Transcription
Mr. Secretary, welcome to the program, sir. I know you wanted to talk about Japan, so let's do that. I want you to share with us the terms of this $550 billion investment fund, a core pillar, of course, of the negotiations that you've been helping to lead with the Japanese. Can you share with us the details this morning, sir?
Sure. So this is a completely different kind of trade deal that anyone's ever seen before. So the idea is the Japanese government will give $550 billion to Donald Trump to invest as the United States and Donald Trump sees fit in America. So the Japanese will get back their money and 90% of the profits will go to the American citizens, the American taxpayer.
So, Donald Trump, I'll give you an example. We buy all of our antibiotics, generic antibiotics, in China. So Donald Trump can say, let's go build generic pharmaceuticals in America. Let's build those antibiotics in America. The Japanese will fund it, and then we will have generic antibiotics in America will no longer be reliant on China. So it's in his hands to invest. This is not ordinary foreign companies investing. This is not Mitsubishi building a plant in America. This is $550 billion by the Japanese government. Put in the hands of Donald Trump that he can then invest in America. It's amazing. I mean, it's the thing I am most proud of it. It's the most proud of ever been on a business deal I've ever done. So it sounds amazing to the Japanese. Think it's amazing.
And have they codified this agreement? They have. So yesterday it was all signed. So the President signed the EO. I signed the MRU with Minister Kurzawa in the Commerce Department. This is signed. It is written. So what happens is Donald Trump can select the project that he wants. We put a capital call in to the Japanese. They send in the money and we build the project in America. So if you think about this, $550 billion invested during Donald Trump's term is a half a point of GDP. Give in to the United States of America as president by the Japanese government. I mean, this is amazing. In order to have a 15% tariff and so they can keep making their cars in Japan.
Let's just stand the details, Mr. Secretary. So the timeline you talked about the rest of the president's term. Is there a clear timeline here? And what's the enforcement mechanism to make sure it happens?
Well, two things. Number one, they've committed that they will meet the capital cost. So when we're building a project, they will fund the projects building during the term. This investment lasts through meaning they will put out the money through the rest of Donald Trump's term. So January 2029, and let's say halfway through and they've invested $250 billion. They stop saying, I don't want to send any more money. The tariffs back, you know, pop right back up and they no longer receive the cash flow from these projects. They would all just stay with the United States of America. So there is just no way they're going to not fund these projects. And Donald Trump is going to deliver to the American people. And this deal is really it's just if you think about it, $550 billion of Japanese government's money in order to buy down their tariffs in Donald Trump's hands for his availability to invest and build in America. Alaska Pipeline scale 50 billion. A hundred billion. Donald Trump wants to unleash the Alaskan pipelines. The Japanese will finance it. And it's great for America. It's fantastic.
Mr. Secretary, and appreciate we've got a number of topics to get through with you in a short amount of time. So I wanted to turn to other issues and India. This came from the president this morning on social media. It looks like we've lost India and Russia, for that matter, to deepest, darkest China. May they have a long and prosperous future together. This relationship between the US and India has clearly soured. You yourself said earlier this year to interrupt the US the wrong way. There's an understandable tension that continues to build, but they're not the only ones buying Russian energy. The Chinese are buying Russian energy and for that matter, the Europeans too. And I think there's a sense from the Indian side, Mr. Secretary, that they feel singled out, perhaps unfairly. What's your comment, your message for them this morning?
Well, remember, before the Russian conflict, the Indians bought less than 2% of their oil from Russia. Less than 2%. And now they're buying 40% of their oil from Russia. What they're doing is because the oil is sanctioned, it's really, really cheap because the Russians are trying to find people to buy it. And so the Indians have just decided the heck with it, let's buy cheap and make a ton of money. But you know what? That is just plain wrong. It's ridiculous. And they either need to decide which side they want to be on. You know what's funny? Remember those Chinese sell the Chinese? Well, we're always willing to talk. The Chinese sell to us. The Indians sell to us. They're not going to be able to sell to each other. We are the consumer of the world. People have to remember it's our $30 trillion economy that is the consumer of the world. So eventually they all have to come back to the customer because we all know eventually the customer is always right.
When you are talking with India, Mr. Secretary, I know a lot of companies, the U.S. have shifted manufacturing to India from China. So there's a real interest in this in terms of their costs. How much do you feel like you've lost leverage as a result of the court case that came out fairly recently?
We haven't lost any any thing with respect to the court case. If you look at the dissent, right, it was 7 to 4 read the dissent. She, the current chief justice, sided with President Trump. The former chief justice sided with President Trump and the incoming chief justice sided with President Trump and the smartest guy on the bench, which is well known. Who the smartest guy on the bench is. He sided with Donald Trump. So I think you are going to see the Supreme Court side with Donald Trump. And I don't think we've lost leverage. What we've lost is that India doesn't yet want to open their market, stop buying Russian oil. Right. And stop being a part of BRICS, Right. The vowel between Russia and China. If that's who you want to be, go be it. But either support the dollar, support the United States of America, support your biggest client who is the American consumer, or I guess you're going to pay a 50% tariff and let's see how long this lasts.
It seems like there's been a hardening of the line, both with President Trump as well as Modi, and a sense that there isn't really a coming together. In fact, that meeting with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and the prime Minister Modi seemed to indicate a coalescing of the BRICS. Do you see anywhere in the next month to months any type of deal or backing down to a lower rate with India?
I would expect when you saw it in Canada, right, the Carney got elected with this term elbows up, meaning let's fight with America. They put on retaliatory tariffs. They were all bravado. And what happened? Their GDP -1.6%, unemployment rocketing towards 8%. And what did Carney just do? He just finally, finally dropped his retaliatory tariffs. So I think what happens is it's all bravado because you think it feels good to fight with the biggest client in the world, but eventually your businesses are going to say, you've got to stop this and go make a deal with America. So I think, yes, in a month or two months, I think India is going to be at the table and they're going to say they're sorry and they're going to try to make a deal with Donald Trump. And it will be on Donald Trump's desk how he wants to deal with Modi. And we leave that to him. That's why he's the president.
Speaking of making a deal, I understand the Swiss are in town just hearing that the Swiss vice president has turned up in the United States again. Is there a meeting on the agenda for today going into the weekend?
Yes. So I'm going to meet with the Swiss delegation. They're coming in to make a new proposal. And the Trump administration is always willing to listen. But you have to remember, you know, the the Swiss like to say they're a small country of only 9 million people, a small, rich country. And how did they become so rich? They sell us pharmaceuticals like it's going out of style or they make so much money off of America. That's why they're rich. So let's hear what they have to say. We'll discuss it with the president. You know, I'm not optimistic, but I'm always willing to listen. And Donald Trump is always why he's not optimistic.
Traditionally, there's been a decent relationship. Then the president's first term reliant on the Swiss a lot when it came to foreign policy and developments in places like Iran. What's happened this time?
Well, if you just consider trade. Right. You know the European Union. Right. They open their market, 450 million people, $20 trillion economy. And they say we'll take our tariffs down to zero. You, the American exporters, can sell us everything. I mean, how fantastic is that? And they say we'll pay you 15% and you pay us nothing. I mean, that is really, really attractive. They go to Switzerland, 9 million people. I mean, what are they going to offer the American exporter as compared to the size and scale by which they export and earn money off of us? So the idea is we need balanced and fair trade. And that's a difficult thing. Now, you saw the Japanese. They decided to take a completely different path. And what they said is we will we will give Donald Trump the power to invest $550 billion as he at his direction for the benefit of America. Now, that's a different way of thinking. Now, if the Swiss come out of the box with a whole new way of thinking. I'm open minded. But if they just say our rich companies are going to buy more of America. I mean, that's what Donald Trump is complaining about. You realize in 1985, we, America owned more of the rest of the world. We owned 100 and just about 150 billion of the rest of the world. And, you know, in 2025, when Donald Trump takes office, the rest of the world owns 26 trillion more of us because they just use all the money they make for us to buy us. And sooner or later, they're just going to own us. And Donald Trump has said, enough of this. We are going to own ourselves going forward.
Mr. Secretary, I know you trump us on your own time, but your team is telling us we've got to go shortly. So I'm going to squeeze out a few more minutes if I can. At 830 Eastern time, we're meant to get a jobs number. This is what we heard from the blast just moments ago, that the Bureau of Labor Statistics says it's experiencing a technical problem and data retrieval tools are currently not available on the websites. Are we going to see a number in 10 minutes time?
I don't know if we can say number, but I tell you, it makes it crystal clear you should have fired the person who was running that group. Right. Because if you didn't fire them two weeks ago, you sure as heck would be firing them today. So they need new leadership and deals. That's for sure. They need new tech and deals. That's for sure. And Donald Trump needs to rely upon the numbers. America needs to rely upon the numbers. You can't have these bent former administration people who have a view and who want to harm the president. We need accurate numbers coming from BLS. And finally, we'll have new leadership to deliver it.
Mr. Secretary, you are also going to promise new resources for them to increase their collection and increase some of their staff to go out and make this data accurate.
Yeah. Can you imagine? They had people calling around. I mean, come on. Computers. Computers. Wow. It's 20, 25, and they have computers. New resources, new technology. Wildly better information. That's what America demands. That's what Donald Trump's going to give them. And you just need to change leadership every once in a while and make sure we get it right. I'm excited about what's coming. Of course, you fire the person. What do you learn? You learn that their technology is just. Oh, boy. And. But we'll fix it. We'll fix.
Well, I hope you do. And you can fix it in the next 9 minutes because you're in charge now. The United States Secretary of Commerce, Howard Learner. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.