We want a level playing field for all American workers — I have instructed my Secretary of State, my Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Treasury, and U.S. Trade Representative to do all necessary work to deliver reciprocity…
Video transcript
the United States, which a lot of countries do, including our allies. Our allies, in many cases, are worse than our enemies in this, having to do with trade. And this has been going along. That's why we have a $36 trillion amount of money that we owe. We owe $36 trillion, but that'll come down rapidly. Likewise, provisions will be made for non-monetary tariffs and a non-monetary -- that's where they charge and they do things that aren't -- there's no dollar amount, but they make it impossible for you to do business. They do tests on cars, like dropping a bowling ball on the hood of a car. And if the hood doesn't withstand it, which no hood would, except for an Army tank, then they say, I'm sorry, you can't sell your car into a certain country. That's a non-monetary tariff. So this is in order to take economic advantage. Likewise, the provisions for the non-monetary tariffs and trade bearers that some countries charge -- in most countries, many countries have something to that effect in order to keep our product out of their domain, or if they do not even let the U.S. businesses operate. So in some countries, they just won't let us even operate there. They charge us a lot, but they won't even let us go in. And then we have many of them. And what our Secretary of Commerce standing right behind me, Howard London, what he's going to be doing is he's going to come up with a number that's an equivalent number to that. But in many countries -- not too many, but quite a few -- they don't let us do business. They effectively don't let us do business. So we're going to put a number on that. That is a fair number. We're able to accurately determine the cost of these non-monetary trade barriers, and we'll be able to do that very accurately. It's fair to all. No other country can complain. And in some cases, if a country feels that the United States would be getting too high a tariff, all they have to do is reduce or terminate their tariff against us, in which case we're going to pay the same thing. There is no tariff. So if they have a tariff and then they complain that this is too high, all they have to do is reduce their tariff or not charge it. I think there'll be certain countries -- it's already happened. I believe I heard that the EU today or yesterday lowered the tariff for their cars to 2.5 percent because that's what we charge. And they lowered it from 10 percent, but it was really much higher than 10 percent. But 10 percent to 2.5, that's already happened. That's a big win. We've been after that to happen for many years. But it never happened, but nobody did anything about it. Sitting in this lovely chair. So there are no tariffs. If you manufacture or build your product in the United States. So if you build your product in the United States, there are no tariffs. Nothing. You don't have to worry about it. It doesn't exist. A lot of companies will come back to the United States to build their product, make their product in the United States, because there will be no tariff. Nothing. For many years the U.S. has been treated unfairly by other countries, both friend and foe. This system will immediately bring fairness and prosperity back into the previously complex and unfair system of trade. We had a very unfair system to us. Everybody took advantage of the United States, and we paid a big price for it. America has helped many countries throughout the years at great financial costs. It is now time that these countries remember what we've done for them and treat us fairly. We want a level playing field for all American workers. We want a level playing field for the United States of America. I've instructed my Secretary of State, my Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of the Treasury and the United States Trade Representative to do all the necessary work to deliver reciprocity. In other words, reciprocal reciprocity to our system of trade. So we're going to have a reciprocal tax. Whatever they charge, we charge. If they don't let us in, we're going to determine a value for that. But overall, it's going to be a very simple system. Whatever they charge, we charge. So nobody can complain. I don't think anybody can complain. And I'm going to sign this. And the numbers are going to be very fair, but staggering. They're going to be large, but very fair. And this should have been done years ago. And I did it in a different form with tariffs and taxes on China. We took in hundreds of billions of dollars. No other president, as you know, ever took in 10 cents. But that was a few countries. That wasn't what we're doing now. Now we're doing it with every country. So this is every country. And essentially when they treat us fairly, we treat them fairly. It's a very fair way of doing it.
Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.
