Karoline Leavitt and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hold a White House press briefing.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Everybody. Happy first 100 days. Before we begin, I want to acknowledge that the bipartisan Take
00:07It Down Act passed the House last night. This important legislation was championed and guided
00:13through Congress by our wonderful First Lady Melania Trump, including through her direct
00:17advocacy on behalf of survivors during her passage, the passage efforts. The Take It Down Act
00:24criminalizes the publication of non-consensual intimate imagery and requires social media and
00:29similar websites to remove such content within 48 hours of notice from a victim. The First
00:35Lady thanks all those who voted in favor of this important legislation, and the President
00:41looks forward to signing it when it arrives on his desk. Today officially marks 100 days
00:46of promises made and promises kept by President Trump. This has truly been the most historic
00:52start to a presidency in American history. After building the greatest economy in the world
00:58in his first term as president, President Trump is in the process of doing that all over again.
01:04The American people trust in President Trump. Since his first day in office, President Trump
01:10has focused on defeating the Biden inflation crisis, bringing down the cost of living, and making the
01:16United States the best place in the world to do business, invest, create jobs, and innovate. And
01:22President Trump's efforts are working. 345,000 jobs have already been added since the start of President
01:30Trump's term. Last month's jobs report saw nearly 100,000 more jobs than economists predicted, and it
01:36was the fourth highest month for private payroll growth in the past two years. 9,000 manufacturing jobs have
01:44been added to the economy already. This is a sharp contrast to the 6,000 manufacturing jobs that were lost each month in the
01:52final two years of the Biden administration. The U.S. employment rate remains at historic lows.
01:58And thanks to President Trump, Americans are seeing price relief for the first time in years.
02:03The last inflation report showed the first consumer price decline since the COVID pandemic,
02:08a decrease in energy prices, and real average hourly wage growth. President Trump is delivering on
02:14his promises to lower costs for American families and businesses. Prices across the board for everyday goods
02:20have seen decline since this president was inaugurated. From airfare to used motor vehicles to
02:26prescription drugs, prices are dropping. In fact, last month's drop in the price of prescription drugs
02:31was the largest ever recorded. And after Joe Biden botched the response to the bird flu, President Trump and
02:38Secretary Rollins' aggressive plan have brought down wholesale egg prices more than 50 percent from
02:44Inauguration Day. President Trump ended Joe Biden's reckless war on American energy and fossil fuels
02:50and has restored American energy dominance. And Secretary Wright, Secretary Doug Burgum are working
02:56hard on that effort every single day. Oil and gas prices are now way down because of this bold approach.
03:02Gasoline prices down seven percent. Energy down energy prices are also down as well. The Department of
03:08Interior just announced a new offshore drilling policy that will boost oil production in the Gulf of America,
03:14by 100,000 barrels per day. On the deregulation front, President Trump is committed to cutting
03:20senseless red tape, especially for America's small business owners who are the backbone of our economy.
03:27We know cutting regulation leads to lower costs and higher growth. The mass deregulation effort by
03:32this administration will help usher in the golden age of America, which is underway. Immediately upon taking
03:39office, President Trump blocked all of the unfinalized Biden-era rules, saving America's more than $100
03:47billion, or $2,100 per family of four, over the next decade. And the President also launched a bold,
03:55multi-agency effort to roll back existing federal regulations that drive up the cost of living on
04:00hardworking families. This effort is projected to yield significant cost savings in the coming months,
04:06including the EPA's rollback of tailpipe emission rules for light-duty and medium-duty vehicles,
04:12and the Department of Transportation's latest corporate average fuel economy standards.
04:17These two efforts alone yield $755 billion in total savings, or more than $8,800 per family of four,
04:25over the next decade. In total, the combined savings from all of these actions equal just over $935
04:33billion, or nearly $11,000 in real savings per family of four, per the coming decade. The press is
04:39not talking nearly enough about the positive impact of President Trump's deregulation campaign,
04:45and investments from the biggest companies and countries in the world are pouring in under this
04:50president. So far, total investment commitments under the Trump administration have reached more
04:55than $5 trillion, including $500 billion from Apple in U.S.-based manufacturing and training,
05:02$500 billion from NVIDIA in AI infrastructure, $100 billion from TSMC and U.S.-based chips manufacturing,
05:09and the $500 billion private investment by OpenAI Oracle and SoftBank in AI infrastructure as well.
05:16All of these investment commitments are estimated to generate at least 451,000 new high-paying jobs
05:24for American workers and families. At this point, President Trump has secured more investments in
05:30the United States of America in 100 days than Joe Biden did in four years. President Trump is America's
05:36businessman-in-chief, and that's why these trillions of dollars in investments are flooding to our country.
05:43The business community is bullish on America because President Trump is back in charge.
05:48Tomorrow, the president will host CEOs and leaders from several companies that have made these
05:52investments to tout their historic commitments to our country and encourage others to follow suit.
05:58Under President Trump, there has never been a better time to invest in America. And the president
06:03finally said, enough is enough, and refused to allow America and our workers to be ripped off any longer
06:10on trade. President Trump implemented powerful tariffs to end the era of economic surrender and
06:15to rebalance America's trading agreements. More than 100 countries have already come to the table
06:21looking to offer more favorable terms for America and our people. There has never been a president who
06:27has created his own leverage like this president, and we are just getting started. Republicans in Congress are
06:33getting very close to passing President Trump's one big, beautiful bill, which will include the largest
06:38tax cuts in American history, strong border security measures, major military advancements, dramatic
06:44deregulation, and common-sense spending reforms. As President Trump has said before, the best is yet to
06:51come. For more on President Trump's economic successes so far and the plans ahead, I want to pass it off to our
06:57incredible Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett, who is here today, and we will open it up to questions.
07:02In our new media seat, we have Brendan Pearson, the financial services reporter for Punchbowl News.
07:08Punchbowl News covers power, people, and politics based in Washington, D.C., lays our focus on Capitol
07:14Hill, the politics of legislating, founded in 2021, and it is the first newsletter that Capitol Hill and
07:20the White House reads every morning in the middle of the day and throughout the evening. Thanks for being
07:24here with us, and we'll start with you today. Thanks so much for being here. I have a question for
07:30Secretary Bessett. On tariffs, the President said over the weekend that we are hoping that maybe tariff
07:39revenues could replace income tax. But we also keep hearing about the deals that the administration is
07:46pursuing. So my question is, what is the White House's ultimate objective here? Do you want to have
07:53long-term tariff revenue or deals that might reduce those tariffs? I think it's a combination
08:00of both. So we're going to take in long-term tariff revenue. We put a process in place. We have 18
08:06important trading relationships. We will be speaking to all of those partners, or at least 17 of them,
08:15over the next few weeks. Many of them have already come to Washington. What President Trump is referring to
08:21is the ability for tariff revenue to give income tax relief. And I think there's a very good chance
08:28that we will see this in the upcoming tax bill. The President campaigned on no tax on tips, no tax on
08:35Social Security, no tax on overtime, and the restoring interest deductibility for American-made autos.
08:43So tariff income could be used for tax relief on all of those immediately.
08:50So you think that there is a role for significant tariff revenue in U.S. fiscal policy?
08:57I think that it is something that got put away a long time ago. And I think that tariffs
09:05will bring back American manufacturing and generate substantial revenues.
09:10On manufacturing, we've seen some pretty grisly surveys this month from the Philly Fed,
09:17which saw the biggest drop since May of 2020, and the Dallas Fed, similar plunging outlook,
09:24poor shipping orders. What are American manufacturers not understanding about your push for onshoring in
09:31the U.S.? Well, I think, you know, I was in the investment business 35 years, and I learned to
09:36ignore the survey data and look, or the surveys, look at the actual data. And the actual data has
09:42been quite good. The job data is good. Americans keep spending. And as Caroline said, we have these
09:49incredible commitments to bring manufacturing back on shore with record investment by domestic
09:56corporations and foreigners who want to come into the U.S.
09:59Thank you so much, Caroline. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. The Chinese continue to say
10:04that the U.S. and Chinese are not engaged in any consultation or negotiation on tariffs. You
10:11recently said you've talked to your counterpart, but more about, quote, traditional things like
10:15financial stability. So can you clarify, is the administration talking to Beijing specifically
10:21about tariffs or not? Well, we're not going to talk about who's talking to whom, but I think
10:26that, you know, over time we will see that the Chinese tariffs are unsustainable for China. I saw,
10:34I've seen some very large numbers over the past few days that show if these numbers stay on,
10:40Chinese could lose 10 million jobs very quickly. And even if there is a drop in the tariffs,
10:47that they could lose 5 million jobs. So remember that we are the deficit country. They sell almost five
10:55times more goods to us than we sell to them. So the onus will be on them to take off these tariffs.
11:04They're unsustainable for them. And they are saying you guys are not talking about it. So is that true?
11:11They have a different form of government they're playing to a different audience. So I'm not going to
11:16get into the nitty-gritty again of who's talking to whom. But as I said, I believe for the Chinese,
11:26these tariffs are unsustainable. And very quickly, two days ago you said you didn't know if President
11:31Trump had spoken to Xi Jinping. Do you know now? Again, I would say Caroline and I have a lot of jobs
11:37around the White House running the switchboard in one of them.
11:39Secretary Vinson, thank you so much for being here this morning. You've talked about the importance
11:45of giving investors certainty when it comes to the market. Yet the Trump administration is continuing
11:52to negotiate several complex trade deals in a very sort of compressed time frame. When do you expect
11:59you'll be able to give the market some certainty around those deals? Do you have a deadline? Is it the
12:0390-day pause? What are we looking at here? Good question. And I think one thing that has been
12:11a little disconcerting for the markets is, you know, President Trump creates what I would call
12:15strategic uncertainty in the negotiations. So he is more concerned about getting the best possible trade
12:21deals for the American people. You know, we had four years of bad deals for decades of unfair trading.
12:30And we are going to unwind those and make them fair. What we are doing is we've created a process. I
12:38think the aperture of uncertainty will be narrowing. And as we start moving forward announcing deals,
12:46then there will be certainty. But, you know, certainty is not necessarily a good thing in negotiating.
12:52And Mr. Secretary, last night there were reports on the administration sort of walking back a little
12:58bit on the auto tariffs. Can you sort of just elaborate on that decision there and what we can
13:03expect going forward and why sort of the shift in this auto tariffs?
13:06President Trump has had meetings with both domestic and foreign auto producers,
13:14and he's committed to bringing back auto production to the U.S.
13:18So we want to give the automakers a path to do that quickly, efficiently, and create as many jobs as possible.
13:26Thank you so much, Caroline. Thank you, Secretary. Back on China.
13:29Does the administration anticipate supply chain shocks or supply shocks coming now that cargo
13:37shipments from China are significantly down? And if so, are there being plans or are there
13:42plans in the process of how to address that?
13:45MR. I wouldn't think that we would have supply chain shocks. And I think retailers,
13:51they have managed their inventory in front of this. You know, I speak to dozens of companies,
13:58sometimes daily, but definitely weekly. And they know that President Trump is committed to fair trade
14:06and have planned accordingly. And then second question, can you outline the timeline for when
14:11you think some of these deals, particularly with your Asian countries like India, Japan, South Korea,
14:16you may have an announcement?
14:17MR. I'm glad you brought up our Asian trading partners and allies. They have been
14:24the most forthcoming in terms of doing the deals. As I mentioned, Vice President Vance was in India
14:30last week. I think that he and Modi made some very good progress. So I could see some announcements on
14:38India. I could see the contours of a deal with the Republic of Korea coming together.
14:44And then we've had substantial talks with the Japanese.
14:47MS. Andrea, Secretary Besson,
14:50just continuing on the path of the sort of late
14:53progress. You said yesterday, I think, that it could happen as early as this week
14:58or possibly next week, and give us a bit of a timetable. And then I wanted to ask about
15:04South Korea specifically. They've said that they probably won't be able to make a comprehensive deal
15:09until early July because of their elections. Japan also has elections. And to what extent are domestic
15:17factors complicating your efforts? Canada just had an election. You know, are you seeing that
15:23you might have to think about delaying the 90 days?
15:26MR. Well, I would actually take the opposite tack. That I think, from our talks, that these
15:32governments actually want to have the framework of a trade deal done before they go into elections to
15:39show that they have successfully negotiated with the United States. So we are finding that they are
15:45actually much more keen to come to the table, get this done, and then go home and campaign on it.
15:49MS. Sean?
15:50Was there – I'm sorry, did you have a comment on whether it's going to – something can happen
15:55this week or next week?
15:56MR. For –
15:58MS. For a deal. So, you know, you said yesterday –
16:00MR. Again, I think that we are very close on India. And in India, you know, just a little inside
16:08baseball – India, in a funny way, is easier to negotiate with than many other countries because
16:14they have very high tariffs and lots of tariffs. So it's much easier to confront the direct
16:20tariffs when, as we go through these unfair trade deals that have been put in over decades,
16:27that the non-tariff trade barriers can be much more insidious and also harder to detect. So a
16:34country like India, which has the, you know, posted and ready tariffs, it's much easier to negotiate
16:41with them. So, you know, I think the Indian negotiations are moving well.
16:45MS. Sean?
16:46Hi, Mr. Secretary. So it was reported this morning that Amazon will soon
16:51display a little number next to the price of each product that shows
16:56how much the Trump tariffs are adding to the cost of each product.
16:59So isn't that a perfect, crystal-clear demonstration that it's the American consumer
17:05and not China who is going to have to pay for these policies?
17:08MS. I will take this since I just got off the phone with the President about Amazon's
17:13announcement. This is a hostile and political act by Amazon. Why didn't Amazon do this when the
17:21Biden administration hiked inflation to the highest level in 40 years? And I would also add that it's
17:27not a surprise because, as Reuters recently wrote, Amazon has partnered with a Chinese propaganda arm.
17:34So this is another reason why Americans should buy American. It's another reason why we are
17:40on-shoring critical supply chains here at home to shore up our own critical supply chain
17:45and boost our own manufacturing here.
17:47Is Jeff Bezos still a Trump supporter?
17:49MS. Look, I will not speak to the President's
17:52relationships with Jeff Bezos, but I will tell you that this is certainly a hostile and political action by
17:58Amazon. And, Secretary, if you have anything to add?
18:00MR. Yeah, I would also add that bringing down the terrible Biden inflation has been a priority
18:07for the first 100 days of the Trump administration. And President Trump has done a great job of leading
18:13that since January 20th. Interest rates, mortgage rates are down. Gasoline and energy prices are down.
18:22We're expecting the further decreases. And as Caroline said, the big tax on consumers that goes unnoticed
18:30is deregulation or regulation. And we are deregulating and bringing that down. So, you know,
18:36from a household income point of view, we would expect real purchasing increases. We've seen them
18:43over the first 100 days. And we would expect that to accelerate. We are doing peace deals, trade deals,
18:51tax deals, and deregulating. And the deregulation is a longer lead time. But I think by the third and fourth
18:59quarters, that's really going to kick in.
19:01The Press for you and Secretary Bessett.
19:06We talk a lot about volatility, uncertainty in the marketplace.
19:10And the President has stated all along that he's more concerned about mainstream America,
19:14the American worker. You just talked about deregulation and this entire fair trade and
19:20reciprocals. What is your message to the American people in terms of letting them get through this
19:27disturbance and the outcome being greater and a greater good for the American worker,
19:33the American people, the American families?
19:35I would say trust in President Trump.
19:39There's a reason he was reelected to this office.
19:41It's because of the historic success of his economic formula in the first term.
19:45And as I laid out at the beginning of the briefing and the Secretary has talked about
19:48and the President talks about every day, there's a proven formula that works.
19:53There's a lot of deregulation, energy independence, and tax cuts which are coming.
19:58And the Secretary is working very hard on that with our counterparts on Capitol Hill.
20:03If you want to talk about that, that's a huge deal to put more money back into the pockets
20:08of hardworking Americans.
20:09As for the fair trade deals the President is trying to negotiate, he's not just righting
20:13the wrong of the mess that he inherited from the past four years of the Biden administration.
20:18This is a mess that has been created for the past four decades that has sold out the middle
20:22class, that has moved jobs overseas.
20:24You think about our heartland, middle America, what towns used to look like, what they look
20:28like today.
20:29President Trump wants to restore the Golden Age, and it's a process to do that.
20:32And that process is underway, but he's put together a fantastic trade team, Secretary
20:36Besson, Secretary Lutnik, Jamison Greer, all working incredibly hard on this effort 24-7.
20:42But tax cuts are coming, and that's key.
20:45And Mr. Secretary, why don't you talk a little bit about that?
20:47Yeah.
20:48So it's really a three-legged stool in the economic policy.
20:52It's trade, it's tax, and it's deregulation.
20:56So we are in the midst of addressing, as Caroline said, these long-term trade imbalances.
21:02The tax bill is going much better than I would have thought when I took office on January 28th.
21:12And that's through President Trump's leadership, that Speaker Johnson, Leader Thune are united.
21:19Speaker Johnson, we had a very good meeting yesterday with somebody called the Big Six,
21:25NEC Director Kevin Hassett, myself, Speaker Johnson, Leader Thune, Committee Chairman Jason
21:31Smith, and Senator Crapo.
21:34When the tax bill is moving forward, it is going to give permanence to the 2017 Tax Cuts
21:41and Job Act, which will, back to the question on certainty, it will give American business
21:46certainty, it will give American people certainty.
21:49And then President Trump is also adding the things for working Americans that I've talked
21:56about earlier, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, making auto payments
22:02deductible.
22:03So that will substantially address the affordability crisis.
22:08And the other thing that I would note, and back to data, is that the Vanguard, one of the
22:15largest money management firms in America, said that over the past 100 days, 97 percent of
22:22Americans haven't done a trade, and in fact, individual investors have held tight while institutional
22:29investors have panicked.
22:30So individual investors trust President Trump.
22:31Megan, in the back.
22:32Thank you both.
22:33Can you detail for us exactly what we should expect as far as relief on the auto tariffs
22:47front?
22:48And then further, Mr. Secretary, should we expect other industries to also get relief the way
22:52we've now seen for auto and tech as well?
22:54I'm not going to go into the details of the auto tariff relief, but I can tell you that
23:02it will go substantially toward reshoring American auto manufacturing.
23:08And again, the goal here is to bring back the high-quality industrial jobs to the U.S. President
23:16Trump is interested in the jobs of the future, not the jobs of the past.
23:22We don't need to necessarily have a booming textile industry like where I grew up again,
23:28but we do want to have precision manufacturing and bring that back.
23:33And another important, very important function of this that does not get talked about enough
23:38is national security.
23:40President Trump, his overriding concern and belief is that economic security is national security,
23:50is economic security.
23:53And we saw during COVID that our supply chains got cut off.
23:57And we need to bring back a lot of those supply chains, whether it's in semiconductors, medicines,
24:04the steel.
24:06And we have to onshore those.
24:08So it's a combination of making trade free and fair and remedying this gaping national
24:15security hole that he was left with.
24:16And if we could, on one minute.
24:17The Press.
24:18I would just add, and again, the President will sign the executive order on auto tariffs
24:21later today, and we will release it as we always do.
24:23Go ahead.
24:24The Press.
24:25Secretary, any updates on the negotiation with the European Union, and is it hard to negotiate
24:30with the European Union?
24:31The Press.
24:32The Press.
24:33The Press.
24:34The Press.
24:35Do you have any updates on the negotiation with the European Union?
24:36The Press.
24:37I'm more involved in the Asian negotiations.
24:40My observation would be – goes all the way back to Henry Kissinger's statement,
24:44when I call Europe, who do I call?
24:46So we're negotiating with a lot of different interests.
24:51Some of the European countries have put on an unfair digital service tax on our big internet
24:56provider. France and Italy, other countries, Germany and Poland don't have that. So we want
25:04to see that unfair tax of one of America's great industries removed. So it's going to be a give
25:11and take. So they have some internal matters to decide before they can engage in an external
25:17negotiation. Edward. Thanks, Caroline. Mr. Secretary, so contacts I have in the business community say
25:22that they're basically frozen for long-term investment because of the uncertainty around
25:26tariffs. How long do you think President Trump has to make a deal before there's damage to the
25:31economy? Look, I think that what we're seeing is that business leaders, they've gone into a pause,
25:38and I think we're going to give them great certainty on this tax bill. And I think over the
25:44next couple of weeks, as I said, we have 18 important trading relationships. We'll put China
25:50to the side. 17 are in motion. And then, as I said yesterday, I think there's a very good chance
25:57we're going to get this tax bill done. And the tax bill is going to be very powerful for domestic U.S.
26:04investment. So what we are going to do, one of the most powerful parts of President Trump's 2017 tax bill
26:10was full expensing of equipment. We are going to make that, as President Trump said in his speech to
26:17Congress. That will be retroactive to January 20th. The other thing that we are looking to add is full
26:24expensing for factories. So bring your factory back. You can fully expense the equipment and the
26:31building. We will couple that with deregulation, cheap energy, and regulatory certainty. And that
26:39will continue to make the U.S. the greatest destination for domestic and foreign investment.
26:44And the President, if I can follow, the President said that world leaders would like to meet with
26:49him in Rome, in Vatican City, I'm sorry, about trade. Other than President Zelensky, who did the
26:54President meet with about trade? And when could we get some of those deals?
26:59The President met with President Zelensky, as you know, which we talked about. And the President
27:03continues to be engaged with his fellow foreign leaders, fellow leaders around the world in the
27:09European Union. You've seen many of them visit the White House. I want to harp on, in closing, the point
27:14the Secretary just made. On the campaign trail, the President promised the American public that he was
27:19going to make America the best country in the world to do business again. The lowest taxes, lowest regulation,
27:25lowest energy costs of anywhere in the world. And if you do business in the United States, you won't pay a tariff,
27:29you won't pay a price. That's not just good for companies around the world, but it's good for the American worker.
27:34That's what this team is focused so hard on every day. We have work to do. The golden age of America
27:40is underway. But as I pointed out in the beginning, there's a lot of reason for the American consumer,
27:45the American CEO, the American small business owner to be confident and optimistic about this
27:50President and where we're headed. So you will hear more from the President himself later this evening.
27:55He is traveling to Michigan, as you all know. He'll make a stop at the Air Force Base with Governor
28:00Whitmer. And then we will head to a rally tonight. We'll hear more from him directly. So we'll see
28:06you in Michigan. Thank you guys.