Trump at WEF

Larry Fink (00:00):

... technology leaders, civil society and NGO leaders, anywhere in the world for a genuine dialogue, and particularly importantly this year. Thankfully, this group is meeting under better economic circumstances than during the pandemic, but once again, we're forcing very serious different economic conditions around the world. One of the central challenges that is impacting me is how capitalism can benefit more, and how can we broaden our global economy for greater and greater participation. That is a question where the president has shown real leadership through investing in infrastructure, reducing barriers to growth, and initiatives like the Trump Account, designed to give more Americans a direct stake in the growth of the US economy. As he enters the second year of his second term, we are interested in hearing his plans for 2026 and beyond, and will no doubt create more and more conversation.

(01:13)
And that's what the forum is about, a serious conversation in the spirit of dialogue, discussions where the world is headed. Where are we going? And these discussions would be incomplete without the President of the United States, the most important leader in the world. We appreciate him here, so let me introduce and welcome back to Davos, the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

President Trump (02:20):

Well, thank you very much, Larry. It's great to be back in beautiful Davos, Switzerland, and to address so many respected business leaders, so many friends, few enemies, and all of the distinguished guests. It's a who's who. I will say that. I've come to this year's World Economic Forum with truly phenomenal news from America. Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of my inauguration, and today, after 12 months back in the White House, our economy is booming. Growth is exploding. Productivity is surging. Investment is soaring. Incomes are rising. Inflation has been defeated. Our previously open and dangerous border is closed and virtually impenetrable, and the United States is in the midst of the fastest and most dramatic economic turnaround in our country's history.

(03:27)
Under the Biden administration, America was plagued by the nightmare of stagflation, meaning low growth and high inflation, a recipe for misery, failure, and decline. But now, after just one year of my policies, we are witnessing the exact opposite, virtually no inflation and extraordinarily high economic growth, growth like, I believe you'll see very shortly, our country has never seen before, perhaps no country has ever seen before. Over the past three months, core inflation has been just 1.6%. Meanwhile, fourth-quarter growth is projected to be 5.4%, far greater than anybody other than myself and a few others had predicted. Since the election, the stock market has set 52 all-time-high records. So that's in one year, 52 records, adding $9 trillion in value to retirement accounts, 401(k)s, and people's savings. People are doing very well. They're very happy with me. Since my inauguration, we've lifted more than 1.2 million people off of food stamps.

(04:43)
And after four years in which Biden secured less than $1 trillion of new investment in our country, think of that, one trillion, substantially less than that in four years, we've secured commitments for a record-breaking $18 trillion, and we think when the final numbers come out, they'll be closer to $20 trillion of investment. That's never been done by any country at any time. Not even close. Just over one year ago, under the radical left Democrats, we were a dead country. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. In fact, the United States economy is on pace to grow at double the rate that was projected by the IMF just last April, and with my growth and tariff policies, it should be much higher. I really believe we can be much higher than that. And this is all great news, and it's great for all nations.

(05:44)
The USA is the economic engine on the planet, and when America booms, the entire world booms. It's been the history. When it goes bad, it goes bad. You all follow us down, and you follow us up, and we're at a point that we've never... I don't believe we've ever been. I never thought we could do it this quickly. My biggest surprise is I thought it would take more than a year, maybe like a year and one month, but it's happened very quickly. This afternoon, I want to discuss how we've achieved this economic miracle, how we intend to raise living standards for our citizens to levels never seen before, and perhaps how you too and the places where you come from can do much better by following what we're doing, because certain places in Europe are not even recognizable, frankly, anymore. They're not recognizable. And we can argue about it, but there's no argument. Friends come back from different places, I don't want to insult anybody, and say, "I don't recognize it." And that's not in a positive way. That's in a very negative way.

(06:53)
And I love Europe, and I want to see Europe go good, but it's not heading in the right direction. In recent decades, it became conventional wisdom in Washington and European capitals that the only way to grow a modern Western economy was through ever-increasing government spending, unchecked mass migration, and endless foreign imports. The consensus was that so-called dirty jobs and heavy industry should be sent elsewhere, that affordable energy should be replaced by the Green New Scam, and that countries could be propped up by importing new and entirely different populations from far away lands. This was the path that Sleepy Joe Biden administration and many other Western governments very foolishly followed, turning their backs on everything that makes nations rich and powerful and strong. And there's so much potential in so many nations. The result was record budget and trade deficits and a growing sovereign deficit, driven by the largest wave of mass migration in human history. We've never seen anything like it.

(08:06)
Quite frankly, many parts of our world are being destroyed before our very eyes, and the leaders don't even understand what's happening, and the ones that do understand aren't doing anything about it. Virtually all of the so-called experts predicted my plans to end this failed model would trigger a global recession and runaway inflation, but we have proven them wrong. It's actually just the opposite. In one year, our agenda has produced a transformation like America's not seen in over 100 years. Instead of closing down energy plants, we're opening them up. Instead of building ineffective money-losing windmills, we're taking them down and not approving any. Instead of empowering bureaucrats, we're firing them, and they're going out and getting jobs in the private sector for two and three times what they were making in government. So they started off hating me when we fired them, and now they love me.

(09:08)
Instead of raising taxes or domestic producers, we're lowering them, and raising tariffs on foreign nations to pay for the damage that they've cost. In 12 months, we have removed over 270,000 bureaucrats from the federal payrolls, the largest single-year reduction in government employment since the end of World War II. Nobody thought that was coming, but we had no choice. To make a country great, you can't have all federal jobs. We've cut federal spending by $100 billion, and slashed the federal budget deficit by 27% in the single year. It's going to go down quite a bit more from that, driving inflation way down from the record highs of the Biden administration.

(09:56)
Every month, they went up and up and up. I promised to cut 10 old regulations for every single new regulation, but instead, I've cut actually, till this point, 129 regulations for every one new regulation approved. So every time they come in with a new regulation, we do at least 10, but so far, it's averaging out to 129, if you can believe it. In July, we passed the largest tax cuts in American history, including no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on social security for our great seniors. We also provided 100% expensing, that's the one they like, and bonus depreciation for all new equipment and capital investments to help companies expand and shift production to America. They are so in love with that. They build a plant. They're able to deduct it immediately, the whole thing, rather than waiting 38 to 41 years in the old days.

(11:03)
This is a miracle taking place. Nobody thought it would ever be done by any country, but it's done by us. It was what made my first term the most successful four-year term that we've ever had from a financial standpoint, and now we've upped it. This is a 10-year program, not a one-year program, but you're allowed to deduct everything in one year. It used to be 38 to 41 years. With tariffs, we've radically reduced our ballooning trade deficit, which was the largest in world history. We were losing more than $1 trillion every single year, and it was just wasted. It was going to waste. But in one year, I slashed our monthly trade deficit by a staggering 77%, and all of this with no inflation, something everyone said could not be done.

(11:56)
There were a couple of brilliant people that actually thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was doing the right thing. Now they all think I'm doing the right thing, because they can't believe the numbers. American exports are now up by more than $150 billion. Domestic steel production is up by 300,000 tons a month, and it's doubling over the next four months. It's doubling and tripling. We have steel plants being built all over the country. Nobody thought they'd see that. Factory construction is up by 41%, and that number is really going to skyrocket right now, because that's during a process that they're putting in to get their approvals, and we've given very, very quick, fast approvals. In the process, we've made historic trade deals with partners covering 40% of all US trade, some of the greatest companies and countries in the world. We have countries as our partner too.

(12:54)
The European nations, Japan, South Korea, they're our partners. They've gone into massive deals with us, especially on oil and gas. And these agreements raised growth and caused stock markets to boom, not only in the US, but virtually every country that came to make a deal, because as you've learned, when the United States goes up, you follow. It's really become a staple. In America, I've stopped the nation-wrecking energy policies that drive up prices while sending jobs and factories to the world's worst polluters. They are indeed polluters. Under sleepy Joe Biden, new domestic oil and gas leases fell by 95%. Think of that. And they wonder, why was gasoline going up so fast? The gasoline actually topped $5 a gallon, in some places $7 a gallon, and more than 100 major power plants were violently shut down by incompetent people that had no idea what the hell they were doing.

(14:03)
Under my leadership, US natural gas production is at an all-time high, by far. US oil production is up by 730,000 barrels a day, and last week, we picked up 50 million barrels from Venezuela alone. Venezuela's been an amazing place for so many years, but then they went bad with their policies. 20 years ago, it was a great country, and now it's got problems, but we're helping them. And those 50 million barrels we're going to be splitting up with them, and they'll be making more money than they've made in a long time. Venezuela's going to do fantastically well. We appreciate all of the cooperation we've been giving. We've been given great cooperation. Once the attack ended, the attack ended, and they said, "Let's make a deal." More people should do that. But Venezuela's going to make more money in the next six months than they've made in the last 20 years. Every major oil company is coming in with us.

(15:12)
It's amazing. It's a beautiful thing to see. The leadership of the country has been very good. They've been very, very smart. The price of gasoline is now below $2.50 a gallon in many states, $2.30 a gallon in most states, then we'll soon be averaging less than $2 a gallon. In many places, it's already down even lower, $1.95 a gallon. Numerous states are at $1.99, numbers that nobody has heard for years. Actually, since my last administration. We got it down to around those numbers. I've signed an order directing an approval of many new nuclear reactors. We're going heavy into nuclear. I was not a big fan, because I didn't like the risk, the danger, but the progress they've made with nuclear is unbelievable, and the safety progress they've made is incredible. We're very much into the world of nuclear energy, and we can have it now at good prices, and very, very safe.

(16:22)
And we're leading the world in AI by a lot. We're leading China by a lot. I think President Xi respects what we've done, in part because I've allowed these big companies building these massive buildings to build their own electric capacity. They're building their own power plants, which when added up is more than any country anywhere in the world is doing. I read recently an article on the Wall Street Journal that China's creating so much energy, and they are. I got to hand it to them. But we're creating as much or more, and we're letting them do that. I'm very proud of it. It was my idea. I said, "You can't create this much energy." We needed more than double the energy currently in the country just to take care of the AI plants, and I said, "We can't do that. We have an old grid system." And I came up with the idea, "You people are brilliant. You have a lot of money. Let's see what you can do. You can build your own electric generating plants," and they looked at me. They didn't believe me.

(17:23)
All of the names that are in, I think, in the room right now, if you want to know the truth, they didn't believe it. And I said, "No, no, you can." They came back two weeks, and they didn't have the plant. They said, "We thought you were kidding." I said, "No, not only am I not kidding, you're going to have your approvals within two weeks." I always say nuclear will take three weeks, but most aren't going that. They're going oil and gas. They're even going coal in some cases. Because of my landslide election victory, the United States avoided the catastrophic energy collapse which befell every European nation that pursued the Green New Scam, perhaps the greatest hoax in history, the Green New Scam. Windmills all over the place. Destroy your land, destroy your land. Every time that goes around, you lose $1,000. You're supposed to make money with energy, not lose money.

(18:20)
Here in Europe, we've seen the fate that the radical left tried to impose on America. They tried very hard. Germany now generates 22% less electricity than it did in 2017, and it's not the current chancellor's fault. He's solving the problem. He's going to do a great job. But what they did before he got there... I guess that's why he got there. And electricity prices are 64% higher. The United Kingdom produces just one-third of the total energy from all sources that it did in 1999. Think of that, one-third. And they're sitting on top of the North Sea, one of the greatest reserves anywhere in the world, but they don't use it. And that's one reason why their energy has reached catastrophically low levels with equally high prices. High prices, very low levels. Think of that, one-third, and you're sitting on top of the North Sea.

(19:22)
And they like to say, "Well, that's depleted." It's not depleted. It's got 500 years. They haven't even found the oil. The North Sea is incredible. They don't let anybody drill. Environmentally, they don't let them drill. They make it impossible for the oil companies to go. They take 92% of the revenues. So the oil companies say, "We can't do it." They came to see me. "Is there anything you can do?" I want Europe to do great. I want UK to do great. Sitting on one of the greatest energy sources in the world, and they don't use it.

(19:55)
In fact, their electricity prices have soared 139%. There are windmills all over Europe. There are windmills all over the place, and they are losers. One thing I've noticed is that the more windmills a country has, the more money that country loses and the worse that country is doing. China makes almost all of the windmills, and yet I haven't been able to find any wind farms in China. Did you ever think of that? It's a good way of looking at it. They're smart. China's very smart. They make them, they sell them for a fortune, they sell them to the stupid people that buy them, but they don't use them themselves. They put up a couple of big wind farms, but they don't use them. They just put them up to show people what they could look like. They don't spin. They don't do anything. They use the thing called coal mostly. But China goes with the coal.

(20:56)
They go with oil and gas. They're starting to look at nuclear a little bit, and they're doing just fine. They make a fortune selling the windmills, though, and I think really that's one that they wouldn't be surprised if it stopped. They are shocked that it continues to go. They're very friendly with me. They're shocked that people continue to buy those damn things. They kill the birds. They ruin your landscapes. Other than that, I think they're fabulous, by the way. Stupid people buy them. The consequences of such destructive policies have been stark, including lower economic growth, lower standards of living, lower birth rates, more socially disruptive migration, more vulnerability to hostile foreign adversaries, and much, much smaller militaries.

(21:48)
The United States cares greatly about the people of Europe. We really do. I mean, look, I am derived from Europe, Scotland and Germany. 100% Scotland, my mother, 100% German, my father. And we believe deeply in the bonds we share with Europe as a civilization. I want to see it do great. That's why issues like energy, trade, immigration, and economic growth must be central concerns to anyone who wants to see a strong and united West, because Europe and those countries have to do their thing. They have to get out of the culture that they've created over the last 10 years. It's horrible, what they're doing to themselves. They're destroying themselves, these beautiful, beautiful places. We want strong allies, not seriously weakened ones. We want Europe to be strong. Ultimately, these are matters of national security, and perhaps no current issue makes the situation more clear than what's currently going on with Greenland. Would you like me to say a few words of Greenland? I was going to leave it out of the speech, but I think I would have been reviewed very negatively. I have tremendous respect for both the people of Greenland and the people of Denmark. Tremendous respect. But every NATO ally has an obligation to be able to defend their own territory, and the fact is no nation or group of nations is in any position to be able to secure Greenland other than the United States. We're a great power, much greater than people even understand. I think they found that out two weeks ago in Venezuela. We saw this in World War II, when Denmark fell to Germany after just six hours of fighting and was totally unable to defend either itself or Greenland. So the United States was then compelled. We

President Trump (24:00):

... did it. We felt an obligation to do it, to send our own forces to hold the Greenland territory, and hold it we did at great cost and expense. They didn't have a chance of getting on it and they tried, Denmark knows that. We literally set up bases on Greenland for Denmark. We fought for Denmark. We weren't fighting for anyone else. We were fighting to save it for Denmark. Big, beautiful piece of ice. It's hard to call it land. It's a big piece of ice. But we saved Greenland and successfully prevented our enemies from gaining a foothold in our hemisphere. So, we did it for ourselves also.

(24:46)
And then, after the war, which we won, we won it big. Without us, right now you'd all be speaking German and little Japanese perhaps. After the war, we gave Greenland back to Denmark. How stupid were we to do that? But we did it. But we gave it back. But how ungrateful are they now? So, now our country and the world face much greater risks than it did ever before because of missiles, because of nuclear, because of weapons of warfare that I can't even talk about.

(25:27)
Two weeks ago, they saw weapons that nobody ever heard of. They weren't able to fire one shot at us. They said, "What happened?" Everything was discombobulated. They said, "We've got them in our sights. Press the trigger," and nothing happened. No anti-aircraft missiles went up. There was one that went up about 30 feet and crashed down right next to the people that sent it. They said, "What the hell is going on?" Those defensive systems were made by Russia and by China, so they're going to go back to the drawing boards, I guess.

(26:04)
Greenland is a vast, almost entirely uninhabited and undeveloped territory. It's sitting undefended in a key strategic location between the United States, Russia and China. That's exactly where it is, right smack in the middle. Wasn't important nearly when we gave it back. When we gave it back, it wasn't the same as it is now. It's not important for any other reason. Everyone talks about the minerals. There's no rare earth. No such thing as rare earth. There's rare processing, but there's so much rare earth and to get to this rare earth, you got to go through hundreds of feet of ice. That's not the reason we need it. We need it for strategic national security and international security. This enormous unsecured island is actually part of North America on the northern frontier of the Western Hemisphere, that's our territory.

(27:07)
It is, therefore, a core national security interest of the United States of America. And in fact, it's been our policy for hundreds of years to prevent outside threats from entering our hemisphere, and we've done it very successfully. We've never been stronger than we are now. That's why American presidents have sought to purchase Greenland for nearly two centuries. For two centuries, they've been trying to do it. They should have kept it after World War II, but they had a different president. That's all right. People think differently. Much more necessary now than it was at that time, however.

(27:44)
In 2019, Denmark said that they would spend over $200 million to strengthen Greenland's defenses. But as you know, they spent less than 1% of that amount. 1%, there's no sign of Denmark there. And I say that with great respect for Denmark, whose people I love, whose leaders are very good. It's the United States alone that can protect this giant mass of land, this giant piece of ice, develop it and improve it and make it so that it's good for Europe and safe for Europe and good for us. And that's the reason I'm seeking immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States. Just as we have acquired many other territories throughout our history, as many of the European nations have, they've acquired. There's nothing wrong with it.

(28:38)
Some went in reverse, actually, if you look. Some had great vast wealth, great vast lands all over the world, they went in reverse. They're stuck back where they started. That happens too, but some grow. But this would not be a threat to NATO. This would greatly enhance the security of the entire alliance, the NATO alliance. The United States is treated very unfairly by NATO, I want to tell you that. And when you think about it, nobody can dispute it.

(29:12)
We give so much and we get so little in return. And I've been a critic of NATO for many years, and yet, I've done more to help NATO than any other president by far, than any other person. You wouldn't have NATO if I didn't get involved in my first term. The war with Ukraine is an example. We are thousands of miles away, separated by a giant ocean. It's a war that should have never started, and it wouldn't have started if the 2020 US presidential election weren't rigged. It was a rigged election. Everybody now knows that. They found out. People will soon be prosecuted for what they did. It's probably breaking news, but it should be. It was a rigged election. Can't have rigged elections.

(30:01)
You need strong borders, strong elections, and ideally, a good press. I always say it. Strong borders, strong elections, free, fair elections, and a fair media. The media's terrible, it's very crooked, it's very biased, terrible. But someday it'll straighten out because it's losing all credibility. Think of it, when I win in a landslide, a giant landslide, won all seven swing states, won the popular vote, won everything and I only get negative press. That means that it has no credibility. And if they're going to get credibility, they're going to have to be fair. So, you need a fair press.

(30:40)
But you also need those other elements. And I inherited a terrible, terrible situation. If you look, the border was open, the inflation was raging. Everything was bad with the United States when I came into office. But I also inherited a mess with Ukraine and Russia, something that would have never happened. And I know Putin very well, he and I would discuss Ukraine. It was the apple of his eye, but he wasn't going to do anything. I said, "Vladimir, you're not doing it." He would never have done it. It was terrible what happened. I could see it happening too. After I left, I could see it happening. Biden had given Ukraine and NATO $350 billion, a staggering sum, $350 billion. I came in and just like the Southern Border, just like inflation, just like our economy, I said, "Wow, this place is in trouble," meaning our country. All of these things were out of control.

(31:43)
But the border was out of control, we fixed it with the strongest border anywhere in the world. And I've now been working on this war for one year, during which time I settled eight other wars, India, Pakistan. I settled other wars that were... Vladimir Putin called me, Armenia and Azerbaijan. He said, "I can't believe you settled that one." They were going on for 35 years. I settled it in one day and President Putin called me, he said, "I can't believe I've worked on that war for 10 years trying to settle and I couldn't do it." I said, "Do me a favor. Focus on settling your war. Don't worry about that one."

(32:24)
What does the United States get out of all of this work, all of this money other than death, destruction and massive amounts of cash going to people who don't appreciate what we do? They don't appreciate what we do. Talking about NATO. I'm talking about Europe. They have to work on Ukraine, we don't. The United States is very far away. We have a big, beautiful ocean separating us. We have nothing to do with it. Until I came along, NATO was only supposed to pay 2% of GDP, but they weren't paying. Most of the countries weren't paying anything. The United States was paying for virtually 100% of NATO and I got that stopped. I said, "That's not fair."

(33:14)
But then, more importantly, I got NATO to pay 5%, and now they were paying, and now they are paying. So, something nobody said was possible. They said, "We will never go up higher than 2%," but they went to 5%, and now they're paying the 5%. They didn't pay the 2%, and now they're paying the 5%. And they're stronger for it, and they have an excellent, by the way, secretary general, who's possibly in the room. Mark, are you here?

(33:41)
Yes, he's here. Hello, Mark. We never asked for anything, and we never got anything, we probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable, but I won't do that, okay? Now everyone's saying, "Oh, good." That's probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force. I don't have to use force. I don't want to use force. I won't use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland where we already had it as a trustee, but respectfully returned it back to Denmark not long ago after we defeated the Germans, the Japanese, the Italians and others in World War II. We gave it back to them. We were a powerful force then, but we are a much more powerful force now. After I rebuilt the military in my first term and continued to do so today, we have a budget of $1.5 trillion.

(34:46)
We're bringing back battleships. The battleship is 100 times more powerful than the great battleships you saw in World War II, those great big gorgeous ships, the Missouri, the Iowa, the Alabama, because I thought maybe we could take them out of mothballs. They said, "No, sir. These ships are 100..." Think of that, 100 times more powerful than those big, big, magnificent pieces of art that you saw so many times ago that you still see on television, you say, "Wow, what a force." Each ship 100 times more powerful than the big battleships of the past, so that was the end of the mothball story.

(35:35)
So, what we have gotten out of NATO is nothing, except to protect Europe from the Soviet Union and now Russia. I mean, we've helped them for so many years. We've never gotten anything, except we pay for NATO and we paid for many years, until I came along, we paid for, in my opinion, 100% of NATO, because they weren't paying their bills. And all we're asking for is to get Greenland, including right, title and ownership, because you need the ownership to defend it. You can't defend it on a lease.

(36:12)
Number one, legally, it's not defensible that way, totally. And number two, psychologically, who the hell wants to defend a license agreement or a lease? Which is a large piece of ice in the middle of the ocean where, if there is a war, much of the action will take place on that piece of ice. Think of it. Those missiles would be flying right over the center of that piece of ice. All we want from Denmark for national and international security and to keep our very energetic and dangerous potential enemies at bay is this land on which we're going to build the greatest golden dome ever built.

(36:56)
We're building a golden dome that's going to, just by its very nature, going to be defending Canada. Canada gets a lot of freebies from us by the way. They should be grateful also, but they're not. I watched your prime minister yesterday. He wasn't so grateful, but they should be grateful to us. Canada lives because of the United States, remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements. What we did for Israel was amazing, but that's nothing compared to what we have planned for the United States, Canada, and the rest of the world. We are going to build a dome like no other. We did it for Israel. And by the way, I told Bibi, "Bibi, stop taking credit for the dome. That's our technology. That's our stuff." But they had a lot of courage and they were good fighters and they did a good job.

(37:50)
And we wiped out the Iran nuclear threat like nobody can believe. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. That, Venezuela, taking down Soleimani, wiping out al-Baghdadi when he tried to reinstitute ISIS. We did a lot. I did a lot, a lot of big things. All perfectly executed. Everyone was perfectly executed. Somebody told me that. A military expert told me, "Sir, everything you've done has been perfectly executed." I said, "I know."

(38:22)
So, other presidents have spent, whether foolishly or not, trillions and trillions of dollars on NATO and gotten absolutely nothing in return. We've never asked for anything. It's always a one-way street. Now, they want us to help them with Ukraine and we say, "We're going to." I'm really helping, not even them. Last week, if you saw, it was 10,000 soldiers, but last month it was 31,000 soldiers died. 31,000. That's the number of people in this room times 30. Think of it. 30, 000 soldiers died in one month. The month before it was 27,000. The month before that, it was 28,000. The month before that, it was 25,000. It's a bloodbath over there and that's what I want to stop. It doesn't help the United States, but these are souls. These are young people look like you, look like some of you right in the front row.

(39:28)
They go to war. Their parents are so proud. Oh, there he goes. Comes back. Two weeks later, they get a call, "Your son's head's been blown off." I want to stop it. It's a horrible war. It's the worst since World War II. If they keep going, they'll exceed World War II. The numbers are staggering how many people they've lost. They don't want to talk about it. Ukraine and Russia lost just tremendous amounts. And I'm dealing with President Putin and he wants to make a deal, I believe. I'm dealing with President Zelenskyy and I think he wants to make a deal. I'm meeting him today. He might be in the audience right now, but they got to get that war stopped because too many people are dying, needlessly dying. Too many souls are being lost. It's the only reason I'm interested in doing it.

(40:19)
But in doing it, I'm helping Europe, I'm helping NATO. And until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me daddy last time. A very smart man said, "He's our daddy. He's running it." I was running it. I went from running it to being a terrible human being. But now, what I'm asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located that can play a vital role in world peace and world protection. It's a very small ask compared to what we have given them for many, many decades. But the problem with NATO is that we'll be there for them 100%, but I'm not sure that they'd be there for us.

(41:12)
If we gave them the call, "Gentlemen, we are being attacked. We're under attack by such and such a nation," I know them all very well. I'm not sure that they'd be there. I know we'd be there for them. I don't know that they'd be there for us. So, with all of the money we expend, with all of the blood, sweat and tears, I don't know that they'd be there for us. They're not there for us on Iceland, that I can tell you. I mean, our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland. So, Iceland's already cost us a lot of money, but that dip is peanuts compared to what it's gone up. And we have an unbelievable future in that... That stock market is going to be doubled. We're going to hit 50,000 and that stock market's going to double in a relatively short period of time because of everything that's happening.

(42:05)
But this is a good example. After giving NATO and European nations trillions and trillions of dollars in defense, they buy our weapons. We make the greatest weapons in the world, but now we're going to make them faster, much faster. You saw that. I put a cap on the salaries and I put no buybacks, no stock buybacks, no various other things that they were doing. I mean, they were making $50 million, but it would take them three years to give you a Patriot missile. I said, "That's not good. My chauffeur can do a better job than that," and he makes slightly less than $50. They make big salaries. If they're going to make those big salaries, they're going to have to produce a lot faster.

(42:48)
The good news is we have the greatest equipment in the world. Now, we're going to start making it a lot faster. They're going to build additional plants. And all of the money that goes into stock buybacks is going to go into building plants. We're not allowing stock buybacks by defense companies any longer. They're going to build new plants to make Tomahawks, Patriots. We have the best equipment. F-35s, F-47, the new one just coming out. They say it's the most devastating plane, fighter jet ever. Who knows? They called it 47. If I don't like it, I'm going to take the 47 off it. I wonder why they called it 47. We'll have to think about that. But if I don't like it, I'm going to take that 47 off. But it's supposed to be the first stage-six plane, undetectable, like our B-2 bombers were undetectable. They flew right over Iran. They were undetectable and they did their job and they got the hell out of there.

(43:43)
So, we want a piece of ice for world protection and they won't give it. We've never asked for anything else and we could have kept that piece of land and we didn't. So, they have a choice, you can say yes and we will be very appreciative or you can say no and we will remember. A strong and secure America means a strong NATO, and that's one reason why I'm working every day to ensure our military is very powerful. Our borders are very strong. And above all, our economy is strong because national security requires economic security and economic prosperity, and we have the greatest that we've ever had.

(44:33)
Biden and his allies destroyed our economy and gave us perhaps the worst inflation in American history. They say 48 years, I say forever, but I think 48 years is the equivalent to forever. Whether it's 48 years or ever, it's terrible. Costing the typical family $33,000. What they did to this country should never, ever be forgotten. It's early, but he has to be rated as the worst president we've ever had by far. The autopen did much of the damage. He was the autopen president because I don't believe a sane president would have ever signed the kind of things that he signed.

(45:20)
But now, grocery prices, energy prices, airfares, mortgage rates, rent, and car payments are all coming down and they're coming down fast. We inherited a mess, but we've done a hell of a job in 12 months. Under my most-favored nation policy for drug prices, the cost of prescription drugs is coming down by up to 90%, depending on the way you calculate. You could also say 500%, 600%, 700%, 800%. There are two ways of figuring that, but we have a favored nation's policy that every president wanted. No president was able to get. I got it and other nations approved it. And I had to use tariffs in order to get it because they said, "No way."

(46:05)
In other words, a pill that cost 10% in London, cost $130. Think it cost $10 in London, cost $130 in New York or in Los Angeles. And I'd say, "Boy, that's bad." Friends of mine would say, "We go to London, you can buy this stuff for nothing. We go all over the world. We could buy it for nothing." Because basically, America was subsidizing every nation in the world because presidents allowed them to get away with it. It became very tough.

(46:37)
So, when I called up Emmanuel Macron, I watched him yesterday with those beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened? But I watched him be tough, but he was at $10 for a pill. And I said, "Emmanuel..." And I have all the big pharmaceutical companies are in total agreement. It wasn't easy, by the way. They're tough, smart. They've been getting away with this scam for a long time, but they gave it up, but they said, "You'll never get the countries to approve it." I said, "Why is that?" "Because they won't." They always said, "We're not paying anymore. Get the rest from the United States." So, over the years, they stayed the same. We just went up, up, up. And I mean, we would pay 13, 14, 15 times more than certain countries would. So, I said, "No, they'll approve it 100%." "Sir, you'll never get them to approve it." I said, "I guarantee you."

(47:36)
But I actually started with Emmanuel, who probably is in the room too, and I like him. I actually like him, hard to believe, isn't it? And I said, "Emmanuel, you're going to have to lift the price of that pill to $20, maybe $30." Think of that, that means it's a doubling of prescription drugs,

President Trump (48:00):

Might be a tripling, might be a quadrupling. It's not easy. "No, no, no, Donald. I will not do that." I said, "Yes, you will 100%." He said, "No, no, no. You're asking me to double." I said, "Emmanuel, you've been taking advantage of the United States for 30 years with prescription drugs. You really should do it and you will do it. I have no doubt. In fact, I am 100% sure you're going to ..." "No, no, no, I will not do it."

(48:29)
Because yes, in all fairness to him, he has to double or triple because the world being a bigger place than the United States, it's not that you meet in the middle. You just have to go up some and we come down a lot. They go up a little, we come down a lot. So we're at $130. They're at 10. So they may have to go to 20 or 30. No more than that. I said, "Emmanuel, are you going to be doubling or tripling?" "No, no, no." I said, "Here's the story, Emmanuel. The answer is you're going to do it. You're going to do it fast. And if you don't, I'm putting a 25% tariff on everything that you sell into the United States and a 100% tariff on your wines and champagnes. And that's about 10 times more than what I'm requesting and you're going to do it. I don't want to go public with it, but you may make me do that." "No, no, Donald, I will do it. I will do it."

(49:22)
It took me, on average, three minutes a country saying the same thing, "You will do it." They all said, " No, no, no, I will not do it. You're asking me to double the cost of prescription." I said, "That's right, because you've been screwing us for 30 years." And they said, "We will not do it." I said, "That's all right." On Monday morning, we're putting a 25, 30, 50, I gave different numbers for different countries.

(49:56)
This is also national security we're talking about. Not fair. We're not going to subsidize the whole world. And every one of those countries have agreed to do it. So one of the biggest things that I've done is the fact that we have now most favored nation. We will pay whatever the lowest price is in the entire world. So our drug prices are going to be coming down by a staggering 90%. Again, you could say 1,000%, 2,000%. Depends on the way you want to figure it, but we'll go with the way the fake news likes it better because it sounds ... Can you imagine a 90% reduction sounds much worse.

(50:34)
But drug prices are going to be coming down tremendously in all the nations, and I appreciate them doing it, but they did it. In all fairness, without tariffs, I wouldn't have been able to get it done. After declining $3,000 under Biden, real incomes are up in the United States by 2,000, 3,000, and even $5,000 and more. Home-ownership has always been a symbol of health and vigor of American society, but that goal fell out of reach for millions and millions of people in the Biden era because interest rates went up so high. Today, I'm taking action to bring back this bedrock of the American dream.

(51:17)
In recent years, Wall Street giants and institutional investment firms, many of you are here, many of you are good friends of mine. Many of you are supporters. Sorry to do this to you. I am so sorry. But you've driven up housing prices by purchasing hundreds of thousands of single family homes, and it's been a great investment for them. Often, as much as 10% of houses on the market. The crazy thing is a person can't get depreciation on a house, but when a corporation buys it, they get depreciation. Okay, that's something we're going to have to think about too. I don't know if too many people think about that. You buy a corporation, they buy 500 houses, they buy hundreds of thousands. They buy 500 houses, they can take depreciation. A person sweats and works and buys one house, they can't.

(52:04)
But homes are built for people, not for corporations, and America will not become a nation of renters. We're not going to do that. That's why I have signed an executive order banning large institutional investors from buying single family homes. It's just not fair to the public. They're not able to buy a house. And I'm calling on Congress to pass that ban into permanent law and I think they will.

(52:29)
One of the biggest barriers to saving for a down payment has been surging credit card debt. The profit margin for credit card companies now exceeds 50%, one of the biggest. And they charge Americans interest rates of 28%, 30%, 31%, 32%. Whatever happened to usery? So to help our citizens recover from the Biden disaster, all caused by this just horrible president, I'm asking Congress to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for one year. And this will help millions of Americans save for a home. They have no idea they're paying 28%. They go out there a little late in their payment and they end up losing their house. It's terrible.

(53:23)
To unleash innovation in savings and financing, I'm also working to ensure America remains the crypto capital of the world. And to that end, last year I signed a landmark Genius Act into law. Now Congress is working very hard on crypto market structure, legislation, Bitcoin, all of them, which I hope to sign very soon unlocking new pathways for Americans to reach financial freedom. And I did it for two reasons. Number one, I thought it was politically good and it was. I got tremendous political support. But more importantly, China wanted that market too. It's just like they want the AI and we've got that market, I think, pretty well locked up. If I didn't do it... Biden was totally against it until before the election when they realized that there were millions of people voting against them over crypto and all of a sudden they loved it very much, but it was too late. They blew it.

(54:17)
But it is politically popular, but much more importantly, we have to make it so that China doesn't get the hold of it. And once they have that hold, we're not going to be able to get it back. So I'm honored to have done it. Finally, I've instructed government backed institutions to purchase up to $200 billion in mortgage bonds to bring down interest rates, and I'll be announcing a new Fed chairman in the not too distant future. I think he'll do a very good job. See, I gave away some of it. He. Did give that away. So we have something, got something, but somebody that's very respected. They're all respected. They're all great. Everyone that I interviewed is great. Everyone could do, I think, a fantastic job.

(55:01)
Problem is they change once they get the job. They do. They're saying everything I want to hear, and then they get the job. They're locked in for six years. They get the job and all of a sudden, let's raise rates a little bit. I call them, "Sir, we'd rather not talk about this." It's amazing how people change once they have the job, but it's too bad. Sort of disloyalty, but they got to do what they think is right. We have a terrible chairman right now. Jerome too late Powell, he's always too late. And he's very late with interest rates except before the election. He was just fine for the other side. So we're going to have somebody that's great, and we hope he does the right job.

(55:43)
Last week, the average 30-year mortgage rate dropped below 6% for the first time in many years. Another major factor in driving up housing costs was the mass invasion of our borders. And I have to say one thing about housing, because nobody ever says this. I am very protective of people that already own a house, of which we have millions and millions and millions. And because we have had such a good run, the house values have gone up tremendously and these people have become wealthy. They weren't wealthy. They become wealthy because of their house. And every time you make it more and more and more affordable for somebody to buy a house cheaply, you're actually hurting the value of those houses, obviously, because the one thing works in tandem with the other. And I don't want to do anything that's going to hurt the value of people that own a house, who for the first time in their lives are walking around the streets of whatever city they're in very proud that their house is worth 500, 600, $700,000.

(56:56)
Now, if I want to really crush the housing market, I could do that so fast that people could buy houses, but you would destroy a lot of people that already have houses. In some cases, they've mortgaged their house and the mortgage would be very low and all of a sudden, the mortgage without any changes becomes very high and they end up losing the house. I'm not going to hurt ... And I speak with Scott who's doing a fantastic job and Howard who's doing a fantastic job and all of my people. And I always say, "Look, I can crush the hell out of the market. We can drop interest rates to a level..." And that's one thing we do want to do. That's natural. That's good for everybody.

(57:34)
The dropping of the interest rates, we should be paying a much lower interest rate than we are. We should be paying the lowest interest rate of any country in the world because without the United States, you don't have a country. I mean, I had a case with Switzerland. We happened to be in Switzerland. Maybe I'll give you a quick story. But they were paying nothing. They make beautiful watches, great watches, Rolex, all of them. They were paying nothing to the United States when they sent their product in. And we had a $41 billion deficit. $41 billion with this beautiful place. Flew over it. Isn't it nice? So I said, "Let's put a 30% tariff on them so that we get back some of it." Not all of it at all. We still have a deficit, big deficit. We had 40, 41 million. That's a big deficit.

(58:25)
And I said, "Let's put a tariff on." Different tariffs, different places. You're all party to them. In some cases, victims to them, but in the end, it's a fair thing and most of you realize that. But we put a 30% tariff on Switzerland and all hell broke loose. They were calling, I mean, like you wouldn't believe. And I know so many people from Switzerland. Incredible place. Incredible, brilliant place. But I then realized that they're only good because of us, and there's so many other examples. I mean, probably other places, but a majority of the money that make us because of us because we never charged them anything.

(59:12)
So they come in, they sell their watches, no tariffs, no nothing. They walk away, they make $41 billion on just us. So I said, "No, we can't do that. So I'm going to bring it up." I still would have a deficit pretty substantial, but I brought it up to 30%. And the, I guess prime minister, I don't think president, I think prime minister called, a woman, and she was very repetitive. She said, "No, no, no. You cannot do that 30%. You cannot do that. We are a small, small country." I said, "Yeah, but you have a big, big deficit. You may be small, but you have a big deficit than big countries." `She said, "No, no, no, please. You cannot do it. " Kept saying the same thing over and over. "We are a small country." I said, "But you're a big country in terms of ..."

(01:00:05)
And she just rubbed me the wrong way, I'll be honest with you. And I said, "All right, thank you, ma'am. Appreciate it." "Do not do this." "Thank you very much, ma'am." And I made it 39% and then all hell really broke out and I was paid visits by everybody. Rolex came to see me. They all came to see me, but I realized, and I reduced it because I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to hurt them. And we brought it down to a lower level. Doesn't mean it's not going up, but we brought it down to a lower level, but they pay now a tariff.

(01:00:46)
But I realized that we have many places like that where they're making a fortune because of the United States. Without the United States, they wouldn't be making anything. Think of it. Switzerland made $41 billion on us. And as she said, it's a small place. And I realized with that, I don't know, because she was so aggressive. And I realized in that conversation that the United States is keeping the whole world afloat. Many places, I could give you six, seven places just in the people in this little area. I know every one of them, they're looking down. They don't want to see me and they don't want to stare me in the eyes, but they're taking advantage of.

(01:01:37)
Everybody took advantage of the United States, but I've been very fair and I gave them a tariff and it was fine. But I realized that without us, it's not Switzerland anymore. Without us, it's not any of the countries that are represented here. And we want to work with the countries. We want to work with them. We're not looking to destroy them. I could have said 39, 40%. I could have said, "I want a 70% tariff." Then we make money with Switzerland, but Switzerland would have been probably destroyed. Financially destroyed. I don't want to do that, but we should be paying the lowest interest rate of everybody. I hope Scott's listening to this because we should be paying the lowest interest rate of everybody. Without us, most of the countries don't even work.

(01:02:26)
And then you have the protection factor. Without our military, which is the greatest in the world by far. Without our military, you have threats that you wouldn't believe. You wouldn't believe. You don't have threats because of us and that's because of NATO. One other thing, and I have to say it so importantly, in the old days, and I used to say I'm the youngest in the room. Now I'm among the older, I hate to say it. I don't feel old, but I'm among the older. But I remember not long ago, 20, 25 years ago, when good news came out about, let's say the United States. The United States had a great quarter, the United States had a great month. All the stocks went up, and that's the way it's supposed to be.

(01:03:15)
Now when they say, "The United States had a record quarter, it's unbelievable how well it's doing." All the stocks crash because they say oh no, inflation, inflation, they're going to raise interest rates. And they do. Some of these stupid people like Powell, they raise interest rates. And what they do is they stop you from being successful. It used to be when we had a great quarter, a great month, great earnings, great anything, any good news, the stock market went up. That's the way it's going to be. We got to do that again because that's the way it should be.

(01:03:51)
Now when we have a great month, they want to kill it like we did over 5%. People were surprised. We should do 20%. We could do 25%. When we announced good numbers... And the reason is they're so petrified of inflation and growth doesn't mean inflation. We've had tremendous growth with very low inflation. In fact, growth can fight inflation, proper growth. So we want to get back to the days when we announce great numbers, because we're going to be announcing phenomenal... All these factories that are being built at record... Thousands of businesses are being built right now. Remember, $18 trillion is invested. I think the second number is three, and that was China many years ago, investments in the country from outside. 18 trillion, nobody's ever seen and that's money coming in and building things, factories. Thousands of businesses are being built, thousands. Hundreds of big factories, car plants are moving back to the United States. They're coming in from Canada. They're coming in from Mexico, from Japan. Japan's coming in and building plants here in order to avoid tariffs. They're coming in from China. They're coming in from all over the world.

(01:05:08)
We have more plants being built now, car plants, than we've ever had built even in the heyday from the 1940s and 50s, and they're bigger. They don't use renovations anymore where they take an old plant, they rip it down. They build a brand new plant, super modern plant, but it's happening at levels that nobody's ever seen. In 2024, the US built less than two million new homes, but Biden admitted more than eight million new migrants. And those days are over. In 2025 for the first time in 50 years, the United States had reverse migration. Boy, that was nice. And these were criminals that were being taken out of our country because they allowed people to come into our country from jails, from gangs, drug dealers, murderers. 11,888 murderers, we've gotten most of them out.

(01:06:02)
And then ICE gets beat up by stupid people from leadership in Minnesota. We actually are helping Minnesota so much, but they don't appreciate it. Most places do. Washington DC is the safest place now in the United States. It was a very dangerous place to walk, and now you can walk with your wife, your kids, right through the middle of the city. Right now, Washington DC is as safe as it gets. It was one of the most unsafe, I had to admit. We sent in the military, the National Guard. Within two months, it was great. Within three months, it's like a really great place and a safe place and a beautiful place. It's even been cleaned up. The graffiti's gone. The fences are gone. We don't have to worry about fences anymore. All of the places, the grasses are cut and replaced with new grass in many cases. It's all going to happen in the spring. But Washington and DC is beautiful again and it's safe.

(01:06:58)
New restaurants are opening up. They're all closing. Now you can't get into a restaurant. Restaurants in Washington, DC are all opening. Memphis also. Memphis, Tennessee, New Orleans, Louisiana. We were there for three weeks. We've cut the crime down to by 64%. Within another month we'll have virtually no crime there. We can do that all over. We're going to help the people in California. We want to have no crime. I know Gavin was here. I used to get along so great with Gavin when I was president. Gavin's a good guy. And if he needed it, I would do it in a heartbeat. I'd love to see... We did help them a lot in Los Angeles, a lot early in my term when they had some problems, but we would love to do it.

(01:07:46)
I will say this, if I were a Democrat governor or whatever, I would call up Trump. I'd say, come on in, make us look good because we're cutting crime down to nothing. And we're taking people out, career criminals who are only going to do bad things and we're bringing them back to their countries. But where we've done it has been amazing, and we have a capacity to do it at much greater levels. We're cutting illegal aliens off welfare and other government benefits and I have directed that starting immediately there will be no more payments to sanctuary cities because they are really just sanctuaries for criminals. They're really protecting criminals. And those are the ones we have to get out of the country. Murderers, drug dealers, the mentally insane. They emptied their mental institutions into the United States. And despite that, we have the lowest crime numbers that we've ever had in the history of the country. Just came out.

(01:08:42)
But equally importantly, we're cracking down on more than $19 billion in fraud that was stolen by Somalian bandits. Can you believe that Somalian... They turned out to be higher IQ than we thought. I always say, "These are low IQ people. How do they go into Minnesota and steal all that money?" And you know they're pirates. They're good pirates, right? But we shoot them out of the water just like we shoot the drug boats out. They're not pirating too many boats lately, do you notice? When they go out into those boats, they want to take over a billion and a half dollar tanker, load it up with oil. And they say, "We're going to blow up your boat." They have powerful weapons. You hit the side of the boat, you blow the whole thing up. The insurance companies are petrified. So they say, "Just give them the boat. We'll give them money instead." And I don't do that. We blow them right the hell out of the water. We see them going out. We blow them out of the water.

(01:09:35)
We don't have any pirates so much anymore. If we do, they won't be there long. We've cut down with the hitting of the boats that are loaded up with drugs, including submarines. Can you believe they actually buy small... They call mini subs, very fast. They're meant for drugs. We've knocked out two of them. The Democrats say they were fishing. You have ruined somebody's fishing weekend, I would say a submarine is not a fishing boat. You don't fish. But we've knocked down drugs by water, the oceans, the sea by 97.2%. Think of that. And I actually say, "Who the hell are the 3%?" Because I would not want to be piloting one of those boats. We knocked them down and now we're going to start on land. We're going to knock it all out. The land is the easy part that what we did on sea is incredible. And that's our great military. The situation in Minnesota reminds us that the West cannot mass import foreign cultures, which have failed to ever build a successful society of their own. I mean, we're taking people from Somalia and Somalia, it's not a nation. Got no government, got no police, got no military, got no nothing. And then we have this fake Congressperson who they just reported is worth $30 million. You believe this? Ilhan Omar talking about the Constitution provides me... She comes from a country that's not a country and she's telling us how to run America. Not going to get away with it much longer, let me tell you.

(01:11:13)
The explosion of prosperity, in conclusion, and progress that built the West did not come from our tax codes. It ultimately came from our very special culture. This is the precious inheritance that America and Europe have in common and we share it. We share it, but we have to keep it strong. We have to become stronger, more successful and more prosperous than ever. We have to defend that culture and rediscover the spirit that lifted the West from the depths of the dark ages to the pinnacle of human achievement. We live in a incredible changing period. It's an unbelievable time, but we have to take advantage of the

President Trump (01:12:00):

Time that we're in. In our hands, our technologies that our ancestors could scarily have ... I mean, they couldn't have even dreamt some of the things that we see today. And so rapidly, they're produced. I mean, AI, two years ago, nobody ever heard of the term and now everybody's talking about it. And it can have some very good purpose. It could also have some dangerous purpose. And for that, we have to watch out. But some tremendous things are happening because of it. And we're leading by so much. We're doing so well. But opportunities that are bigger and grander than ever before in human history are right before us. It is the pioneers in this room. Many of you in this room are true pioneers. You're truly brilliant, brilliant people. Just your ability to get a ticket is brilliant because you have about 50 people for every seat.

(01:12:53)
I don't know what, that's Larry. Everything Larry touches turns to gold. He made this very successful. But you're in this room and some of you are the greatest leaders anywhere in the world. You're the greatest brains anywhere in the world. And the future is unlimited and to a large part because of you and we have to protect you and we have to cherish you. I always say we have to cherish our brilliant people because there aren't many of them. So together with confidence, boldness, and persistence, let us lift up our people, grow our economies, defend our shared destiny and build a future for our citizens that is more ambitious, more exciting, more inspiring, and greater than the world has ever seen.

(01:13:41)
We're in a position to do things that nobody else has ever even thought of before. And many of the people in this room are the ones that are doing it. And I want to congratulate you and I'm with you all the way. You can do things that nobody else can even think about. So I congratulate you and your tremendous success. And the United States is back bigger, stronger, better than ever before. And I'll see you around. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. I didn't know about this.

Børge Brende (01:14:35):

This was supposed to be a nice fire chat, Mr. President.

President Trump (01:14:39):

Yes. Good.

Børge Brende (01:14:41):

You ...

President Trump (01:14:41):

I got set up. I did know.

Børge Brende (01:14:44):

You made the job for the moderator really easy. Thank you, Mr. President, for your speech. I do have a few follow-up questions, if it's okay.

President Trump (01:14:53):

Sure.

Børge Brende (01:14:55):

I don't think I should start with Greenland maybe. I'll start with the economy. The US economy is doing really, really well. But how to sustain this growth moving forward, because there's always a recession looming around the corner?

President Trump (01:15:10):

Well, the one thing about economies and recessions is sometimes you get hit unexpectedly and there's nothing you can do about it. All brilliant people, but there's nothing. One example was COVID. We had an economy going at levels like nobody had ever seen my first two and a half, three years. And then I heard the word pandemic, not COVID. They came up with that name over a period of time. We won't get into that, but I heard the word pandemic. And I had a poll come out that was so strong just prior to that and I was with the two best pollsters, McLaughlin, Fabrizio. And they said, "Sir, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, if they came back and ran as president and vice president, they couldn't beat you." And then what happened is the following day, I was told to stay tuned because there's something really bad happening in China.

(01:16:06)
There are bodies laying all over Wuhan, right around that certain building that we talk about. I always said it came from Wuhan. It did come from Wuhan. And there were body bags. We saw it by satellite. And they said, "There are strange things happening in China." And so it began. And we ended up with the COVID and the whole world suffered. We did a phenomenal job. I don't think we got the credit we deserved. We did something that, Operation Warp Speed, which some people say was one of the greatest military feats ever. We did a great job. Used our military, a lot of people. But sometimes you get hit with things, nothing you can do. You get hit with things like that unexpectedly. And we got through it. And when I left, the stock market was higher than it was previous to the COVID coming up. And I called it a great achievement. But things happen, bad things happen. The things that we can stop are wars, if we're smart. That, we can stop. Those are a matter of being intelligent and having intelligent people on the other side, because wars are the worst of all. Wars are worse than anything, but we can stop wars because that's sort of up to us. But things like dust flying in the air, wherever COVID comes from or whatever comes, sometimes you have to be a little bit lucky. But we are poised to have an economy like no other, not only in this country, but anywhere. And when you hear the kind of numbers that ... I can tell you that Scott Bessent was with me the other day and he's looking at numbers. He said, "I can't," and that's all he's done his whole life, pretty much your whole life.

(01:17:51)
Scott, you weren't going to be a football player, I don't think. Scott was not that great at football, but he was always good at numbers, right? And he was looking at numbers. He said, "I've never seen anything like this. We're poised to do things that no other country has ever done." And luck, I hate to say it, but we need a little luck. We don't want to get hit by something that nobody could have thought. Whoever thought we were going to hit by a pandemic. When I heard the word pandemic, I said, "Oh, that's an ancient problem." World War I, they lost a hundred million people. It actually ended World War I.

(01:18:27)
A lot of people don't know. The Spanish flu and World War I ended the war because all the soldiers were sick. The soldiers were so sick on both sides and that war was raging and they were all dying from the Spanish flu. They were sick as dogs. They couldn't fight. So you don't know how that would have turned out. So we do, subject to that, and I always have to put a caveat in for it, but we're poised to have the greatest growth of any large country. I think any country that there's been, when you look at what's happening in the United States, it's really amazing.

Børge Brende (01:19:02):

Thank you. One thing that maybe keeps you up at night, I know you don't sleep that much anyway, Mr. President, is the debt. The US debt is high, is now the biggest expenditure on your budget. How to get out of that impulse?

President Trump (01:19:19):

Well, the big thing is growth. I mean, growth is the way. If we grow like this, we go from having a 37, 36, $37 trillion. We go from having high debt to low debt, but we also are cutting expenses the old-fashioned way. We have extraordinary growth. I think we're going to be growing our way out. I think we're going to be paying off debt. We're taking in tremendous money from tariffs, fairly. And again, I'm using them judiciously. Switzerland's a case study. I could have gotten much more. I could have asked for much more, but we're using them judiciously. But I think growth, most importantly, and then cutting costs. Now, if you take a look at Minnesota, $19 billion in fraud and other things. People going to airports, they came into the country, they don't have 10 cents and they're leaving with hundreds of thousands of cash in their bags.

(01:20:18)
When we get to that, and our DOJ, Pam and Todd and all the people that work over there and all of the people that work in here, I can tell you, Scott Bessent is working on that. It's a priority, right? You have your whole team. We're in there looking for where this money is coming from, how much it is. It could be more than $19 billion. Can you believe that? That's just one state. If we were able to cut out 50% of the fraud, 50%, and we should be able to do better than that, we would have a balanced budget without having to talk about even growth. So we have a lot of options, but we're working very hard on that. That's a big deal. It's not just the protests, the fake protests done by agitators and professional insurrectionists, that's what they are. They're professional troublemakers, but we are looking very strong at the money, too, in Minnesota and other

Børge Brende (01:21:13):

Places. I think Mr. President, also the $500 billion US dollars invested in artificial intelligence and the frontier technologies last year also were driving growth exponentially in the US.

President Trump (01:21:28):

Well, AI has been a big factor. AI is massive. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg showed me a plant where he put it over a map of Manhattan and it was basically the size of Manhattan. I said, "You got to be kidding." It's a plant that was miles long, miles wide, very high. I don't think it was high like the Empire State Building, but it was high. And it literally covered most of the island of Manhattan. That's called a big plant. And when I heard they're going to spend 50 billion building, and I said, "If you spend 50 million, you can build a nice little shopping center. If you spend 500 million, you can build a good shopping center, but how do you spend 50 billion?" When I looked at this thing, I said, "You think you'll be able to do it for that?"

(01:22:19)
It's amazing, some of the plants that I see, and I see them all. And again, so big, as we're letting them build their own electric generation. This way we have no problem, and otherwise there'd be complaining. There'd be nobody able to, we have an old grid system, and not only that, they're going to sell, at a very cheap price, the excess electricity that they create back into our grid. So that'll solve some problems for certain states that don't have enough electricity.

Børge Brende (01:22:50):

We also know that on the AI, there is fierce competition between the US, as the largest economy in the world, 27% of the global GDP and 5% of the global population, not doing that badly, and China. And we know that that competition is very tough on AI. I know you're heading to a state visit to China in April. How do you see the US-China relationship moving forward? Are you able to combine this tough competition with also collaboration?

President Trump (01:23:25):

So I've always had a very good relationship with President Xi and with President Putin, talk about the larger powers. But I've always had a very good relationship with President Xi of China. He's an incredible man. What he's done is amazing. He's highly respected by everybody. And I do now. I mean, now I have good, it was very severely interrupted by COVID. I used to call it the China virus, but he said, "Do you think you could use a different name?" And I decided to do that because why should we have a problem over that? But I would do that and they would-

Børge Brende (01:24:03):

A true diplomat, huh?

President Trump (01:24:05):

I became a diplomat for the first time. Well, you know who taught me that? Marco Rubio, he said, "Let me teach you about diplomacy." Hey, any guy that gets approved by 100% of the votes, think of it, he got liberal Democrats and radical right Republicans to approve him. He's the only one. The next one lost 45 votes, right? But he got all 100 votes voting for him. And at first I wasn't happy about it. I said, "Wait a minute, I don't like that." And now it turns out that the Democrats probably wish they didn't do that. And Marco has been fantastic. Marco, stand up, please. You have done a great job as Secretary of State. He's going to go down as the best Secretary of State, and Scott. And we have Susie, who's the first female chief of staff, and she's the best chief of staff too.

(01:24:58)
And I see Howard Lutnick, who I know spoke, and Howard's fantastic. Some of the deals we're doing are great. And I want to pay particular attention because we have Chris. And Chris, you got up and spoke, I think. He's the number one oil man in the world because I was going to put Doug Bergum, who's fantastic. I don't know if Doug's here. Is Doug here? Doug Bergum is fantastic. He said, "Sir, there's one man better than me." And he introduced me to Chris and he turns out to be.

(01:25:28)
So we're drilling more oil and gas now than we ever have by almost double. Is that right, Chris? And on top of it, we got a lot coming out of Venezuela. So anyway, so we're doing great. The country is just doing great. We have great people. Thank you. And I see other people. We have Steve Witkoff, we have Jared. I got so many people. I'm in trouble because when I go back, there're going to be people with long faces. "Sir, you didn't introduce me." I got so many people and we have a lot of the greatest people anywhere in the world. I know them all, so I won't continue because we'd be here all day.

Børge Brende (01:26:02):

Thank you, Mr. President. We also know that you're a deal maker, and then maybe coming back to Greenland and Ukraine. What kind of deal in the end do you see between the US and Denmark? Because I guess you see it now as a negotiation going on or ...

President Trump (01:26:27):

Well, it's costing Denmark hundreds of millions a year to run it. And Denmark's a small country and wonderful people, but it's very expensive. It's a very big piece of ice. And it's very important. I mean, I don't want to repeat the speech, but it's very important that we use that for national and international security. That can create a power that will make it impossible for the bad guys to do anything against the perceived good ones. And it's a great block for Europe, just like, you know Denmark was supposed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. They didn't spend the money. They didn't spend anything almost. And we'll see what happens. I just say this, NATO has treated the United States of America very unfairly. We never asked for anything. We never got anything. We actually took care of the needs of NATO for years and years, which I felt was always unfair.

(01:27:24)
So I got NATO to pay, because they're rich countries. But I think it's time that NATO step up. We're helping them with Ukraine. Without us, I think Putin would've gone all the way. I think we have it. I think Putin, I think there could have been a World War III, if you want to know the truth. If Kamala was elected or Joe, any one of those thinkers, I think you could have ended up in World War III. And I will say Steve Witkoff has been dealing incredibly with, but we're not going to have World War III. We want to get it stopped. We're not going to have World War III. I think if I wasn't elected, I think that could have evolved into World War III. It was a very, very bad situation, and it still is, but it's not that kind of bad. It's bad because so many young people are being killed.

Børge Brende (01:28:09):

How close do you think there is on an agreement on Ukraine? I had the pleasure of speaking with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner yesterday. I know they're working hard on it. I know that they're also traveling now. Do you see this very close or still-

President Trump (01:28:26):

Well, I hate to say it, I thought that was going to be, so I settled eight wars plus, and I thought that was going to be one of my easier ones. Not the easiest. Some, I settled in a matter of hours because I'm good at that stuff. The United Nations should be doing this. I shouldn't be doing it, but it doesn't matter. It's got to get done, saving a lot of lives. We're saving millions of lives. With Ukraine, Russia, there's tremendous hatred between President Zelenskyy and President Putin. That's not good. That's not good for settlements. We know from dealing. There's abnormal hatred. With that being said, I think Russia wants to make a deal. I think Ukraine wants to make a deal and we're going to try getting a deal done. We're getting, I think, Steve, I think I can say that we're reasonably close.

(01:29:13)
But what happens is oftentimes, we'll have a deal with Russia. Russia's set and President Zelenskyy will not do it. You saw that when he was in the Oval Office. I was not happy. And then we'll have President Zelenskyy wants to make a deal and Putin doesn't want to make the deal. It's a very difficult balance and it's big time. And it is, to use a word, it's a bloodbath. It's horrible, what's happening. It's a drone war. The drones are killing thousands of people a week, thousands. We have to get it stopped. So I believe they're at a point now. I'm going to meet with President Zelenskyy later today. I believe they're at a point now where they can come together and get a deal done. And if they don't, they're stupid. That goes for both of them. And I know they're not stupid, but if they don't get this done, they are stupid. So I don't want to insult anyone, but you got to get this deal done. Too many people are dying. It's not worth it.

Børge Brende (01:30:16):

President Sisi is sitting on the first row here. He spoke earlier today and also complimented you on the Gaza deal. I think there will be a signing tomorrow. Of course, there are different views on this, but how important do you think this signing is on the Board of Peace? And do you think this is going to sustain? Do you think we now will see Gaza reconstructed and the billions of US dollars invested?

President Trump (01:30:45):

I do. I mean, I think we have peace in the Middle East. There are some little situations like Hamas, and Hamas has agreed to give up their weapons. Now, they were born with a weapon in their hands, so it's not easy to do. When they were born, they were born with a rifle in their hand. It's not an easy thing for them, but that's what they agreed to. They've got to do it. And we're going to know, Jared, over the next two or three days, certainly over the next three weeks, whether or not they're going to do it. If they don't do it, they'll be blown away very quickly. They'll be blown away. We have 59 countries that are part of that whole peace deal.

(01:31:21)
And some of those countries aren't even in ... They're near the Middle East, but they're not in the Middle East, traditionally. And they want to come in and take out Hamas. They want to come in. They want to do whatever they can. There's a problem with Hezbollah in Lebanon and we'll see what happens there, but that's a problem. But there are these little flames, but there's peace in the Middle East. Now, had we not gone in and knocked out with those big, beautiful, we just ordered 25 brand new ones, the latest and the greatest, the B2 bomber. Think of them. They went in there at 2:00 in the morning with no moon, no light, no nothing. And every single one of those massive bombs hit its target, 100,000 pound bombs, hit its target, every one of them. And then on top of it, from a submarine 300 miles away, we hit the sites with Tomahawks, which is an unbelievable weapon. So we did our job.

(01:32:11)
If we didn't do that, you would have never had peace in the Middle East. And the countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar could never have, and others, could never have signed anything because you would have had this dark cloud. And the dark cloud was Iran, with nuclear. Iran would have, if we didn't take them out, they would have had a nuclear weapon within two months. They were very close to having the nuclear weapon and we hit them hard and it was a total obliteration.

(01:32:38)
They may try again, but they're going to have to try from a different area because that area was obliterated. Incredible thing we did, and because we did that, we were able to make peace. If we didn't do that, I would say, Jared and Steve, if we didn't do that, there was no chance of making peace because the countries I just named and other countries could have never signed off. They were afraid. They were afraid. We had a bully. The bully was Iran. The bully of the Middle East, they used to call it for years. They were the bully of the Middle East. They're not the bully of the Middle East anymore.

Børge Brende (01:33:13):

Mr. President, I know you even had to change a plane last night. So I guess you didn't have much sleep, but your energy is still there. I know you have several bilateral meetings. I know you're also hosting a reception. So thank you so much for coming back to Davos. Thank you so much. It's highly appreciated.

President Trump (01:33:39):

Well, thank you very much. Thank you, everybody, very much.

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