Remarks on Signing the Proclamation on Adjusting Imports of Automobiles and Automobile Parts Into the United States

The President. Thank you very much. It's an honor to be with you today.

We just celebrated Women's Day at the White House. It was fantastic, attended by a lot of great women. A lot of great women. All women are great.

So this is the beginning of liberation day in America. We're going to take back just some of the money that has been taken from us by people sitting behind this desk—or another desk that's not quite as nice, but they have their choice of seven, as you know. And we're going to charge countries for doing business in our country and taking our jobs, taking our wealth, taking a lot of things that they've been taking over the years.

They've taken so much out of our country, friend and foe. And frankly, friend has been oftentimes much worse than foe.

And this is very modest. What we're going to be doing is a 25-percent tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States. If they're made in the United States, there's absolutely no tariff.

We start off with a 2½-percent base, which is what we were at, and we go to 25 percent.

And basically, as you know and as you've been seeing—not reporting as accurately as it should be reported, because it's a massive story—business is coming back to the United States so that they don't have to pay tariffs and, I think, also, because of November 5, the election. They're very happy.

AI is coming back to levels that nobody's ever seen before. It's a new—sort of a new business, I guess, when you think about it. But it's—plants are going up all over the United States, and many of them have already been started. We're getting early electricity taken care of. We're getting permits very quickly for them, and we're going to make their life very happy. They're coming in with tens of billions of dollars.

Individual plants will cost $10-, $15-, even $20 billion. We're going to let them build electricity-generating plants along with their plant, and they can't even believe it. But—and we're going to get them very quick permits, as I've done always. I did that in Louisiana with two LNG plants. I got them one permit in 1 day after waiting 14 years, and the other one in 1 week after waiting for 12 years.

But this is very exciting to me. This is the automobile industry, and this will continue to spur growth like you haven't seen.

Before I was elected, we were losing all of our plants. They were being built in Mexico and Canada and other places. Now those plants largely have stopped, and they're moving them to our country.

In Indiana, the great State of Indiana—I love Indiana—Honda is building one of the biggest plants anywhere, and they've just started. They wouldn't have done it without this. In all cases, they wouldn't have done it without what we're doing.

So we'll effectively be charging a 25-percent tariff, but if you build your car in the United States, there is no tariff. And what that means is a lot of foreign car companies—a lot of companies are going to be in great shape because they've already built their plant, but their plants are underutilized, so they'll be able to expand them inexpensively and quickly.

But others will come into our country and build, and they're already looking for sites. They're looking for—mostly sites. They don't want to take the old buildings that are empty and falling down. They want to build new, and there's tremendous action.

There is likewise for other companies and countries, like the chipmaking process.

Your CHIP bill was a disaster, done by Biden. All he does is give tremendous amounts of—billions of dollars to chip companies that will do nothing with the money. They're not going to use the money here; they're going to just keep it. They have plenty of money. The one thing they have is, they have a lot of money.

In our case, all we're doing is saying, "You can't come in unless you build here." And the largest chip company, by far, is manufacture—from Taiwan, is building here, and it will give us almost 40 percent of the chip market just with that. They're spending almost $200 billion in the United States to build a plant, and they've almost started. They'll be doing much of the work in Arizona.

So we have a lot of exciting things, but, to me, this is one of the most exciting. Now, outside of one specific day, and that's liberation day. That's the real liberation day of America, and that's going to be on April 2, and I look forward to it. We'll have a little news conference. We'll talk about it. But this is very exciting.

So we're signing a Executive order today that's going to lead to tremendous growth in the automobile industry.

As you know, the electric mandate that we did allows you to buy a car now if—electric or gasoline-powered or hybrid. You can buy any car you want. We had it so that, within a short period of time, you had to buy all electric, and the country could never get—they could never provide the money necessary to build all of those power plants that you would need all over the country.

As you know, in the Middle West, they built eight power stations that's like the size of this desk or smaller. And they ended up spending $9 billion on eight. And of the eight, four of them didn't work. And we're not doing that.

So you can buy electric, or you can buy gasoline, or you can buy hybrid, or you can buy whatever you want to buy, and that's the way it should be. The market is going to determine that. And you're going to see prices going down, but it's going to go down specifically because they're going to buy—what we're doing: incentivizing companies to—and even countries—but companies to come into America and build.

And we're already setting records for new plants. I think the new plant number, the tally is—just within a period of a few weeks, it's very large. I want to be accurate. It's very large.

And I'd like to ask Will just to come and give some of the basics, and then I'll sign it, and it's off to the races.

I think our automobile business will flourish like it's never flourished before.

Yes. Please, Will.

White House Staff Secretary William O. Scharf. Thank you, sir. As you stated, we've prepared for your attention a proclamation imposing a 25-percent tariff on foreign-made cars and light trucks. This is in addition to tariffs that are already in place on those goods. In addition to, as you said, spurring increased domestic manufacture of cars and trucks, we expect that these tariffs will result in over $100 billion of new annual revenue to the United States of America in tariff revenue.

The President. I think, ultimately, we could probably—anywhere from $600 billion to a trillion dollars will be taken in over the relatively short-term period—meaning a year from now—but starting right away. Starting right away. I think we'll go from 600 to a trillion within 2 years. And I think we'll be very—I mean, right from the beginning, we're going to be at a very high number. Right from the beginning.

And right from the beginning, you're going to have a lot of construction jobs, but you're also going to have a lot of automobile jobs. So this is very exciting.

But it's also exciting because of what's happening with other aspects. We're going to be doing tariffs on pharmaceuticals in order to bring our pharmaceutical industry back. We don't make anything here for—in terms of drugs, medical drugs, different types of drugs that you need, medicines. It's in other countries. Largely, made in China. A lot of it made in Ireland. Ireland was very smart. We love Ireland. But we're going to have that.

We're going to have lumber. We're going to free up some of our land, and you'll be able to meet a lot of other standards, like fire cuts. If Los Angeles had fire cuts, which they didn't have—that's a gap of half a football field between areas—you wouldn't have had the fires. They would have been contained. But you'll have fire cuts. And by the way, you'll sell that wood for a lot of money. A lot of profit is made from that.

But we're going to be doing lumber. We're freeing up our land so that people can—so that we don't have to use outside sources of lumber.

Energy—we're doing fantastically well at. You know, the energy prices have been coming down rapidly as we increase supply, and we've already done that.

We have—Chris and Doug are doing a fantastic job on that. That's Department of Energy and Department of Interior, and they're working together hand in hand, because Interior has the land and Energy has the ability to do the drilling and do what they have to do. Our coal areas are going to be open up for clean, beautiful coal.

Germany is opening up many coal plants now. You know, they tried the wind, and it didn't work. They almost went out of business. They almost went bankrupt. They tried wind, which is a disaster, because it's too expensive and it's—doesn't look good, kills all the birds. A lot of problems. But Germany is now building a lot of coal plants.

China is building one a—1 week. Think of that. And they're using coal, which is very powerful. Coal is a very powerful energy.

And we're opening up our coal mines again, and we're going to do—I call it "beautiful, clean coal." The technology is so good now that coal can give you tremendous power; at the same time, it can be very clean.

But we're also, obviously, doing oil and gas and various other things. You can do pretty much whatever you want.

We don't like the wind because we think it ruins the landscapes, the plains. Ruins them. And it's got a lot of problems. It's also the most—by far, the most expensive energy. It looks horrible in the oceans. It's dangerous in the oceans, in terms of navigation.

And if you look at what's happening with whales—you know in one area, they lost—two whales, like, in 20 years washed ashore. And this year, they had 17 wash ashore. So there's something happened out there. There's something driving the whales a little bit loco. But they lost two in 20 years, and now they lost 17 in a short period of time. So it's something wrong out there.

So this is very exciting. This is going to lead to the construction of a lot of plants and a lot, in this case, auto plants. And you're going to have—you're going to see numbers like you haven't seen, both in terms of employment. Takes a little while. You're going to have great construction numbers initially, and then you're going to have—ultimately, you're going to have a lot of people making a lot of cars.

And one other thing. We are trying—we have the Speaker of the House with us, who's doing a fantastic job. And—where's Mike?

Speaker of the House of Representatives J. Michael Johnson. Over here, sir.

The President. And we're trying to get approved——

Mike, thank you very much for being here.

Speaker Johnson. Yes, sir.

The President. We're trying to get approved, if we can: If you borrow money to buy a car, you're allowed to deduct interest payments for purposes of income tax, but only if the car is made in America. So, if the car is made in America, you get a loan, you can deduct the interest. That's a big saving.

A lot of people in—that part of the world, in terms of buying cars, a lot of them don't think in terms of deductions. People that think in terms of deductions are very wealthy people, but people are going to start understanding what a good deduction is all about.

So, when you get a loan to buy a car—and I think it's going to pay for itself. I don't think there's any cost. I think that's going to—you're going to have so many cars built. But you're only going to get that deduction of interest if the car is made in the United States of America.

So I'm going to sign this. And, Mike, I hope you can get that, because I think it's going to be amazing in terms of the number of cars that are going to be made because of it.

And I want to thank Howard Lutnick, our fabulous Commerce chairman. That's what he is. He's a chairman. He's a very successful guy, a great guy. And we have a big day, Howard, coming up next week. It's going to be great.

Secretary of Commerce Howard W. Lutnick. Liberation day. [Laughter]

The President. That's liberation day. That's going to be on the 2d, and that's going to be reciprocal. And I think people will be impressed. We're going to be very fair. We're going to be very nice, actually. We have not been treated nicely by other countries, but we're going to be nice. So I think people will be pleasantly surprised.

But it's going to make our country very rich, because we're the piggy bank that everybody steals from. And they've been doing it for many years, for decades, and we're not going to let it happen.

So—but we're going to treat people very nicely. We're going to treat other countries very, very nicely. And I think it's going to have a very positive effect on everybody, including those other countries.

So I'll sign this, and we will see you again on April the 2d. In terms of this, it's going to be another round. And it's about making America great again, making it strong and prosperous again.

Thank you very much.

[At this point, the President signed the proclamation. Several reporters then began asking questions at once.]

Tariffs/U.S. Automobile Industry

Q. So, Mr. President, on tariffs. Can I ask you about tariffs, Mr. President? On the car tariffs, how do you assure that a car coming into the country is fully built? Could a—could an automaker in Germany, say, leave the tires off a car, come in, and then—

The President. Yes, we're going to have very strong policing, and it's pretty easy to do. If parts are made in America, and a car isn't, those parts are not going to be taxed or tariffed. And we'll have very strong policing as far as that's concerned.

For the most part, I think it's going to lead cars to be made in one location. You know, right now, a car would be made here, sent to Canada, sent to Mexico, sent all over the place. It's ridiculous. So this is a very simple system.

And the beauty of the 25, it's one number. It's not up or down depending on the cost of the car. It's one number.

And that number is going to be used to reduce debt greatly in the United States and to build things, reduce taxes. I mean, it will—basically, I view it as reducing taxes and also reducing debt. And within a fairly short period of time, I think we're going to have a balance sheet that's going to be outstanding.

Yes.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. Mr. President, does this take effect today or on the 2d?

National Economy

Q. How do you assure Americans——

The President. Yes.

Q. How do you assure Americans, then, that this will not cause an—a long-term increase in prices?

The President. Well, look, I think we're going to have a market the likes of which nobody's ever seen before, not in this country. You know, we had the best market ever in my first term. It was the strongest market ever, the best economy ever. And I think you're going to—I think this blows it away.

But this is something that people have wanted to do, Presidents have wanted to do for a long time. A lot of them didn't understand it. It wasn't a priority for them. But foreign countries understood it very well, and they've really ripped us off at levels that nobody's seen before. But that's not going to happen.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. Mr. President, this is for today or on April 2, the auto tariffs?

The President. Say it.

Q. Do these auto tariffs go into effect today or on April 2?

The President. They go—in effect on April 2.

Secretary Lutnick. April 3.

The President. We're signing today. It's—it goes into effect April 2. We start collecting on April 3rd.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Tariffs/Manufacturing Investment

Q. Mr. President, do you have any more sectoral tariffs that are coming in on April 2?

The President. What does that mean?

Q. Any more—any more on—tariffs on any other sectors on April 2, for example, chips or pharmaceuticals—you can tell us about?

The President. Not then, but we will be putting a tariff on lumber. We, as you know, have a tariff already on steel and on aluminum of 25 percent, and we're taking in tremendous amounts of dollars. More importantly, our steel factories and aluminum factories are roaring. They're starting to roar. They're building new ones.

I just heard from Nucor, which is a big company—a very big steel company—and they're building a massive—a massive plant for steel that they wouldn't build without this. So we're going to—you're going to see—you're going to see things that are going to be actually amazing, and I think you already have.

You know, we've had some news conferences where—I can't—I can't have enough. They want to do news conferences where they announce they're going to spend $20-, $30-, $40 billion. But Apple, as an example, is spending $500 billion.

Okay. Any other?

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. On the—on the Signal—on the Signal chat. Senator Roger Wicker, chairman——

The President. Hold on one second.

Q. Yes.

Q. Mr. President, on——

The President. Go ahead.

Reciprocal Tariffs

Q. ——reciprocal tariffs next week. Will those be immediately effective April 2 on all countries, or will you focus on the worst offenders?

The President. No, we're going to make it all countries, and we're going to make it very lenient. I think people are going to be very surprised. It will be, in many cases, less than the tariff that they've been charging us for decades. So I think people are going to be very, very surprised.

Q. Why is that?

Q. And on these auto tariffs. Is there a——

The President. I think they'll be pleasantly surprised. I don't know. I think we're trying to keep it somewhat conservative.

Stock Market Volatility

Q. And on these auto tariffs. We saw, obviously, the Nasdaq-100 go down 2 percent at close, S&P 500 down 1 percent. What are—are you concerned about——

The President. Is that today?

Q. ——that market reaction?

The President. Today?

Q. Yes, sir.

The President. I didn't see that. I want to see the jobs. I want to see—that'll all take care of itself. That could take care of itself in 1 day, 2 days, or 1 week.

Q. Are there any conditions under which you'd remove these auto tariffs, sir, or is this permanent for the rest of your term in office?

The President. Oh, this is permanent. Yes. A hundred percent, yes.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

White House Senior Adviser Elon R. Musk

Q. Did Elon Musk advise you at all on the—on these auto tariffs?

The President. No, because he may have a conflict. So, we don't talk. I've never talked to him—Elon is amazing. He's never asked me for a favor in business whatsoever. I'm actually a little surprised by it. I might do it; I might not do it. I do what's right, and he'd want me to do what's right. No, he's a patriot. He has never—you know, these are big deals we're talking about. This is—there's probably nothing like this. And I've never had Elon come and say, "Would you do me a favor," with the mandate or—the electric mandate or anything. He's never asked me for anything.

Signal Messaging Application/U.S. Airstrikes on Yemen

Q. Sir, also, what's your response to Republican lawmakers who have said today that your administration should take more accountability and not downplay what's happened with the—with Signal that we've seen in these messages today? What is your response?

The President. Well, I don't know about downplaying. The press up-plays it. I think it's all a witch hunt. That's all. I think it's a witch hunt.

I wasn't involved with it. I don't—I wasn't there. But I can tell you, the result is unbelievable, because the Houthis are looking to do something. They want to know, "How do we stop—how do we stop—how do—can we have peace?" The Houthis want peace, because they're getting the hell knocked out of them.

Q. And you read—oh.

The President. It's been very, very strong. The Houthis are dying for peace. They don't want this.

And they're bad. Look, they were knocking ships out of the ocean. You know, we had—in the Suez Canal, they only have about 20 percent of the ships going through. They have to go through a different way, which takes weeks of travel, and that really affects commerce.

But the Houthis have been hit hard, and they want to negotiate peace. But I don't think they're quite——

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

——I don't think they're quite ready.

Q. Can you confirm that you've read the messages, sir?

Classified National Security Information/Houthi Rebel Group

Q. Do you still believe there was nothing classified that was shared?

The President. Say it.

Q. Do you still believe nothing classified was shared?

The President. Well, that's what I've heard. I don't know. I'm not sure. You'll have to ask the various people involved. I really don't know.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

I can only tell you this. You know, you don't want to talk about it. The Houthis have been horrible to the world, what they've done. Killed a lot of people and knocked down a lot of ships and planes and anything else. You know, it's not just the ships.

And they have been hit. They have been hit harder than they've ever been hit. And they want us to stop so badly, and they've got to stop. They've got to say, "No más."

But I can only say that the attacks, it's—you know, it's attacks every day, every night. It's not just the one. You're talking about one. The attacks have been very successful, even beyond our wildest expectations. We've hit them very hard, very successfully, and we're going to do it for a long time. We're going to keep it going for a long time.

Q. Mr. President, can I ask about education policy?

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Signal Messaging Application/Houthi Rebel Group

Q. Senate Republicans have asked for—Senate Republicans have asked—said that they have formally asked the administration for an Inspector General's report on the Signal issue. Will you agree to that?

The President. I—it doesn't bother me. I don't know. You know, I want to find if there's any mistake or if Signal doesn't work. It could be that Signal is not very good. You know? It's a company, and maybe it's not very good. I think we'd rather know about it now.

There was no harm done, because the attack was unbelievably successful that night, and it has been unbelievably successful every single night for the last 4 or 5 nights. So——

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

And that's the thing that you should be talking about. This is something that should have been done by Sleepy Joe Biden, but he was asleep at the wheel, other than when it came to stealing money, of course. Joe Biden should have done this attack on Yemen, which is—basically a certain group within Yemen, the Houthis. And this should have been done by Joe Biden, and it wasn't. And that's caused this world a lot of damage and a lot of problem.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

National Security Adviser Michael G. Waltz

Q. So, Mr. President, Waltz says that he's responsible. What—but he's also overseeing the investigation to find out what went wrong. Maybe should——

The President. Who is responsible?

Q. Mike Waltz says that he's responsible. Do you think that's true?

The President. Well, yes. Mike Waltz, I guess he said—he claimed responsibility, I would imagine.

Q. So should he——

The President. It had nothing to do with anyone else. It was Mike, I guess. I don't know. I was told it was Mike.

But, again, the attacks were unbelievably successful, and that's ultimately what you should be talking about, I think.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

So Mike did; he took responsibility for it.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Secretary of Defense Peter B. Hegseth/Signal Messaging Application

Q. Should Secretary Hegseth consider his position over this, Mr. President?

The President. Say it.

Q. Should Secretary Hegseth consider his position over the Signal——

The President. Hegseth is doing a great job. He had nothing to do with this.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Hegseth? How do you bring Hegseth into it? He had nothing to do with it.

Q. He—he texted——

The President. Look—look, it's all a witch hunt. Here we are talking about some of the greatest business deals ever made. The greatest companies in the world are moving into the United States, and you want to ask about whether or not Signal works. I don't know that Signal works. I think Signal could be defective, to be honest with you, and I think that's what we have to—because you use Signal, and we use Signal, and everybody uses Signal, but it could be a defective platform. And we're going to have to find that out.

Q. Mr. President, on the education——

Lithuania

Q. Mr. President, have you been briefed about soldiers in Lithuania?

Q. Have you worked——

The President. Say it.

Q. Have you been briefed about the soldiers in Lithuania who are missing?

The President. No, I haven't. I haven't.

U.S. Automobile Manufacturers/U.S. Steel Production

Q. Mr. President, can I ask if you've spoken, sir, with the Big Three automakers about these tariffs? What was their reaction?

The President. I have.

Q. What was their reaction?

The President. It depends on whether or not they have factories here. I can tell you, if they have factories here, they are thrilled. If you don't have factories here, they're going to have to get going and build them, because otherwise they have to pay tariffs. Very simple.

Q. And can I——

The President. And most of those have pretty big factories here, like General Motors has big factories here. They're going to move their parts divisions back to the United States, because some of them were made in Canada, and some of them were made in Mexico and other places. They'll be moving their parts division back to the United States in factories where they may be at 60-percent capacity, so they don't even really have to build too much of a factory.

But it—you know, generally speaking, if they have factories here, plants here, where they make their cars—and equipment, but they make their cars here, they are thrilled.

Same thing with the steel industry. Steel industry is now paying a 25-percent tariff, as you know. I put it on last week, and the business is roaring in the United States. And we can't—because of military, we can't lose the steel industry.

If I didn't put the initial tariffs on steel in my first term, you wouldn't be able to have a military, because we wouldn't have—every steel company—every steel company would be bankrupt in the United States and every plant would be closed. But now they're booming, and putting this tariff on—this additional tariff for steel and aluminum, it's making them thrive, and it's already happened.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

TikTok Application/China

Q. Mr. President, we're coming up on the deadline for the TikTok sale. Will you extend that deadline if you don't have a deal? Do you support Oracle?

The President. Well, we will have a form of a deal. TikTok is very popular, very successful, and very good. We're going to have a form of a deal. But if it's not finished, it's not a big deal. We'll just extend it. I have the right to have the deal and to extend it if I want.

So we'll see whether or not we have a deal. We have a lot of interest in TikTok.

Q. Is there a way for a U.S. company to operate it and ByteDance to still have a share of the algorithm without putting Americans at risk?

The President. Well, it will be—there are numerous ways you can buy TikTok, and we will find the one that's best for the country—for our country. I'm worried about our country more than anything else, with respect to TikTok.

And China is going to have to play a role in that, possibly, in the form of an approval maybe, and I think they'll do that. Maybe I'll give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done, you know, because every point in tariff is worth more money than TikTok, if you think. Every point. Tariff is a much bigger world. And TikTok is big, but every point in tariffs is worth more than TikTok.

So, in order to get China to do it, maybe I'd give them a reduction in tariffs, as an example. Sounds like——

Q. You——

Q. Do you think these——

The President. ——sounds like something I'd do.

Tesla/Tariffs

Q. Do you think these auto tariffs are going to be good for Tesla, sir?

The President. Good for who?

Q. Tesla, which makes its cars in the United States.

The President. Well, he makes—he is a fantastic—Tesla—will tariffs be good? I think they may. I—it could be a net neutral, or they may be good.

He has a big plant in Texas. He has a big plant in California. And anybody that has plants in the United States, it's going to be good for, in my opinion.

Q. Mr. President, European Union has——

Q. Mr. President, you've said you want to return education control to the States.

The President. Right.

Q. How would you handle it if a State like California were to put in place education policies——

The President. You know, I haven't seen a mask in so long.

Q. ——you disagree with?

The President. You're wearing a mask. So nice of you. I haven't seen anybody wearing a mask in a long time. It's good.

You feel more comfortable, right?

Q. Yes.

The President. Good. That's good.

Q. On education——

The President. So, go ahead.

State Control of Education/Global Competitiveness

Q. You've said you want to return education control to the States. How would you handle it if a State like California were to put in place education policies you disagree with?

The President. Well, I think that California is going to be tougher, because they are—they're doing badly on everything they do. You know, they—everything they touch turns bad. So a place like California would be tougher for education, but what I would see with California is you'd have a Los Angeles department, and you'd have Riverside, you'd have—you know, you'd go to various places. And I think you'd have some great areas in California, and then you'd have some—like everything else, it doesn't work so well. But ultimately, I think it would be very successful.

I think, in New York, as an example, you'd go to Long Island, Westchester. You may have Nassau County, Queens County. You'd have—you'd break it up in certain ways. So they'd have maybe five departments. You know, because of the size, they'd have five departments instead of one.

A State like Iowa, you'd have one. And, I mean, they're just chomping at the bit to get going.

Q. So you——

The President. So many States are chomping at the bit to get education—and it's going to happen fast—to get the education brought back to the States. And, I mean, I tell you what: You have 40 States, in my opinion, that will be as good as Norway, Sweden, Denmark. You take a look at—those three are top—among the top, and they've been there for a long time.

But I think you'll have a lot. A lot. Finland is very strong. Frankly, China is very strong. China is top 10, and that's something, considering the size, you know? So it's not only a size thing.

But Norway, Sweden have been very good. Denmark has been very good. I think you'll have Iowa and Indiana and a lot of our States will be equal to them, but they can't be equal if it's going to be run in Washington. We don't want that.

Yes.

Q. So you wouldn't interfere?

Classified National Security Information/Houthi Rebel Group

Q. Mr. President, today Director Gabbard testified that any information that would indicate that the U.S. or its allies are going to make an attack should be classified. The Secretary of Defense has said that the information in those messages was not classified. Are you going to ask him to review whether it should have been? Should flight times and sequencing be classified?

The President. Sure. I'll ask him to do. Sure. I would, if it would be. You can view that two ways, frankly. There's a lot of ways to answer that question, but I'd certainly ask him to take a look at it.

Q. Should they have been in the SCIF when they did this?

Q. Sir, given——

Q. In hindsight, should they have—you can call it a war plan or not——

The President. Well, there may be——

Q. ——but should they be in the SCIF?

The President. Yes, there may be a problem with the platform. And if there's a problem with the platform, nobody should use it. You know, they could have a basic problem.

But you know, I say it again: The attack was so successful. It was so lethal. Not that I'm looking for lethality. I wish we didn't have to do it at all, but they're shooting down our ships, they're shooting down our planes, and we can't allow that to happen.

And, again, this is something that should have been done by Biden a long time ago.

All right. One or two more.

Q. Sir, are alcohol tariffs——

European Union/European Automakers/North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Q. What did you make of the—what did you make of the Vice President's comments that he doesn't like bailing out the Europeans? Do you agree with that?

The President. Well, I understand where he's coming from. The European Union has been treating us very, very badly in terms of the VAT tax that they charge. They charge a tremendous VAT tax. And they don't sell our cars in Europe. They don't sell our agriculture in Europe. They don't let us do very much. They treat us very badly. One of the reasons I'm putting tariffs on is that reason.

We take millions of their cars—BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz. We take millions and millions of their cars. They take none. I don't know if they take any of our cars. And they have nonmonetary tariffs, where it's impossible for us to sell a car, almost, in Europe. And so I understand what he's saying.

The same thing with NATO. When I got involved, these mostly European countries—as you know, we had 28 at the time, and only 7 were paid, and most of them were not paid. Twenty-some-odd countries were not paid, or they were substantially less than they're supposed to be. And the United States was literally making up the difference in Europe. And it's very unfair. So I understand.

I didn't know he made that statement, but, if he did, I mean, I'm okay with it. It's—I complain about it all the time. The European Union treats us horribly on trade.

And NATO has treated—now, I raised a lot of money for NATO—hundreds of billions of dollars. You were here last week when the Secretary General said, "Without Trump, there wouldn't be a NATO," because I got them to pay money. It was unfair. The United States was paying 80, 90, 100 percent. Okay?

Q. You've said you're going to be more lenient than reciprocal next week on the tariffs. What——

The President. I think there'll be—yes, I think——

Q. Can you explain what you mean by that?

The President. If I was—if I did to them what they did to us, I think a lot of people would be very unhappy. Yes, I think it will be——

Q. So are you concerned about—[inaudible]?

The President. ——much more lenient. I'm going to be much more lenient with regard to the tariffs that you'll see on April 2. I'm going to be much more lenient than they were with us.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

The President. They were really bad with us. I tell you, they've treated us badly, and a President should have stepped up. They should have stepped up and done something, and they didn't do it. And hence, we have $36 trillion in debt.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Atlantic Magazine

Q. Mr. President, you've criticized Jeffrey Goldberg. Have you asked your National Security Adviser how he had his phone number in his phone?

The President. We have asked a lot of questions, and we're going to try finding all those things out.

No, I just know Goldberg. He's a sleazebag. You know, his magazine is terrible. He's just a guy that I never had a lot of respect for.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Greenland/Arctic Security Cooperation

Q. On Greenland, Mr. President. How far—just how far are you prepared to go on Greenland? You said this morning that the United States needs Greenland. How far are you prepared to go?

The President. We need Greenland for national security and international security. So, we'll—I think we'll go as far as we have to go. We need Greenland, and the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark. Denmark has to have us have Greenland. And, you know, we'll see what happens. But if we don't have Greenland, we can't have great international security.

If you look at the ships outside of Greenland: China, Russia, places that—we have to be there. If we're not there, we can't have national or international security. So, it's—I view it, from a security standpoint, we have to be there.

Q. What's the reason the Vice President decided to join his wife, instead of sending her—she was going to go solo to the dogsled race, and—and now he's going along on Friday.

The President. Who is going into the——

Q. The Vice President. But Usha was going to go to Greenland on her own.

The President. I don't know. I'm not sure. I think you may have J.D. going, actually.

Q. Yes.

The President. Yes. I don't know—I don't know if they've split that up, but Usha is great. But I understand J.D. might be going.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

European Union/U.S. Technology Companies

Q. Sir, the European Union has voted or—or decided against Apple and Google during the Digital Markets Act, and they're the first U.S. companies they targeted with that. An Apple executive told me they believe that it's politically motivated——

The President. It is.

Q. ——because of the tariffs on April 2.

The President. The European Union is suing a lot of our companies—like Apple, and they have a $17 billion judgment. And they're suing Google. They're suing Facebook. They're suing a lot of other companies. And they use that money just like—that's like a tariff. They go before judges that are very pro-European Union, to put it mildly. I have that same thing here, but I don't think the people are going to stand for it, actually.

Q. Are they using it as leverage?

The President. No, they're just taking advantage of American companies, and we're not going to let them do it anymore. Okay?

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

The President. Thank you.