Trump Says Tariff Threat Letters Are 'Better Than Any Deal We Could Make'

At a White House Faith Office luncheon on Monday, President Trump spoke about tariffs.

Transcript

00:00to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who's doing a fantastic job he goes on

00:09television and he calms the market I go on television I rile the market and I

00:15say we better send him in there Howard right and the markets become so calm and

00:20nice so you're doing a good job Scott thank you very much you make any deals

00:25today we got a lot of them boy I tell you we have but the best deal is just

00:29sending out the paper you know they keep saying well he hasn't made the deal

00:32oh we made a number of deals but why isn't he doing this because the paper is

00:36better than any deal we can make do you understand the people in this Kevin they

00:40asked you that question this morning you were great this morning but they said

00:43well what is he going to start making deals the next time we could say just

00:47know every time he sends out a document that you have to pay 35 percent 25

00:52percent or 50 percent or one case 100 percent those deals you can't

00:59beat those deals but we're still willing to talk and and they all every

01:02literally every country wants to make a deal we're in a good position you would

01:08go in a position of strength I don't talk that way because I'm a politician now

01:12unfortunately and I don't want to talk about strength though I just want to say

01:17we have to be treated fairly because we were treated we were ripped off on trade

01:21and the military for you know we protected other nations nobody paid us nobody did

01:27anything for us nobody helped us and that's much different you know NATO is a

01:31much different situation now when I got in I believe we were paying for a 100

01:36percent of NATO and now they're paying they went from 2 percent but they were

01:40paying 1 percent to 5 percent that they're paying it's a big difference it's

01:44about a trillion 1 trillion dollar difference and they're wealthy for the

01:48most part wealthy countries and some of them very you know they're among the most

01:53powerful among the wealthiest countries in the world so they're going to start

01:58paying and they want to pay and we had a great meeting about one month ago that

02:04set the stage for what happened here but it's very important so I want to thank

02:08Scott for being here I want to thank Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick you are

02:12doing a good job am I right when I say I really don't want deals I just want the

02:20paper to get sent right it's true if I get I don't know this is on television it's

02:24always on television