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And so, we have a problem with our education system. Nobody disagrees with that, but a lot of people seem to disagree with actually doing something about it and changing the status quo. So, the president wants to return education back to the states and power those closest to the people to make these very important decisions for our children's lives.
And this is a first step in that process. Jake.
The president suggested -- thank you, Karoline. It seems that President Trump has put the onus on Russia to engage in the ceasefire. If that ceasefire is broken, is there any type of enforcement mechanism in place that President Trump would enforce on Russia if they break that ceasefire?
Well, that's obviously a grand hypothetical question that I won't comment on because we're not there yet. The current state of play is that the Ukrainians have agreed to a ceasefire. The Ukrainians have agreed to the peace plan that was put on the table yesterday in Saudi Arabia by the Secretary of State and our national security advisor whom I just spoke with before coming out here.
And he informed me that he has had a call today with his Russian counterpart and the president's team continues to be engaged. As you all know, Mr. Witkoff is traveling to Moscow later this week, and we urge the Russians to sign on to this plan. This is the closest we have been to peace in this war. We are at the tenth yard line and the president is expecting the Russians to help us run this into the end zone.
Would President Trump call President Putin and encourage him to engage in the ceasefire?
I don't have a readout on the president's calls, but as the president always does, if that call happens, he will let you guys know.
Karoline, on the CHIPS Act, the president has called for a full repeal on it, but it appears that the Senate GOP is looking for more reform on that. Is this going to be an all or nothing as far as the president is concerned?
I think the President's made his position on that quite clear.
The NATO secretary general will be here tomorrow. What is the president hoping to get out of that meeting? What are his asks of the new secretary general?
Yes, he will be here tomorrow, and I suspect the president will provide guidance on that meeting after it takes place. But I'm quite confident, as he always does when it comes to NATO, he will urge the NATO secretary -- the president's belief that NATO countries need to pay their fair share for their own defense.
We have been spending billions and billions of dollars on NATO, which the president agrees with so long as other countries are paying their fair share as well.
It's 5 percent still his commitment, like what he expects from the European countries, 5 percent of GDP for defense?
Last time I spoke with him, that was his commitment. Yes, Christian, go ahead.
Thank you. Does the president have any response to the ICC arrest of Rodrigo Duterte, the former Philippine President.
I have not spoken to him about that, but I can and get back to you.
A separate question then. There's this March 13th deadline for departments to submit their agency reduction plans. Can you give us an update on that? Is there any foot dragging from any places within the federal government? And when do you expect these cuts to go into place?
Everybody is working together as one team. This is a goal that every cabinet secretary across the board agrees with. We have to reduce our workforce; we have to make our bureaucracy more efficient. And then when the March deadline hits, we can talk about that when it does.
Karoline, on the economy, you mentioned yesterday that this is a transition period. How does the White House measure this in terms of when can you not blame it on former President Biden and when does it fully become President Trump's responsibility?
Well, we've only been here for 52 days, but certainly the president is working hard every day to, again, bring down the cost of living which we see is already happening. You see the cost of eggs is going down, cost of gasoline is going down because of the massive deregulatory efforts of this president, and also the fact that we are delivering on his promise to drill baby drill already.
You saw this past weekend, the National Economic Advisory put out a report that, because of the regulations we've already slashed in just 52 days, we've saved American taxpayers $180 billion. That comes out to about $2,000 per American household. That's in 52 days. So, the president is working diligently and he's working hard on this every single day.
And we need Congress to also help. We need Congress to pass tax cuts which the president campaigned on and the vast majority of the American people support. And as you all know, the president met with business leaders last night at the Business Roundtable, and he said to them in the room, some of you may be Democrats, that's fine.
But we need to get Senate Democrats and House Democrats on board with this tax bill because working America supports tax cuts. The American people, CEOs, small business owners and workers all want more money in their pockets, and we expect all people on Capitol Hill, Republican or Democrat, to get on board with that because it's a wildly popular position.
Thanks guys. We'll see you later.
Respond to the EU tariffs, can you say when?