Remarks During a Meeting With Minister of State of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation, and Francophonie Therese Kayikwamba Wagner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Olivier J.P. Nduhungirehe of Rwanda and an Exchange With Reporters

President Trump. Well, thank you very much. And I'd like to ask Karoline, who's become very famous, big star—and she has a person who's a colleague of hers, a friend of hers, and that she has a lot of respect for who comes from the area, knows exactly what's happening.

Karoline, could I ask you to say a few words?

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Yes, sir.

Here we have Hariana, who is from the continent of Africa. She's been a reporter here——

President Trump. Wow.

Press Secretary Leavitt. ——in the United States for many years, and she has a story to share with the press, with the media, and with these two fantastic leaders who have joined you today.

So, Hariana, please.

President Trump. Why don't you come up here and talk so they can see you.

Hariana TV Founder Hariana Verás Victoria. Sure. [Laughter]

President Trump. That'd be great. Thank you very much.

Ms. Verás. Thank you, Mr. President.

President Trump. It's a great honor.

Ms. Verás. Thank you, Mr. President.

So, as Karoline has mentioned, President—first of all, I wanted to let you know that I'm the only African reporter accredited here at the White House——

President Trump. Wow.

Ms. Verás. ——and I cover for the entire continent.

So I just arrived from Congo—Democratic Republic of the Congo—yesterday.

President Trump. Right.

Ms. Verás. I went to see firsthand how the people is feeling and the President's message, President Félix Tshisekedi, about this upcoming peace deal. And let me tell you, firsthand, what I've witnessed myself.

I spoke with the people on the street. I spoke with youth. They know your name. They know that a President named President Trump is working hard to finally bring peace to the country. I saw hope. They have hope now for a better day in Congo. They see what you're doing as a future—better future for Congo.

And I had opportunity to sit down with President Félix Tshisekedi for an interview, because I want to understand his mind—what he's thinking, he's feeling about everything that your administration is doing. And he told me, firsthand, that for many years, many American Presidents overlooked this conflict. They didn't do nothing. Even myself—I covered President Biden's administration—I pressed many time about this conflict.

People are dying in Congo. This country has so much potential, but they need help, because this war is destroying the country.

President Trump. That's right.

Ms. Verás. They never gave me any answer.

And he told me, President Tshisekedi, that he's very—you have no idea—he's very thankful for what you're doing, for what your administration doing—not only him, the entire Congolese people. They see that, finally, they will have hope.

And President Tshisekedi also mentioned at the end of my interview that when peace finally come to Democratic Republic of the Congo, he's thinking to nominate you as a Nobel Prize Peace, because he said you deserve; you have been working to bring peace in the world, not only at the Congo. And he's very hopeful to meet you in the future.

President Trump. That's so nice. Boy, what—and that's so beautifully stated.

And Karoline said—number one, she did say—and I shouldn't say this, because it's politically incorrect—she said, "She's beautiful," and you are beautiful. [Laughter] I'm not allowed to say that, you know.

Ms. Verás. Thank you.

President Trump. That could be the end of my political career, but I said it anyway. [Laughter]

Ms. Verás. Thank you.

President Trump. But you are beautiful, and you're beautiful inside. That's a—so—I wish I had more reporters like you. [Laughter]

And you covered Africa for a long time?

Ms. Verás. Yes, for over 10 years.

President Trump. Wow.

Ms. Verás. I followed—I covered even your first administration.

President Trump. Yes, I know that. That's great.

Well, thank you. That's so nice that you said that.

Ms. Verás. Thank you.

President Trump. Appreciate it.

Ms. Verás. And I have one more question, Mr. President.

President Trump. Yes?

Ms. Verás. Since we know, in July, or in the future, both President of Rwanda and the Congo will be coming—

President Trump. Yes.

Ms. Verás. ——to United States. In Africa, President João Lourenço, the President of Angola, he's also the leader of African Union.

President Trump. Good. Yes, I know.

Ms. Verás. He worked very hard to bring peace back. Unfortunately——

President Trump. Let's get him here.

Ms. Verás. Yes, that's what——

President Trump. Okay? Would you invite him for me?

Ms. Verás. Of course. [Laughter]

President Trump. Okay.

Ms. Verás. Of course.

President Trump. No, we'll have—I know that he works very hard. And he's the head of, essentially, the union.

Ms. Verás. Yes.

President Trump. So—the union all over Africa, not the kind of union that we have. This is the union all over Africa, and I'd love to have him.

So you'll let him know?

Ms. Verás. Of course, Mr. President.

President Trump. Okay? Thank you very much.

Ms. Verás. Thank you, Mr. President.

President Trump. Good. Now you'll go back to where you belong, right? [Laughter]

Ms. Verás. Sure.

President Trump. That's great. That was a great job. That's real knowledge and real heart too. Congratulations.

Okay. So we're here today to celebrate a glorious triumph—and that's what it is—for the cause of peace. And this is a long time waiting: the signing of a historic peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Rwanda.

The conflict has continued, and it's been going on for many, many years. It's been going from, I guess they say, 30 years—the Great Lakes region of Africa—for a long time, and maybe even a time before that.

How is the Great Lakes region? It must be beautiful, right?

Ms. Verás. It is.

President Trump. Beautiful region, but they had a lot of war. Right? A lot of fighting. A lot of death. It's displaced countless people and claimed the lives of thousands and thousands.

But today the violence and destruction comes to an end, and the entire region begins a new chapter of hope and opportunity, harmony, prosperity, and peace. That's been a long time waiting.

I said, "How long has the war been going?" And a friend of mine who is very much involved said: "Thirty years, and at least 6 million people were killed during that period of time." It's incredible. And somebody said that was—actually, it's the biggest war on the planet since World War II. So that's—it's a shame, but we're going to bring it to an end.

I want to express my gratitude and congratulations to the representatives of the Democrat Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Rwanda, who signed this pivotal agreement a short time ago. They just signed right in front.

And let me also thank Secretary of State Marco Rubio—he's worked very hard on this subject, and we've worked on it together—for his outstanding leadership, as well as Senior Adviser for African and Africa Affairs Massad Boulos, who's—as you know, spends a lot of his time in Africa, and he's very comfortable there.

I said, "Were you at all uncomfortable with all of the turmoil and all of the killing?" And—and he said, "No, I wasn't uncomfortable," and that's what you need. You need somebody that's going to be able to get—so, Massad, I want to thank you very much for the job you've done.

White House Senior Adviser for Africa Massad Boulos. Thank you, Mr. President.

President Trump. Amazing guy, actually.

I also want to thank African Union, Qatar, Togo for working closely with the United States. And I know Qatar was really working hard. And African Union, we just spoke about that. And I look forward to having them—representatives here when we do the official meeting, and that'll be sometime in July. And we look forward to it.

[At this point, President Trump addressed Ms. Verás.]

And you'd better be here covering it, okay? [Laughter] You'd better be. We're not going to stand anybody else covering it but you.

But this is a tremendous breakthrough. In a few short months, we've now achieved peace between India and Pakistan, Israel and Iran, and the D.R.C. and Rwanda, and a couple of others also.

Serbia, you know, was—they were getting ready to go to war with a group I won't even mention, because it didn't happen. We were able to stop it. But I have a friend in Serbia, and they said, "We're going to go to war again." And I won't mention that it's Kosovo—[laughter]—but it's Kosovo. But they were going to have a big-time war, and we stopped it. And we stopped it because of trade. They want to trade with the United States. I said, "We don't trade with people that go to war."

And we said that also with—if you take a look at Pakistan and India, it was great. And they have two great leaders. Two great leaders. And they were able to stop. They were in the midst of a big fight—I guess everybody saw it—and it was going to get very bad. And they are nuclear nations—very powerful nuclear nations.

In the months and years ahead, my administration will continue to work closely with all of the parties in this deal and ensure the agreements are fully taken care of. And you're going to do what's in the agreement. We'll say, "You'd better do what's in that agreement," right? Because if somebody fails to do that, bad things happen.

But I have a feeling that after 30 years—I think after 30 years, you're all set.

Minister Kayikwamba. We are.

President Trump. I think both of you have said, "That's enough," right?

Minister Nduhungirehe. That's enough, yes.

President Trump. That's enough. You've seen it all.

So this is a wonderful day. It's a great day. We've had some tremendous success.

It's been a great week between just coming back from a very successful trip: NATO. NATO has really pulled together. They have—it's going to be—they're going to spend over a trillion dollars a year. Nobody expected a thing like that to happen.

And we had the war, as you know, that was—we call it the 12-day war. It was exactly a 12-day war, and we ended up with no nuclear weapons. That's what we wanted. And they were just absolutely blown to pieces, those three sites, and there's no nuclear weapons. And hopefully there can be a lot of healing, and the healing is starting.

And just it's been a really pretty amazing week, and this is one that I really looked forward to. This was set up a few weeks ago, and it was something that I really looked forward to. If we can do this and we do that—because we have a certain competence that's good—we're able to get people to be peaceful. I think we can do war better than anybody, but we don't want to.

And we have the greatest military in the world. They showed that in Iran. Those pilots, they flew for 36 hours and—think of that—and they hit their target the size of this desk—half the size of this desk from about 52,000 feet in the dark of night with no Moon. Zero Moon. They wanted it that way. Can you believe it?

And they hit—every missile hit exactly half the size of this beautiful Resolute Desk. We don't want to talk about it when it comes to rockets hitting it, but half the size of this, and they hit dead center from tremendous heights, going at tremendous speeds.

It's amazing. Nobody could do a thing like that. There's nobody has that weaponry, and nobody could do a thing like that.

So we had a very busy and successful week. In addition to that, our economy is doing great, setting records with the economy, and a lot of other good things happening.

But this is about Congo and Rwanda. And I'd like to ask, if I might, would you say a few words before we introduce our guests, please?

Senior Adviser Boulos. Sure. Thank you, Mr. President.

President Trump. Yes.

Senior Adviser Boulos. So, under your leadership, Mr. President, and full support of Secretary Rubio and the entire team at the State Department, we engaged with the two parties in early April, and within 3 weeks, they signed the declaration of principles.

And now, within about 2 months from that, we have signed today the final—this is actually the final peace agreement. You know, many people were wondering if this is preliminary. No, this is the actual final peace agreement that they've signed today.

You've also expressed interest in inviting the heads of states——

President Trump. Right.

Senior Adviser Boulos. ——to the White House for a signing ceremony. So there will be some other additional agreements that will be signed in addition to this, which will become known as the Washington Accord, with regards to the Great Lakes region.

President Trump. That's great.

Senior Adviser Boulos. There are some economic——

President Trump. Why not the Trump Accord? [Laughter]

Senior Adviser Boulos. If you wish. [Laughter]

President Trump. I'm only kidding. [Laughter] That will be a headline soon. No, I think that's a great name: Washington Accord.

Senior Adviser Boulos. Yes.

President Trump. Beautiful.

Senior Adviser Boulos. And there's an economic aspect as well that is extremely important for both countries. They have also worked—last week, we finalized the regional economic integration framework, which both countries will be signing at—the White House here during that ceremony. And——

President Trump. That's going to be a great ceremony.

Senior Adviser Boulos. Absolutely. And——

President Trump. Right? We're going to make that a great ceremony and bring other people that were involved, some other people, besides the gentleman we talked about, who we know has worked so hard. If you think there are other people that are deserving, let us know.

Ms. Verás. Sure.

President Trump. Okay?

Ms. Verás. Sure, Mr. President.

Senior Adviser Boulos. And there will be some bilateral agreements. We're negotiating a minerals deal with the D.R.C. for critical minerals. Many American companies have shown interest in investing in the D.R.C., and these, we talk about long-term investments.

Same thing with Rwanda. Many American companies have shown interest, and not only in mining but also in the midstream and downstream, which will be the processing of minerals. We're also working and supporting the Lobito Corridor, which will help building the infrastructure.

Just 2 days ago, the United States signed—well, and supported a project of $1.5 billion for electric transmission——

President Trump. Right.

Senior Adviser Boulos. ——from Angola to the D.R.C., and there are many other projects of that nature lined up.

So we will be—under your leadership, Mr. President, we'll be working with the two countries very closely, and with the support of Qatar, to make sure that this agreement is implemented.

President Trump. And a lot of our companies are in both of these countries now, especially, since we've been getting along so well. It's probably the way we were brought together. And we have—a lot of our big companies are there, between rare earth and all of the other things that they do in Africa, which is very greatly expanding, especially in these two countries.

You have earth. They consider it to be about the best in the world, actually, I've heard. So we're doing a lot of different things, and it's all going to bring everybody together. That's how this all began, I guess.

But the big thing is—the big thing for me is there's really only one thing, and that's getting a peace treaty with two countries that have been fighting for 30 years.

And I want to thank you all.

Will, if you could——

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

President Trump. ——you could bring the letters over.

Staff Secretary Scharf. Of course, sir.

So, in front of you, as you said, sir, these are the actual agreements that were signed respectively by the Foreign Ministers of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda earlier today, witnessed by Secretary Rubio.

We've also prepared for you two letters.

This is to President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, expressing your appreciation and congratulations for everything that's happened already and, of course, inviting him to Washington for, as Dr. Boulos said, what we hope will be the Washington Accords, finally setting the terms for peace and prosperity in this region, hopefully, for a very long time.

[The President signed the letter.]

President Trump. That's great. That's beautiful. Very important.

We're going to put a picture in there, right? As soon as this is over——

Minister Nduhungirehe. Yes.

President Trump. ——they're going to put—we have a fast-moving photographer, Dan, who's going to put a nice picture of us right here. Okay?

Minister Nduhungirehe. Thank you.

President Trump. That's for you.

Minister Nduhungirehe. Thank you.

Staff Secretary Scharf. And this is a letter to President Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo, again, congratulating him on settling this long-running war and inviting him to Washington, DC, for the final conclusion of the agreement, hopefully, soon.

[The President signed the letter.]

President Trump. That's great. Nice, right? That's great.

Minister Kakikwamba. Mr. President, thank you so much.

[President Trump gave Minister Nduhungirehe and Minister Kayikwamba the signing pens.]

President Trump. You take that pen. And you take that pen.

Minister Nduhungirehe. Thank you very much.

President Trump. Okay. So I'd like to ask J.D. to say a few words, our great Vice President.

Vice President James D. "J.D." Vance. Yes, sir.

President Trump. And then Marco.

And go ahead.

Vice President Vance. Great. Well, first, let me welcome the Foreign Ministers of Rwanda and Congo. It's great to have you in the Oval Office. And second, let me say congratulations to the President, Secretary Rubio, and the entire team.

I think, for the people of these two countries, they should know that the United States is committed to the pathway of peace.

But to my fellow Americans, this is really a celebratory moment. This is a big moment for our country because, under the President's leadership, we've taken what was 30 years of killing and war—the worst war in terms of death count since World War II—and now we're on a pathway to peace.

And so if I think about what I know about these two countries, for 30 years, pretty much the entire time that I can remember these two countries being in the news, much of the story has been about them fighting one another, about them killing one another, and now we can look forward to a future where my children will look at this moment as the beginning of a new story, a story of prosperity and of peace.

So thanks to the President. Congratulations to the entire team. And to my fellow Americans, we should all be really proud, because it's amazing what active Presidential leadership can accomplish when it's geared towards peace and prosperity, and that's what we have in the Oval Office right now.

So great job, sir.

President Trump. Thank you very much, J.D.

And Marco, and then we're going to ask the two principals to speak.

Secretary of State Marco A. Rubio. Yes, sir. Mr. President, first of all, thank you. When we—when I first came on this job a few months ago, you made it very clear that the priority of this administration, under your leadership, was going to be the pursuit of peace. And from day one, whether it's been in Ukraine and Russia, whether it's been Pakistan-India, whether it's been Iran and Israel, and in the continent of Africa, your priority has been on peace. And today we see this come to fruition.

It's sad, but wars get a lot more attention than peace. But peace is harder than war. A lot harder. And I want to congratulate both of the leaders here and their respective Presidents for choosing the harder path, which is often peace, than the easier path, which sometimes is war, as costly and as bloody as it may be.

And I echo the Vice President's statements, and that is that Americans should be very proud that the number-one voice for peace in the world today is our President—your President. And so thank you, President Trump.

And I want to again recognize Dr. Boulos and the work he's put into this from day one. He's really put a lot of time and effort and as our friends from the respective countries can share with us.

And last point I want—I do want to thank—you've done this already—but the African Union, Togo, and—and Qatar, who have been extraordinary partners and whose help we're going to need to continue to receive in order to bring all this to fruition.

So congratulations to both of you.

President Trump. Thank you, Marco.

Secretary Rubio. And thank you, Mr. President.

President Trump. Thank you. Great job you've done.

Do you want to start?

Minister Nduhungirehe. Oh.

President Trump. Either way. Would you like to start?

Minister Nduhungirehe. Ladies first, maybe. [Laughter]

President Trump. Okay. Ladies first. Good.

Minister Kakikwamba. Thank you so much again.

President Trump. Thank you very much.

Minister Kakikwamba. Thank you so much, Mr. President, for having us here.

I think I can summarize my contribution in three main points. First of all, thank you and congratulations, indeed, for this remarkable milestone, which is putting an end to 30 years of conflict and of suffering and which is redefining the perspectives that millions of Congolese and of citizens of the greater Great Lakes region will have.

The second point is: Stay committed. Stay on board. We need the United States to make sure that this agreement holds and that you hold us accountable.

And the third point is, if you stay on board, I think there are so many perspectives that we can transform our partnerships through and that can usher in an era of prosperity, of growth, and of shared bilateral relationships that go well beyond the challenges that we share together and that can at least, or finally, focus on the potential and of the wealth that we can share.

So, again, our heartfelt gratitude to you, on my behalf, but more importantly, on behalf of the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Thank you so much.

President Trump. Well, thank you. Beautifully spoken, and I look forward to seeing your leader. They will—highly respected person, as you know.

Minister Kakikwamba. Indeed.

President Trump. Highly respected all over the world, but in Africa, in particular. So sometime in July, we'll do something, a big ceremony. Okay?

Minister Kakikwamba. We look forward to it.

President Trump. Thank you very much.

Minister Kakikwamba. Thank you so much.

President Trump. Please.

Minister Nduhungirehe. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

This is indeed a historic day, because it's the signing of a peace agreement between Congo and Rwanda to end a conflict that has been going on for 30 years. And there has been many mediation facilitation in the past, but none of them succeeded. And we believe that it's because of your leadership and your steadfast commitment to this process, with also a new approach of economic integration—regional economic integration, which is important to allow Rwanda and D.R.C. working together, because this is a very rich region with cross-border trade, with minerals, with natural wealth.

So, with the U.S. standing by—side by side with Rwanda and D.R.C., we believe that we'll achieve long-time peace. And we also believe that, as my colleague from D.R.C. stated, it's important for the United States to stay committed, because today we signed, but now there is—we need to implement what we have signed in order to open this new era you were talking about of prosperity so that we can reap the economic dividend of peace.

So, for this economic integration framework to be implemented, it's important for the U.S. to accompany the parties to implement what we have signed, because, in the past, we have signed so many agreements that were not implemented. And we are really—we believe that with your leadership, with the involvement of the United States administration, we will reach that goal.

So thank you very much, Mr. President.

President Trump. Well, this will happen, definitely.

I can reach over—do you want to just press them over to me?

Staff Secretary Scharf. Yes, sir.

President Trump. Let me have them.

And I just wanted to give you each—these are your signed agreements. And we'll make sure that you follow through. We'll make sure you follow through.

Minister Nduhungirehe. Yes.

President Trump. We'll make sure that you follow through. [Laughter] Okay?

That's for you.

And we have one other thing that we're going to give, that we give to special people only. This is a coin.

Minister Nduhungirehe. Thank you.

President Trump. And I hope you do that. And I'm going to give you a second one for your leader.

Minister Nduhungirehe. Oh. Oh, thank you very much.

President Trump. Okay. And likewise, we'll do that. These are serious coins. You don't want to—you don't want to lose them. You'll be very—I think that your reporter from Africa should get one. What do you think? Is she allowed? [Laughter] Huh?

Minister Nduhungirehe. [Inaudible]

President Trump. I think—yes. Are the reporters okay with it? Huh?

Q. Yes.

President Trump. Brian [Brian Glenn, Real America's Voice], yes?

Q. Yes, sir.

President Trump. Darling, that's for you. Okay? You did a fantastic job.

Ms. Verás. Thank you, Mr. President.

President Trump. And I heard you do a great job at covering everything. Thank you.

Ms. Verás. Thank you.

Staff Secretary Scharf. And, Mr. President, we actually have the pictures that you took earlier——

President Trump. Oh, let me see that.

Staff Secretary Scharf. ——with the Foreign Ministers here already.

Minister Kakikwamba. Thank you so much, Mr. President.

President Trump. And your—[inaudible]—leader.

Minister Kakikwamba. Thank you.

President Trump. Let me see that.

Staff Secretary Scharf. They're in this folder right here, sir.

President Trump. Okay. This one?

Staff Secretary Scharf. Yes, sir.

President Trump. Oh, they look better than me. I don't like it. [Laughter] I don't like it. That's beautiful. That's very good. We have a good photographer. Beautiful. That's great.

You'd better—I'll tell you, you'd better do the job here, or we're going to come down hard on you. [Laughter] That's beautiful.

Thank you very much.

Minister Nduhungirehe. Thank you.

President Trump. So we'll put them in. That's for you.

Staff Secretary Scharf. I can do that, sir.

President Trump. That's for you.

Senior Adviser Boulos. This is the Congo.

President Trump. What is it?

Senior Adviser Boulos. For the Congo.

President Trump. Yes.

Senior Adviser Boulos. The peace agreement.

President Trump. Okay.

Let's see, do we have two of them? I think so. He wouldn't give us one. He would have made a big mistake.

Isn't that nice? That's for you.

Minister Nduhungirehe. Thank you.

President Trump. And that's for you.

Minister Kakikwamba. Thank you, Mr. President.

President Trump. Thank you very much. And you're all set. And this is for you.

Minister Kakikwamba. Yes, indeed.

President Trump. You're going to get this. Good. You might as well hold it.

Minister Kakikwamba. Thank you so much.

President Trump. Thank you very much. Good luck.

Minister Kakikwamba. Thank you.

President Trump. Do you have any questions, please?

[Several reporters began asking questions at once.]

Canada-U.S. Trade

Q. Mr. President, on Canada. I would like to know, could this——

President Trump. No, no, not Canada. This isn't about Canada.

Q. Why not Canada, by the way?

President Trump. This isn't about—why?

Q. I mean, you——

President Trump. Because this is about a different subject right now.

Q. But you're ending all—trade commercial.

President Trump. This is right now, actually, a much more important subject. We just ended a war that was going on for 30 years, where 6 million people died. So, don't ask me a trade question on Canada.

The President's Foreign Policy/News Media

Q. Mr. President, Cara from Lindell—Cara Castronuova from LindellTV. Now that your administration—and congratulations—has secured peace in Africa to a bloody, horrific war that's gone on for decades and no other President could do it, do you think the mainstream media will finally——

President Trump. I love her, I'm telling you. [Laughter] No other—but you're right, no other President could do it. They tried, and they—well, they didn't even try, I don't think. I don't think.

I actually don't think they tried. Do you think Biden tried? He didn't know he was alive.

Go ahead.

Q. Do you think the mainstream media will finally give you credit where credit is due?

President Trump. No. No. The media will never give me credit, but the people give me credit. That's why I'm here. If the people didn't give me—that's why we're here, in a landslide. We got all seven States. We won the popular vote. We have—so the media won't give me credit, but the people give me credit. That's more important to me.

Brian.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Murder Rate

Q. Mr. President, you're going to go down as a peacemaker. You're also going to go down with the President who had zero border crossings in May. You secured the border more—most than anybody has ever done.

But I don't know if you know this: You're on track right now to have the lowest murder rate in history in this country, and I think a largely go to the fact we closed down the border. But do you want to comment on that? You might go down as the murder—lowest murder rate in U.S. history, President Trump.

President Trump. I saw that the other day, and that's an honor. I mean—and that's, really, even better because, you know, we've taken a lot of illegals in—into the country through Biden, through the Biden administration, that are murderers—11,888, to be exact. And many of them are now gone. We got rid of them, and they're back where they belong.

But—so it's a great honor. You know, it's a—if you took that out, we'd be—the numbers would be even better, because they've created a lot of problems.

Air Traffic Control System

Q. If I could follow up with one more question, if I could. You Truth Socialed earlier about getting money to the air traffic controllers in the Big Beautiful Bill——

President Trump. Right.

Q. ——which hopefully—praise God—if we get this thing signed.

President Trump. Yes.

Q. What does that mean to that industry that have been suffering the last couple years—or a couple of years, probably a decade of being underfunding? How will that change the safety of air travel?

President Trump. Well, they've underfunded the airports for years, and I started the process of getting it completed, in terms of the equipment necessary to land the planes, where the planes—like the helicopter accident with the plane would have never happened if they had the right modern equipment. It would have been—bells and whistles would have been going on all—all over the place.

And I had that all set, but when I wasn't here, they totally dropped it. You had a terrible head of Transportation. We have a very good one now, Sean Duffy. But you had Buttigieg, and he didn't know a damn thing. He would ride to work on his bicycle. He didn't know what the hell was going on. He was terrible.

So he totally dropped that. It was a project that should have happened, and I was all set, but we had a very sad experience with the voting. And so we didn't get to do that, but now I'm doing it, and we're going to have a great system. And it's funded partially by the bill. It's the initial funding is by the bill, and then it gets to be funded—the rest of it comes a little bit later as we build it out.

But we're going to build out the best in the world. We have the best companies in the world. A couple of countries have very good systems. In fact, I noticed, when I was landing, my pilot often would use the system of another country. And I said, "What are you doing that for?" He said, "The United States' system is so bad."

So we have the best companies that do that in the world bidding. You have Raytheon. You have IBM. You have a lot of different companies bidding, and we'll get the best one, the best system, for the best price. And they're going to go to town and give us a system that will be better than any other system in the world, and you won't to have planes bonking into each other at 35,000 feet.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Gaza, Palestinian Territories/Judicial Review

Q. Mr. President—Mr. President, on the subject of peace deals.

President Trump. Yes.

Q. How close is—are you and your administration to a deal in terms of Gaza cease-fire right now?

President Trump. Often asked, and I think it's close. I just spoke with some of the people involved. That's a terrible situation that's going—Gaza, he's asking about. And we think within the next week, we're going to get a cease-fire. And we're supplying, as you know, a lot of money and a lot of food to that area because we have to. I mean, you have to.

We're, in theory, not involved in it, but we're involved because people are dying. And I look at those crowds of people that have no food, no anything, and, you know, we're the ones that are getting it there. Some of it's being taken by some bad people. You know, if you give it and you give it out, they're supposed to be taking care of the people, and they end up stealing the food and selling it.

But we have a pretty good system now. But—so we're helping with that. You see the lines of people that just get one meal, essentially. But it's too bad. Other countries aren't helping out. Nobody is helping out.

We're doing that because I think we have to, on a humanitarian basis. Like this—we didn't have to get involved in Africa, but we did because we thought it was—I've been reading—like J.D. said, he's—you know, for much of his life, he's been just seeing this—about this brutal war. And it actually got a lot of publicity because of the level of brutality, right.

It was—nobody's ever seen anything like it. And to be involved in that—I mean, I consider this the most important of my conferences today.

We just had a great Supreme Court victory today, and everybody would say that it was big. But you know, we're talking about saving thousands and probably millions of lives here. This is more important than anything.

So it's great. But we're working on Gaza, trying to get it taken care of. And, again, you know, a lot of food has been sent there. And other countries throughout the world should be helping also.

North Korea/The President's Foreign Policy

Q. And on another conflict that I know you've been working on, sir. Is it true that you have reached out with a letter to North Korea's Kim Jong Un?

President Trump. Well, if there is a conflict, I get along with him very, very well, and we'll get the conflict solved with North Korea. I've had a good relationship with Kim Jong Un, and I've gotten along with him really great. So we'll see what happens.

But somebody's saying there's a potential conflict. I think we'll work it out, if there is. It wouldn't involve us. But, again, we're very far away from a lot of these places that we're solving problems with. But I enjoy doing it, I like doing it, and it's the right thing to do. And we're able—we have an ability to get it done. So we're solving things that we didn't have a lot to do with.

Serbia-Kosovo, I told you, we solved a potential disaster. I can tell you that—some other countries that you're not going to hear about, but some countries that were ready to go to war with their neighbor are not going to go to war with their neighbor. And it's—that's a great thing. We have a number of them.

But I just—I'm very happy about India and Pakistan, because they have—they actually have nuclear weapons. You know, when you talk about Iran, they were trying to get it. But India has nuclear weapons. Pakistan has nuclear weapons—high-level nuclear weapons, both. And getting that solved was really great. We did it through trade, so it was a great thing.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Iran/Nuclear Weapons Development

Q. Mr. President, on nuclear weapons. When it comes to nuclear weapons, Mr. President, are you concerned that the Iranians may have some enriched uranium at Pickaxe Mountain?

President Trump. No. No. The last thing they're thinking about right now is enriched uranium. They're not thinking about—what they want to do is, they want to get back to life, and they do want to meet me. And we'll do that quickly. We're going to do it quickly. We'll have a meeting soon.

Q. They said this morning that they don't want to meet with the U.S. Were they——

President Trump. Well, they may——

Q. ——telling you something different in private?

President Trump. They may say that to you. Don't you think they want to meet me? Don't you think? We have sanctions on there that they can't do anything. Wouldn't you think that they want to meet me? I mean, they're not stupid people.

But they went through a lot, and they suffered, and so did Israel. Israel suffered greatly. That was a nasty 12 days. And yes. We'll see what happens.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Ukraine/U.S. Security Assistance

Q. Are you considering—and are you considering sending Patriot missiles to Ukraine? Have you made up your mind about that yet?

President Trump. I may.

Go ahead.

Q. On your Truth Social post——

Rwanda/Democratic Republic of the Congo

Q. On this conflict, Mr. President, there are a few unanswered questions that remain in this deal. For example, will Rwandan——

President Trump. This deal?

Q. On this deal.

President Trump. Yes.

Q. On this—conflict. For example, will Rwandan troops pull back from parts of D.R. Congo? And also, will the M23 rebel group be allowed to remain in parts of eastern D.R. Congo? Do you have any answers to those questions and——

President Trump. Well, let me ask you that question. Do you want to answer that one? It sounds like an interesting question for you. Go ahead, please.

Minister Nduhungirehe. Thank you very much. In—the agreement we signed, we have taken the concept of operation for the neutralization of the FDLR, which is a vicious genocidal movement, and the lifting of Rwandan defensive measures. So this was already signed last year in November, so we will implement it, this concept of operation, to do both things: to neutralize this movement, which has been destabilizing Rwanda for many years, and to lift our defensive measures.

As for the M23, in our agreement, also, we have decided to rely on the Doha talks, because there are currently talks between the AFC/M23 and the D.R.C. Government to have a peace deal also that will complement the Washington peace agreement. So both things are taken care of.

Q. Thank you.

And, Mr. President, will the United States be enforcing this agreement or taking a role in that?

President Trump. Well, we'll be working with them to get it enforced. They can enforce their own agreement, but we'll be putting a lot of pressure on to make sure it gets enforced.

The two people in this room are very, very capable people, and they'll get it done. I think they'll get it done. They love their country—one thing I learned very quickly is how much you love your country, and you want to get it done. And they know it has to get done; otherwise, bad things happen. But I think we're well beyond that.

Other Presidents should have done what I'm doing right now. They never did it. I don't think they ever tried. I don't think it's like they couldn't do it. I don't think they ever tried. And if they did, they wouldn't be able to do it anyway.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Yes.

Rwanda/Democratic Republic of the Congo

Ms. Verás. Yes, thank you. Mr. President, can you share with us what can happen if one of the parts violate this peace agreement? Because we don't want war to come back to D.R.C.

President Trump. Well, I'd rather not say. I would just say that there are big penalties if they violate, and they're not going to—I don't think they will violate. I think they mean it. But we have very severe penalties, financial and otherwise. Okay?

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Canada-U.S. Trade

Q. Mr. President, could you circle back to your Truth Social post? On Canada, specifically. Why are you deciding to end trade talks with Canada? And what rate are you looking to set?

President Trump. So Canada put a charge on some of our companies, and Canada has been a very difficult country to deal with over the years. You know, we hear Canada. We have a great relationship with the people of Canada, but it's been very difficult. And they put a charge, and they were a little bit early. We found out about it.

So—and we have all the cards. We have all—every single one. We don't want to do anything bad. But they have—economically, we have such power over Canada. I'd rather not use it.

But they did something with our tech companies today trying to copy Europe. You know, they copied Europe. It's not going to work out well for Europe either, and it's not going to work out well for Canada. They were foolish to do it. So I said we're going to stop all negotiations with Canada right now until they straighten out their act. Okay?

Q. Is there anything Canada can do to change your mind about this situation?

President Trump. No. They put a tax on companies that were American companies that they shouldn't—very—a very severe tax. And yes, I guess they could remove it. They will, but it—I don't really—I mean, it doesn't matter to me. We have all the cards. We have all the cards.

You know, we do a lot of business with Canada, but relatively little. They do—most of their business is with us. And when you have that circumstance, you treat people better.

They've had farmers that are getting, like, 300, 400, 200 percent in tariffs. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. We have cases—you don't read this, and the people don't report, but they charge us 400 percent on some dairy products. Four hundred percent. Nobody writes that. It's not fair to our farmers, and we've got to protect our farmers.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Brian.

Chairman of the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors Jerome H. Powell/Interest Rates/Inflation

Q. Mr. President, you mentioned how much of a rate cut would do to the interest on the debt. Earlier today Director Pulte was on CNBC talking about how he suggested Powell should resign. Any comments on whether or not Powell should step down? I know you've been pretty critical.

President Trump. Well, I don't have a comment. I'd love him to resign if he wanted to. He's done a lousy job.

Look, if you were there, you'd say: "Well, you know, the United States is doing well. They have no inflation, and if they do get inflation in a year or two, we'll put—we'll start raising the rates, we'll get rid of the inflation, you know, and do other things."

Biden had the worst inflation in the history of our country: 19 percent. But I think it was much higher than that, frankly. They say 19 percent. I say, I think it's a lot higher than that. And we have almost no inflation now. We've done a great job in a short period of time.

Energy prices are way down. Gasoline now is down to close to $2 in a lot of places. A couple of places I see it even broke—it's, like, $1.98 a gallon. We've done a great job on inflation and, honestly, pretty much everything else.

I think that—I think it's very sad the way people act. You know, you have a guy in there that, with the stroke of a pen, could lower interest rates and save us hundreds of billions of dollars a year, but he's a stupid person.

You know, it's very interesting. He—I'm not sure if he doesn't understand it, because he should be able to understand it. It's sort of 101 economics. But I'm not sure that—but think of it: With the stroke of a pen—he talks about costs—we can save $600 billion, maybe even nine—these are nice numbers for you, right?—[laughter]—$900 billion, $950 billion by lowering interest rates.

And it's really just more of a paper movement. It's not like—you're not cutting anything. You're not cutting jobs. It's just interest rates.

And we're number 40 or 44, number 45. Some places that you wouldn't believe that—you know, I don't want to be disparaging, but they pay a lower interest rate than the United States of America. And without us, everything blows up. You know, we sort of control the world in that sense.

But we have a guy that's just a stubborn mule and a stupid person that is making a big mistake. He's making a mistake. And it lasts for years, because when you do the debt—now, I've instructed my people not to do any debt beyond 9 months or so. Get this guy out.

And whoever is in there will lower rates. If I don't—if I think somebody's going to keep the rates where they are or whatever, I'm not going to put them in. I'm going to put somebody that wants to cut rates. There are a lot of them out there.

And I said this morning—a lot of the business shows today were saying: "You know, Trump is right. He should be cutting rates."

Think of it: We have a great country. We're making a lot of money. We're taking in billions of dollars in tariffs. We have one—we have $15 trillion dollars of money that wants to be invested here, which is a record. In 2 months, it breaks any record that we've ever had for a whole year, and not even close. Fifteen trillion. And it's going to be much higher than that. That's after essentially 2 months, because, you know, we've been doing it for about 2 months, 2½ months. Fifteen trillion dollars breaks every record in the book.

There's never been anything like this. We have factories moving in. We have car plants moving in. We have—everyone wants to be part of the United States.

And as I told you, and I say it to everybody, when I was in the Middle East, the King of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and U.A.E.—all great leaders; they have all great leaders—all three of them said, "You've got the hottest country in the world, and you did it in"—at that time, I was there for 4 months, because we got back a little while ago.

But everybody says it, not only them. We have the hottest country in the world right now. The only thing is we have a Fed Chairman that is—he doesn't get it. And you could have substantially low—like, if we cut them 2 points, we'd save more than 600—think of it, more than $600 billion, just because you cut. But you can't go out to the market and say, "Well, we have a guy that's got us at 4 percent or 4½ percent, and we want to pay 2 percent or 1 percent." I think we should be paying 1 percent right now, and we're paying more because we have a guy who's—you know, suffers from, I think, Trump derangement syndrome, if you want to know the truth. But he's not good for our country.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. A related question on banking.

Q. Did you push for the president of UVA——

President Trump. No, no. No, no. Not you.

Q. ——did you push for the President of——

President Trump. Not you. Not you.

Q. Oh.

President Trump. Go ahead.

Banking Regulations

Q. A related question on banking. There have been reports, Mr. President, that your administration is considering issuing an Executive order about debanking, which is the practice of banks denying services based on people's political beliefs or industries such as crypto, people involved in that.

President Trump. Yes.

Q. Would you be open or interested to sign such an Executive order targeting de-banking? And—and what might that look like?

President Trump. Well, I think the debankers—I think that banks—I can tell you, because I've been a victim myself because of my politics, that big banks were very nasty to us. And I actually think it was Biden's people that told them to be because the one group of people that banks are afraid of are the regulators. They are petrified of the regulators.

And I've seen the biggest banker—I can tell you, you see him on television all the time. If a regulator walked into the room, he gets all nervous and crazy. They're afraid of the regulators.

And if the Biden people order the banks to be virtually closed—they could do anything they want. The regulators control the banks. It's not the President of the bank. The President of the bank is far less important to a bank than a regulator, and a regulator can put that bank out of business, just like bad prosecutors are very dangerous. You know, we had a couple. I had Deranged Jack Smith and some others. And we kicked their ass, but it was—you know, it's a tough kind of a situation.

Prosecutors are very dangerous. A great prosecutor is an amazing asset for a country, but a corrupt prosecutor, a bad prosecutor is very bad.

Well, the regulators are the same thing. And when they tell the regulator to go and make it—make life impossible for big banks or little banks, they really control it. So there is a lot of debanking, and there's—they call it "debanking," call it a lot of different names. Essentially, they make it impossible to do business. And those people are very bad and very dangerous, and they shouldn't be doing it.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Go.

Tax Code Reform

Q. On taxes. Mr. President, could you please explain how taxes would go up by 68 percent if the bill isn't passed? Where does that number come from?

President Trump. Well, it comes from the fact that you have automatically the Trump cuts, which were the biggest cuts that we've ever had. Now, these cuts are even bigger. But from the last administration, we had the Trump cuts. It was a 5-year deal, and it comes due.

When you add that to the cuts that you already have and other things, it amounts, according to what they tell me, about 68 percent. That would mean you'd have a tax so that—you know that the tax cuts that they got, the biggest tax cuts in our history, would immediately go up to that level, and that alone is a big chunk of the 68 percent. And then you have the other taxes that would accumulate, and they say that you'd have about a 68-percent tax increase.

European Union

Q. Sir, you said a moment ago that it won't work out very well for Europe on trade. Does that mean you want to cut off those negotiations as well and just tell them what they should be paying?

President Trump. No. Well, they've been very tough. Europe—the European Union was formed in order to take advantage of the United States on trade. That was why they were formed. And they're nasty. They're very nasty.

We have a good relationship. I'm dealing with Ursula right now and the group. But it's a very—it's a very tough situation. They have been unbelievably bad to us. If you look at past Presidents, they've treated them very badly. They're being very nice to me, because I get it, I know the system, and we have the cards. We have the cards far more than they do.

And they have not treated us well, and they're coming to us right now. You know, I said I was going to put on a 50-percent tariff. As soon as I said that—I put it out on Truth. As soon as I said that, they came to the table. They didn't want to come to the table, my people were telling me—Scott was telling me and the whole group was telling me that—not a good situation. They want to tap it down the line. They don't want to really deal.

So I said, "We're going to put a 50-percent tariff on you." And Howard, as you know, was very much involved—Lutnick, Commerce. And he said, "They don't want to talk." As soon as I put that on, I was getting calls from them, like, "Can we meet tomorrow?"

And the problem is they have a lot of very unfair taxes. They have a lot of taxes that you wouldn't put on. And they sue all our companies. They're constantly suing Apple and Google and all of these companies and getting, you know, in front of judges that essentially almost work for them. I guess they do work for them. They're European Union judges. And they're getting these crazy rewards. Apple was fined $17 billion, and others are being fined tremendous numbers of dollars.

They've—they're nasty people, and I don't want them affecting U.S. companies. I don't want that. If anybody's going to affect a U.S. company, I want it to be us. And if they're going to have to pay a penalty or a fine, let it be to us.

So they've done this for a long time, for years. But they're very nasty. The European Union is very nasty. There's no question. But they'll learn not to be so nasty very soon. They know that. They know it's coming.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of Russia

Q. Mr. President, you've told us that the Vladimir Putin reached out to you to help you with the Iran crisis.

President Trump. Yes. And he made some nice statements today. Did you see the statements?

Q. I saw the statement.

President Trump. Very nice. Vladimir Putin made some very nice statements today.

Look, he respects our country again. He didn't respect it a year ago, I can tell you right now. But Putin respects our country, and President Xi of China respects our country, and Kim Jong Un respects—they respect our country again.

We were not a country that was respected just a year ago. We had a President that was incompetent. We had bad people circulating around this desk—this beautiful Resolute Desk. They had, I guess, evil intentions. They were—you couldn't be that stupid. I mean, they had evil intentions.

But the world respects our country again.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

Congratulations.