo. Their unit had a more than 50 percent Purple Heart rate, sir——

The President. Wow.

Mrs. Verardo. ——in 2010.

The President. You deserve it. You deserve that and more. We appreciate it so much. Brave—really brave, brilliant people. Thank you very much.

Do you have any questions of the——

Q. Mr. President, first of all, I want to say——

The President. ——of the guys here?

Q. Mr. President——

Q. I want to say thank you to the veterans who are here.

The President. Absolutely.

China-U.S. Trade/Trade Negotiations/Domestic Manufacturing Investment/Fentanyl/Tariffs

Q. Thank you so much for defending us. And then I wanted to ask you, Mr. President, because you said you want to bring the tariffs on China down soon. How soon do you want to bring the tariffs on Chinese goods down?

The President. Well, that depends on them. We have a situation where we have a very, very great place. It's called the United States of America, and it's been ripped off for years and years. These people know it. We talked about it before you came in. We've been ripped off by every country in the world, practically, and—friend and foe. And we will—we're not doing that anymore.

So what's happened is, we've—Howard, how many countries have we spoken to already?

Secretary Lutnick. Ninety.

The President. Ninety. And they all want to make deals, and we're going to make deals. But they're going to be fair deals. They're not going to be rip-off deals.

And you know, we were losing almost $5 billion a year. No country can do that. And now we have it down almost even, maybe even better than even, because of the tariffs on cars and aluminum, and steel. We have tariffs 25 percent on cars, aluminum, and steel. And there's a rush to build new steel plants, a rush to build new aluminum plants, and a biggest rush I've ever seen—that we've ever seen—to build car plants. We have, like, 11 of them or something. Big ones. Where you guys maybe work. Maybe you won't want to work. You'll do something else instead of that. But if you like cars, you'd like to work in one of these plants—the biggest plants in the world.

Three of them have left Mexico before the construction started, one of them during construction. And they're coming to this country. They're coming back, don't forget. And we get along great with Mexico, but Mexico took 32 percent of our car-building business.

So it's amazing what's happening. Remember this number. Anywhere from $3- to $5 billion a day. That's not a million dollars. That's billion dollars a day. Nobody can even imagine it. And that's what we were losing. And you know, hence we have $36 trillion in debt and everything else.

And, in the end, I think what's going to happen is we're going to have great deals. And, by the way, if we don't have a deal with a company or a country, we're going to set the tariff. We just set the tariff at something that we think——

Q. How soon?

The President. That will happen, I'd say, over the next couple of weeks. Wouldn't you say? I think so. Over the next two or three weeks, we'll be setting the number.

Q. For China?

The President. And we're going to pick—could be for China too. Could be for China. We'll—we're dealing with almost all of them. Too many to fully deal with, but we're going to be fair to them. But we're dealing with a lot of countries right now.

And could be with China, but maybe we'll make a special—you know, a deal. And we'll see what it will be. Right now it's 145 percent. That's very high. It got there because of the fentanyl. They're sending, you know, massive amounts of fentanyl into our country and killing a lot of people—probably 200,000-plus a year, wiping them out. You probably all have friends that were killed—somebody was killed in your family or your friends with fentanyl.

And somehow, it's made almost exclusively in China. And as you know, we essentially taxed them 10 and then another 10. We also taxed Mexico 25, and we taxed Canada 25. And that's the kind of money—that's what's pouring into our country right now, and it's gotten us down from losing $3- to $5 billion a day to actually making money, but breaking even, let's say. But we're going to make a lot of money, and that money is going to be used to reduce taxes. We're going to get big, big tax breaks.

We're going to—you know, there was a time—I said it this morning. I think some of you were there. There was a time from 1870 to 1913. It was a long time ago. We were an all-tariff nation. Foreign nations paid taxes. They paid money to us in the form of tariffs. And that was when we were the wealthiest. We were the wealthiest, proportionately, that we ever were.

And they formed committees in 1887, in particular, but they formed committees to determine what we should do with all the money. We had so much money, you guys would have loved it. We had so much money, they didn't know what to do with it. We gave it away to different causes, and you haven't seen that too much anymore, although we give plenty away, but now we shouldn't be giving it away. We have to take care of ourselves first, right?

Mr. Verardo. Absolutely.

The President. But we were very wealthy, and proportionately the wealthiest we ever were. We built the Panama Canal. Jimmy Carter gave that away for $1, by the way. One of the most profitable things ever built, the Panama Canal, we gave it away for $1 to Panama. Why? I don't know. Nobody knows, but that's what we had. We had people like that sitting behind this desk. And that shouldn't have happened. Panama Canal.

We spent—it was the most expensive thing ever built by our country in history. I'm talking in relative dollars. We've never built anything so expensive. I think it was the equivalent of $1.7 billion, and we've never built anything like that. We built a lot of things, but never so expensive.

Then we started building other things. We had a lot of money to do it, all based on foreign countries coming in and paying us tariffs. And we're doing that again. And I think we're going to make so much that we're going to be able to reduce taxes in this country by a lot.

And we're also going to treat those countries very fairly. But if we don't make a deal, which is possible, we're going to just set the price. Because you remember, they have to come in—they want to come in here, and they want to do business with the United States. So we want to set a fair price, and we'll do that. We're going to be very fair. But we'll set a fair price, and then they can make a determination as to whether or not they want to do business with the United States. And I think most of them will, and I think we're going to treat them very fairly.

Impact of Tariffs on Small Businesses/China-U.S. Trade

Q. Were you worried—were you worried about what the 145-percent tariffs were doing to small businesses here in the U.S.?

The President. No. No.

Q. Is that why you're bringing it down?

The President. No, no. No, I haven't brought it down. I haven't brought it—it's still 145. I haven't brought it down.

Q. But you said in the next few weeks.

The President. I said it's a tariff. It is a high tariff, but I haven't brought it down.

It basically means China is not doing any business with us, essentially, because it's a very high number. So, when you add that to the price of a product, you know, a lot of those products aren't going to sell. But China is not doing any business. They were doing—they were doing $1.1 trillion—think of that—$1.1 trillion. You know what that is? And it was just very unfair to us. And we were doing very little—relatively, very little with them. It was a one-sided—very one sided.

But we get along. I get along very well with President Xi, and I hope we can make a deal. Otherwise, we'll set a price, and hopefully, they'll come here, and they'll contribute. And if they don't, that's okay.

[Several reporters began asking questions at once.]

The President's Schedule/Funeral for Pope Francis in Rome, Italy

Q. On your trip to Rome. There's a lot of leaders attending the Pope's funeral who also said they'd like to meet with you while you're there. Do you have any meetings set up? Are you looking to meet——

The President. Yes, I do.

Q. Can you——

The President. I have a lot of meetings set up. I don't know if I can do it. Do you want to help me out, fellas? [Laughter]

I've got a lot of meetings. I've got every leader in the world—which tells you that we have a good product. It's called the United States of America, and it's great. And these people know about it better than anybody in this room. But we have a great—we have a great place, and it should be a lot greater. And that's what we're going to do. We're going to make it greater than ever before. It's very simple.

Q. Who are you going to be meeting with? President Zelenskyy? Do you——

The President. Well, I have a lot of meetings set up, yes.

The President's Travel to Rome, Italy

Q. Okay. And are you bringing anyone with you in the U.S. delegation to the funeral, like Secretary Rubio or a former President or——

The President. We have a couple of people coming. I'll be—we'll announce it probably this evening or tomorrow. The first lady is going, and some people are coming with me from staff. But we'll have a number of people going. It's going to be—I'm sure it's going to be a beautiful ceremony.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Veterans Benefits/Health Care

Q. I have one on Ukraine, but I wanted to ask you one about veterans, as they are here today, and thank you for your service and sacrifice. I wanted to ask you about the—the cuts that have been made, including with the VA. Can you assure that veterans, like these men here, those that have been suffering from mental health issues or burn pits, for example—

The President. Yes.

Q. ——will be taken care of——

The President. Yes, very much so.

Q. ——even with the cuts?

The President. In fact, they will tell you, it's been better with me than any President in history. We had a 92-percent approval rating, which is unheard of—up 50 points from the previous administration—in my first 4 years. And we're doing better now. In fact, now they have something, a call-on—the call-on doctor stuff, where it's really become—you know, it's really become modernized and great, where you don't have to go and travel sometimes long distances to get to a clinic or get to the VA.

And I just heard this morning—I was listening to Doug Collins, who's the secretary, who was being interviewed, and the numbers are incredible. The approval ratings are the highest we've—I've never heard numbers like this. It's better than the first 4 years.

So, no, there's nobody—there's no group of people more important than the people in this room, and I'm not talking about the media. [Laughter] I'm talking about these people right here. There's no group. And they're going to be taken really well care of. That's very important to me.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine/Russia

Q. And on the war in Ukraine. Are you going to be meeting with President Zelenskyy? He's asked to meet with you this weekend. Will you be meeting with him this weekend?

The President. I don't know. I don't know that he's going to the funeral or not.

But I just hope he gets this thing solved, because we're losing about—think of this: 5,000. I would say 2,500, and everyone was telling me that's low. Five thousand soldiers are being killed every week, approximately. Think of that. Every week, 5,000 soldiers. But let's say from 3,000 to 5,000 are being killed.

They're Russian and Ukrainian. They're not Americans, but they're Russian—but they're people, and they're humans. They're human beings. They have families. They wave goodbye to their son, and then they get a call that the son is no longer there. It's a vicious war, and if I can help solve it—you know, we're not losing our soldiers, but we're losing soldiers. A lot of people. And if I can solve it because of a certain ability, that would be great. And if—if it doesn't happen—I will say that I think Russia is ready. And a lot of people said Russia wanted to go for the whole thing. And they've—I think we have a deal with Russia.

We have to get a deal with Zelenskyy, and I hope that Zelenskyy—I thought it might be easier to deal with Zelenskyy. So far, it's been harder, but that's okay. It's all right.

Q. Have you had any——

The President. But I think we have a deal with both. I hope they do it, because I'm looking to save—and you know, we spend a lot of money, but this is about a lot of humanity. This is the worst—I get the pictures, the satellite pictures—I've never seen anything like it—of the fields after these—some of these battles. It's horrible that it's going for nothing.

We would have never had this problem. You would have never had that war if I were president, I guarantee you that. And for 4 years, you didn't have it.

Yes, please.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of Russia

Q. Are you hoping to meet with Vladimir Putin?

The President. Please.

Q. Mr. President, thank you.

Q. Are you hoping to meet with Vladimir Putin—

The President. I will be meeting with him.

Q. ——in Saudi Arabia?

The President. It's possible, but most likely not. I think we'll meet with him shortly thereafter, though.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

[Inaudible] Please.

Chairman of the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors Jerome H. Powell

Q. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, during the Biden administration, in the campaign, with inflation raging, he lowered interest rates two times.

The President. That's right.

Q. Now, with 2 consecutive months of inflation being down, all economic theory you learned in the eighth grade says it's time to cut rates when inflation is down.

The President. You're right.

Q. He's not done that. Have you had any direct conversation with him——

The President. No, I haven't called him. I might call him. I haven't called him, but I believe he's making a mistake by not lowering interest rates. And I think as well as we're doing, we'd do much better. He's keeping rates too high. He historically has been late, except when it came to Biden. He was recommended by a certain person that I'm not particularly happy with, but he will, hopefully, do the right thing. The right thing is to lower interest rates. So we'll see what happens.

I think we're sitting on something that's going to be very good. With all the tariff money starting to come in, our country is going to be doing really well. And hopefully, he'll be doing—we don't have inflation.

Groceries are down. When I first came in—you people were there—they hit me with the—first day that I was President, somebody started screaming at me that eggs are up. I said, "I've just—I just got here." [Laughter] And in the first week, they were going crazy. You remember that, Linda?

Secretary McMahon. Yes, sir.

The President. They were going crazy. They're saying, "Egg prices are too"—I said, "I'm—I'm here for one week. Just leave me alone." [Laughter] This is the fake news media. And I said, "You know, what can I tell you?"

But Brooke Rollins, our Secretary of Agriculture, and a group working with her, have done an amazing job, and egg prices have gone down 87 percent.

Energy now is now $65 a barrel. They have some energy selling—selling gasoline for less than $2 in a couple of States—in Alabama—a couple of great States and—but all over the country, it's way down from what it was 6 months ago, 3 months ago.

And that has a lot to do with the war. You know, if—when Biden allowed energy to skyrocket—it just skyrocketed out of—it was out of control. Russia made a lot more money, because they make their money on energy. And I kept saying, "You know, he supposedly wants to end the war, but he lets energy go out of control."

Well, I've gotten it under—we are drilling like crazy right now, and we have it down to $65 a barrel. It went up to almost $100 a barrel, and at that number, Putin and Russia made a lot of money.

So I think one of the reasons—look, I think he has a certain respect for me, but one of the reasons, one of the big reasons, is oil prices are down. I think this is a good time to get the war settled.

Thank you for—thank you——

Q. And just one more question——

The President. Thank you for that question.

RFK Stadium in Washington, DC/Sports Team Names

Q. ——locally. For those of us that live here in the district, you said when you came in you were going to make Washington, DC, great again.

The President. Right.

Q. One of the issues we've got right now is, we understand there might be an imminent deal between the owner of the Washington football team—whatever you want to call them now—Commanders—and locally in getting the Redskins back to DC in RFK Stadium. That's on Federal property.

The President. Right.

Q. Are you going to be involved in that negotiation?

The President. Yes.

Q. And would one of the stipulations be they change their name back to the Redskins?

The President. Oh, I see. Well, that's—that's a little bit—nobody has asked me that one.

Look, I think when the—the Indian population is a great part of this country, a great heritage. And we were talking about Massapequa, Long Island—the "Chiefs," they call them now. It's the Chiefs.

Q. Right.

The President. And the Kansas City Chiefs, they're not changing their name. A great team, great people, great owners, great coach, and quarterback. I love their quarterback. I like his girlfriend too and—his wife. [Laughter] His wife is great. She's been a big—she's been a big fan. His—the quarterback's mother is incredible. I like that team. They're called the "Chiefs," and frankly, I see nothing wrong with it. They call them the "warriors" and—not that team, but a lot of other teams—and all of these Indian surnames and different names, and I'm saying that I think that's a positive thing.

And when you go back to Indians, they've told us, they don't know why these names are being taken off. They're trying to—I think it's degrading to the Indian population, and it's a great population, and they like when they're, you know, called by various names.

Now, Washington, the Redskins—perhaps that's a little different—a little bit different. But I can tell you that I spoke to people of Indian heritage that loved that name, and they loved that team. And I think it's a much—you know, I think it's a superior name to what they have right now, and it had heritage behind it. It had something special.

But a lot of the names having to do with, you know, different places, not just Indians—but I think it's—they changed the name of the Cleveland Indians. Why would you take the name "Indians" off the Cleveland Indians? And now it's called the Cleveland something else. [Laughter] Right?

Q. Guardians.

The President. Guardians, huh? It just doesn't make sense to me. [Laughter]

So, you know, we're about bringing common sense back to this country. And it may be popular or unpopular, what I'm saying and I've just said to you. See, he's a nice guy. He got a lot out of me on this one—[laughter]—but, I mean, I think most people agree with me. It's really—I think it really is demeaning to Indians.

But to change the name of the Cleveland Indians, as an example, to that Cleveland Guardians is not the same, and I'm sure it has an impact on the team.

Please.

Q. Mr. President——

White House Senior Adviser Elon R. Musk/U.S. DOGE Service

Q. Sir—thank you, sir. Elon Musk said he'll be stepping back from his work with DOGE a little bit and only dedicating maybe a day or two a week to it. How long would you like to see that continue, and how involved would you like to see him continue to be after he does that?

The President. Well, first of all, I can't speak more highly about any individual. He's an incredible guy. He's a brilliant guy. He's a wonderful person. I've seen him with his family. I've seen him with a lot of his children. He's got a lot of children. [Laughter] He treats them—he treats them good. He's a—he loves his children.

But he's a brilliant guy, and he was a tremendous help, both in the campaign and in what he's done with DOGE. And you know, we're talking about almost $200 billion and rising fast, because many of the things that we were looking at are now being found out to be fact. It's terrible. I mean, the fraud, the waste, the abuse, the—everything that's happened is just terrible.

So I also know that he was treated very unfairly by the—I guess you'd call it the public—by some of the public, not by all of it. He makes an incredible car. Makes—everything he does is good, but they took it out on Tesla. And I just thought it was so unfair, because he's trying to help the country. But he has helped the country.

I also wanted to make sure that he's going to be in great shape, and I know he is. I mean, he's going to be—he's going to do great. He loves the country. He didn't need to do this. He did it.

And I told him—I said, "You know, whenever you're ready." I'd like to keep him for a long time. "But whenever you're ready."

He's an exceptional guy. When you see those rockets go up and come back and land in the same gantry, nobody else can do that but this man. So he's just an incredible person, and he's a friend of mine, and he's a nice person too. He's a very nice person. He really helped the country. Saved us a lot of money.

And I heard him say that he'll start easing, which is always—he was always, at this time, going to ease out. And when he goes back to Tesla, that will be taken care of. It was just—it's artificial. These were sick people that thought they were doing something.

He's—he really—he's a great patriot, and he should—really, it should be—it shouldn't be the way—that should never have happened to him. And I will tell you right now, he makes a great product. He makes a great product. It's a great car. It's great everything. Starlink is great. What he does is good. He's doing medical things that are amazing.

And we have to, at some point, let him go and do that. And we expected to be doing it about this time and—but I'll talk to Elon about it.

Thank you for the question.

Please.

Q. Sir, if I may ask a second question.

The President. Yes.

Canadian Elections/Canada-U.S. Trade/U.S. Automobile Industry

Q. Canada has an election coming up. How—do you have a prediction for that? And what do you think the results of that mean for——

The President. With respect to Canada?

Q. ——with the negotiations?

The President. Oh, I don't want to predict other nations' elections. It's tough enough doing this one.

Look, Canada—I love the Canadian people. I like Canada, but it's costing us $200 billion a year to support Canada. Two hundred billion. And I say, "Why are we doing that?" You know, why—we can make our own cars. We have more energy than they do. We have more energy than anybody in the world. We don't need their lumber, obviously. We have more lumber. We have a lot of lumber. We have a lot of everything that they sell us.

But, in particular, cars. They took a large percentage of the car making, and I want to bring it back to this country. I really don't want cars from Canada.

So, when I put tariffs on Canada—they're paying 25 percent, but that could go up, in terms of cars—when we put tariffs on, all we're doing is, we're saying: "We don't want your cars, in all due respect. We want, really, to make our own cars," which is what we're doing in record numbers now.

You know, we're going to be at record levels in a very near future because of all the plants—the car plants—that are being built, and I'd rather see them made in Michigan and made in South Carolina and made in different States—Tennessee. We have a lot of great car-making States, and we have some that aren't car-making yet, but they will soon be car-making States, and that's what I want to see for our country.

At the same time, I want to help Canada. As to—I have spoken to the current Prime Minister. He was very, very nice, I will say. Very nice—we had a couple of very nice conversations. Very good. But I don't think it's appropriate for me to get involved in their election.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Russia/Ukraine

Q. If I may. This deal that you have with Russia, does it include recognizing Russia's sovereignty over Crimea?

The President. Well, everything is good. Look, I just want to see the war end. I don't care, as long—if they're both happy, they both sign an agreement. I have no favorites. I don't want to have any favorites. I want to have a deal done. I want to save their lives.

Now, with that being said, we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars through Biden. Biden should have never let that war happen. We're spending hundreds of billions—maybe $350 billion we've given to Ukraine—and we could use that money right here. So I'd like to see that.

But most importantly, right now, is—when I see the pictures, the satellite pictures of the battlefield, if I can stop that because of an ability I have to do things, I want to see if I can do that.

Yes.

Canada-U.S. Trade

Q. Mr. President, on tariffs. You just mentioned that 25 percent could go up on cars, in terms of Canada. Does that mean that you're considering changes to auto tariffs and auto parts tariffs?

The President. No, we're not considering it now. But at some point, it could go up, yes. Because, again, we don't really want Canada to make cars for us, to put it bluntly. We want to make our own cars, and we're now equipped to do that.

They took a lot of our car business. Mexico, too, took a lot of our car business. We want to make the cars here.

I'm running this country. I'm not running Canada. And that's why I asked Trudeau—who I call "Governor Trudeau," affectionately—I asked him, "Why are we spending $200 billion to support Canada, to subsidize Canada?" And he was unable to answer the question. I mean, why are we doing that?

And I have to be honest, as a State, it works great. As a nation, considering the fact that most of the nation—you know, 95 percent of Canada, what they do is they buy from us, and they sell to us. They sell to us. If we didn't buy their oil, if we didn't buy their—and we don't need their oil. We have more oil than anyone.

But we don't need their oil. We don't need their lumber. We don't need their cars. We don't need anything. So I said: "Why are we doing this? Why are we spending $200 billion?" It doesn't make sense. If we needed something, that would be a different subject.

So I'm working well with Canada. We're doing very well. We're working on a deal. We'll see what happens.

But again, you know, why—representing this country, why are we spending $200 billion to support and subsidize another country? Because if they didn't have us, and if we didn't spend that money, as Trudeau told me, they would cease to exist. He said that to me—"they would cease to exist"—which is true—certainly, as a country.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Strength of the U.S. Dollar

Q. On tourism. On tourism. There's been a steep drop-off in international travel to the United States. It was down 12 percent last month; down even more from Western Europe. Why do you think that there are fewer people suddenly who want to travel to the United States?

The President. Well, there could be a little—you know, there's a little nationalism there, I guess, perhaps. It's not a big deal.

But you know, with the dollar being where it is—because, you know, China would always fight for having a low dollar. Japan would always fight for having a low dollar, meaning a low yen or, in the case of China, the yuan. They'd always want to have—China would always—I'd speak to President Xi a lot. I'd say, "It's unfair that you know, your yuan is so low."

I'd call up a great man, Prime Minister Abe—great, great man—Shinzo—who was, unfortunately, assassinated. And I used to tell him—he was a good friend of mine. I used to say, "Shinzo, you've got to—you can't let your yen go down." It makes it very hard for us to sell tractors. It makes it very hard to us to get tourism.

And our dollar is a little bit on the low side. And that means that a lot of tourism is going to come in.

But I could see a little bit nationalism at work, and I could see it, likewise, with us not wanting to go to certain countries. But that will work out very easily.

International Tourism in the U.S.

Q. Do you think some people are scared to come here because they hear the stories of tourists who are detained for a few days or even a week or two?

The President. No. No, we treat our tourists great. We're the tourism capital of the world. There's nobody, no place like this.

And there may be a little bit of nationalism, but I doubt it. I actually doubt it.

Yes.

China-U.S. Trade/Wealth Tax

Q. Mr. President, has there been any direct contact between the U.S. and China on trade at all?

The President. Yes, of course.

Q. And——

The President. Every day.

Q. Every day. And then, secondly, would you support a millionaire tax?

The President. I think it would be very disruptive, because a lot of the millionaires would leave the country. You know, in the old days, they left States. They'd go from one State to the other. Now, with transportation so quick and so easy, they leave countries. You'll lose a lot of money if you do that.

That would—and other countries that have done it have lost a lot of people. They lose their wealthy people. That would be bad, because the wealthy people pay the tax.

Okay.

Ukraine/Russia

Q. Sir, how did the talks today go in London? Do you think that the asks from Ukraine and Europe are fair?

The President. I think they—I think they went well. I mean, you know, we've got to get two people—two strong people, two smart people to agree. And as soon as they agree, the killing will stop.

But yes, I think they went well. Pretty well.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

India-U.S. Trade

Q. Mr. President, we understand that you—your economic team—many of them are here today—J.D. Vance has negotiated what's been called a monster trade deal with India—like, biggest one ever. Can you share with us what some of the framework of that might be?

The President. You said England?

Q. India.

The President. India?

Q. India.

The President. Oh.

Q. Modi.

The President. They're not very complicated, these deals. It's about the tariffs. India charges almost more than any other country in the world. And believe it or not, we do very little business with India, other than the fact that I like the Prime Minister very much. He's a friend of mine. He was here two weeks ago, as you know, and we stood right outside and did a news conference. Unfortunately, the grass was very wet. [Laughter] It was very hard for people to stand on the grass. They got their shoes all ruined. But other than that, it was a very good news conference, and he's a great guy.

But we do very little business. You know why? Because their tariffs are so high. They have among the highest tariffs. Higher than China. They have among the highest tariffs in the world.

And I understand they're going to reduce those tariffs, but it's really—it's really sort of their problem, not ours. We do very, very little purchasing in India because their tar-—and selling. We do very little selling.

I mean, Harley Davidson—I said, "How are you doing in India?" This is about six years ago. They came to lunch. That's a great American company. They make their motorcycles. And I said, "How are you doing in India," as an example. "Well, we don't do any business there." "Why?" "Because the tariffs are too high." I said: "That's interesting. Well, what are you going to do?" He said, "Well, we're going to build a plant in India," and that's what they did. I don't want that to happen.

Q. Could a——

The President. They were forced to build a plant.

Well, essentially, what we're doing is the same thing. Remember, there's no tariff when they build their plant here, and everybody wants to build because they don't want—and the higher the tariffs go, the more likely it is they come in and build the plant. You know, I mean, if it's 25 percent, that's fine. If it's 50 percent, you'll get more plants; 75, you get more; and 100, you get more than that.

And they're all coming in at numbers that nobody has—I don't think, Howard, there's ever been numbers like we've seen.

Secretary Lutnick. Never.

The President. Seven, eight trillion dollars' worth in 2 months. Because I—you know, it took me a month to get started, in all fairness. But in 2 months, we did this.

And now we're coming up on a hundred—a hundred days—first hundred days, and I think we're going to be close to $8 trillion. There was never any President that did even a tiny percentage of that.

Okay. Any other questions?

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

China-U.S. Trade

Q. Sir, will you have a deal signed—one of the deals signed by your 100-day mark? And China is saying that we're threatening and blackmailing them into a deal. What would be your response?

The President. Well, I mean, China—look, I have great relationships in China—and with President Xi, in particular—but China has been charging us massive tariffs for many years. That's one of the reasons they were able to steal so many of our companies. They took our companies out of America, and they built their plants in China. And one of those things—so now we're reversing it, but at levels that nobody has ever seen before.

No, we're going to get along great with China. I have no doubt about it.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.