[Video of briefing begins in progress]
-- Uh, necessary up, up the chain from there. Um, let me give you some context.
Okay.
Uh, the, the broad context for this administration is that President Trump ran, uh, among other things on, uh, stopping Communist China from poisoning, uh, Americans with fentanyl. We've lost over a million souls, uh, to Fentanyl, uh, over the last years. Uh, it's not just the fentanyl itself that kills, it's that they use, the Mexican cartels blend the fentanyl in to all the, uh, hard drugs, the methamphetamine, the heroin, the ecstasy and all that.
But also, and if you're anybody out there watching this who's buying any prescription drugs online, it's creeped into things like Valium and Xanax as well. It's a carnage and, and it is an emergency. And President Trump promised to stop that and the courts have intervened now on that. So that's one piece of what happened yesterday.
The second piece is the reciprocal tariffs. President Trump promised on the campaign trail that he would end the unfair trade practices of four nations. I think the press has now agreed with this administration that the rest of the world charges higher tariffs and has higher non-tariff barriers and cheats us, and they do so by the very rules of the World Trade Organization.
So the court has taken a step, which, which will break that promise as well. And what we see this is as this broader problem of rogue judges erecting essentially a judicial blockade, um, motivated, uh, both by Democrats and in the case of trade, the, the typical Rhino free trade, Wall Street, ship the jobs offshore, open the borders kind of way.
And Peter --
Now, let me just finish.
-- can we, can we ask you --
Uh, there's plenty of time here. Plenty of time. So, uh, the open border wing of, of the Republican Party, and it, it's a, we see this as a judicial blockade. It's consistent with the other things they've done to try to stop the deportation of, of violent felons, uh, and, and to basically slow us down on all sorts, uh, of different fronts.
And they, they will pay the price for this at the ballot box. Every time something like this happens, Democrats reveal themselves as against the very agenda President Trump ran on that propelled him to a landslide election. And, and just from a, a detail that you should put on your stories, I mean, how did this suit come about? 12 states of this union sued, and every single one of them is a blue state from the left coast of Oregon and Washington to, uh, New York and Connecticut on the elitist coast.
And, um, they basically, the other parties to the suit were a bunch of importers who buy a bunch of cheap subsidized crap, uh, from China, uh, that, uh, r- -- really is illegally traded in the sense that, uh, it doesn't abide by the rules of the WTO. Now, with respect to the rulings themselves, let's think about this.
It, it's a lot of texture here. It's, it's unusual when you have a court come out with two very separate rulings where the law interpretation, um, is very different and very, very textured. Okay? That the common denominator is the International Economic Emergency Powers Act. It's an act which entitles the executive branch with very, very broad authority to take action in the face of economic emergencies.
And with the case of the fentanyl, there's an obvious one there. It's killing Americans, many of them are prime working age. Uh, and that fentanyl, uh, tariff also, uh, was designed to stop the border invasion. And when you have 20 million people coming in, stealing jobs, depressing wages, uh, that's part of the emergency.
And then the reciprocal tariff issue, the emergency there very clearly is the $1.3 trillion trade deficit a year, which cumulatively has added up to $18 trillion of wealth transfer into foreign hands. And can you imagine what you can buy with $18 trillion in this country? You could buy a whole state with that.
So with respect to the, the fentanyl tariff, the court argued, uh, that somehow that there, there wasn't a, a sufficient connection between tariffs and the ability to stop the fentanyl poison. We just violently disagree with the court on that and see that as a, as a, a violation of the separation of powers between the judicial branch and the executive branch itself.
The court is not sup- supposed to micromanage how the president of this United States is, is supposed to be able to get people to stop dying from fentanyl. And the court didn't even note the fact that the fentanyl tariffs have been actually quite successful so far in improving that situation. It's gotten a lot better, and the court didn't even acknowledge that.
So that one's wrong on legal grounds. With respect to, uh, the reciprocal tariff argument, that, that was like a whole separate argument. They basically said that, uh, the president acted beyond, or beyond the scope of his authority. And the buried lead in all that was, they said, "Well, this is why the stock market is, has basically not reacted to this, 'cause the status quo is, is still in place.
Uh, it, it's like you can use other things to accomplish the same result, we just don't like this one." You know, it's the, it's the 122, the 232, the 301, 338, do your homework. You know how all that works. So where we stand right now is we have, uh, a, a dramatic expansion of a judicial blockade of the Trump agenda by rogue judiciary working in league with Democrats who were at the heart of the suit, um, and RINO Republicans, uh, who have a vested interest in shipping our jobs offshore and opening our borders.
We will fight this all away, uh, up the chain. And in the meantime, this did not catch us by surprise. Uh, we, we, you will hear, uh, within the next day or two at, at a minimum, uh, from the United States trade representative on, uh, how we will respond to all of this. We will respond forcefully, and we think we have a very good case, uh, with respect to this.
Now, after having said that, I appreciate your patience. Um, I try, what I try to do when I come out here is give you more texture and background rather than just soundbites. So that's what I hope I've done.
Peter.
Yes, ma'am?
Thank you so much, Peter. And, and just given this appeals court temporarily reinstating the tariffs, what does that mean for you and your position? And does it buy the administration more time in your view?
Me, in my po- you, you're not talking about me personally. You're talking about the administration.
The administration, of course.
Yeah. So, um, look, the, the tariff, the tariffs remain in place. Uh, the court, uh, told us, they didn't all but tell us, they, they told us go do it another way. So you can assume that, uh, even if we lose, we will do it another way. And I can assure the American people, that the Trump tariff agenda is alive, well, healthy, and will be implemented to protect you, to save your jobs and your factories, and to stop shipping foreign wealth, uh, our wealth into foreign hands.
So you are working on a plan B right now?
Of course. Oh, there's no plan B, it's Plan A, okay?
But doesn't plan A --
Plan A encompasses all strategic options. And when we move forward, we had a full view of what the battlefield looks like. We, we are not naive about rogue justices in the judiciary and Democrats filing lawsuits. This has gotta stop by the way. This, this, this weaponization of the judiciary to, to stop the Trump, president Trump from doing what he promised the American people.
This has gotta stop. It's the people of America have the lowest level of, of confidence in the American judiciary they've had in a hundred years. And, and it's getting close to what they think about Congress. And that's a low bar to hit.
How much of that is because every time you get a court decision you don't like, you and your colleagues come out here and rail against rogue judges and activist judges --
See, what, who is this guy? Tell me who you are, sir.
I'm Andrew Feinberg. I work for The Independent, sir.
Okay. So that is such a biased question. That is not a journalist question. That was like an op-ed, sir. So that I, I don't even respond to that. Who else has got an intel- Yes ma'am?
Peter, I wanna ask you, what do the conversations look like right now with other countries as you're seeing with the courts pushing back here in the United States?
Well, the, the, great question, um, and in fact that is the question in many ways. Um, this morning, uh, we were getting plenty of phone calls from countries saying, "We saw the ruling. So what, we're gonna continue to negotiate in good faith because we understand that there's a problem. And based on that court decision, we understand that that court decision's not gonna stop you from doing what you need to do. So we're gonna work with you." So I can assure you, and by the way, there's gonna be, uh, within the next, uh, I don't know, say few days 'cause that puts me too much on the spot.
But you will see a, a cascade of new deals coming out in the near future, and these will all be good for the American people. Okay? Yes, sir.
On the Nippon Steel, U.S. steel deal --
Let's stay on the tariffs thing.
Well, it actually, it's related to that.
How is that related?
It looks like we have the framework of an agreement that involves some kind of U.S involvement in the company. Japan gets Japanese from --
Some kind of U.S. involvement in the company? No, U.S. Steel owns the company. Nippon Steel is gonna have some involvement, but no control of the company. I don't wanna talk about --
My question in regard to tariffs is how does that --
Hey look, today is, today is tariff day. Tomorrow, come back out we'll talk about it. Yes, ma'am?
You're talking about other things that the courts are asking you to do, like Section 122 and 301 --
The court didn't ask us to do it. They, they pointed out that we have other ways to do that, which is kind of curious, uh, that they, they, that they would do that. Uh, but I, I think the fact is that they know that their, uh, ruling, uh, is on soft ground and they just wanna make it clear that, that the president does have broad authorities that do what he's trying to do for the American people.
Finish your question.
Will you, will you pursue those in parallel pass, or you will, will you wait till the court ruling to play out?
Yeah, I'm, I, I defer to, um, uh, our Great United States trade representative Jameson Greer on that. I'm sure he'll be out, um, at, out in front of these cameras and with press releases trying to explain that matter.
[Inaudible]
How about here? Yes, sir?
What do you mean that we should expect from Mr. Greer about to hear in a couple of days. Is that [Inaudible]
Yeah. Yeah. Well, obviously, obviously, obviously we're gonna have a lot to say about this and he's the best person to lay all of that in full. My job here today is to explain to you the backstory about what that case is and how it came about, but, we'll, and, and, and point out that, that, uh, it was not unanticipated and we're gonna move forward with an aggressive thing.
Yes sir?
So just to be clear, just to be -- Thank you, Peter. My colleagues with Spectrum News across the country have talked to a ton of small business owners over the last few months --
Sure.
-- say they are having trouble keeping up with this back and forth for their supply chain, explaining price increases to their customers.
Yeah.
What's your message to them right now? How are they supposed to keep businesses normal amidst hourly changes?
We're in a, uh, uh, a point where in this history of this country, if we do not shift structurally to a world where the world treats us fairly, we will never have this opportunity again. And a lot of, uh, this back and forth is the result of the Democrats working with the globalist rhino Wall Street people to try to stop the Trump agenda, whether it's at the border or whether it's on trade.
Uh, but we're gonna move forward and we're gonna get- get, uh, to a -- a place where every -- We're gonna have more factories, more jobs. We've already had trillions of dollars investment. I mean, I don't think any of you can deny that these Trump policies are working to attract trillions of dollars of investment and- and that we are moving to onshoring our facilities and that's what we gotta keep doing.
I'd take two more here --
Mr. Navarro --
Yes, ma'am?
Mr. Navarro, just on the back and forth. So is your message to small businesses, to the markets that are watching this news, the back and forth of the on and off again tariffs, the rulings, is that these tariffs are gonna go into effect regardless and that the administration will find a way to get it done?
I think that's a fair -- That's a fair assessment. And, uh, look, I think that one of the other themes, uh, that I would ask every one of you when you talk about your stories and write them is this. You cannot simply write about tariffs within the context of just tariffs alone. You have to look at the broader- broader issue of- of how we're going about policy.
I had an op-ed yesterday in The Hill, which I would urge everybody to read and report on, which basically talks about how this Congressional budget office, when they scored the bill, came out with, uh, an estimate of GDP growth of 1.7% and, uh, they said that we were gonna have a -- a nearly $4 trillion a -- Addition to the deficit and it's dead wrong.
When you look at the CBO's history for the 2017 Tax Cut Act, they did the same thing. They understated growth by a full percentage point, understated revenues accordingly. When you add those revenues, we expect at least a percentage, uh, point of growth more than the CBO projects. That's- that's over $2 trillion.
And then, when you add that -- A simple tariff revenues from a 10% baseline tariff, that's another more than 2 trillion. And you see a $5 trillion swing into a 200, um -- Into a $2 trillion surplus from that tax bill so we're gonna have that. And within that, for your small business, I kinda got around to that like -- But now, I'm here with your -- Your small business.
Full expensing. Full expensing for- for- for new investments in- in- in factory and plant. Um, energy prices. You gotta consider that we're- we're down in the low 60s for a barrel of oil now. Do you -- That's like -- That's like thousands of dollars more in people's pockets to buy as consumers and a tremendous benefit, um, to businesses.
The regulatory effect of the lower regulations, um, are gonna make small business bloom. I mean, no president in the last 50 years has been more intent on helping small businesses. So we feel really comfortable about that so --
Mr. Navarro --
Uh, yes, ma'am. Well, last question here.
Thank you. Do you think that the pause will negatively impact the negotiations and do you think that the 90-day pause would be shifted because of that?
The pause will not affect, uh, the negotiations in any way, um, if people, um, out there in the world simply look at the court decision. The court was- was clear, as I said, that, uh, the president has brought authority to impose tariffs. Uh, they took issue with, uh, the particular statute we used. We think they're dead wrong on that but they- they actually pointed us in the direction of other statutes [Laughs]. Look, I appreciate, um, all your, uh --
But Peter, can I --
Ha- ha- hang on. Hang on --
-- you on something --
Hang on. Lemme just finish. Uh, I appreciate all your patience on this. I'll come back tomorrow but I think for today, I think we're done. I think I've given you plenty of stuff and I appreciate it. Thank you.
[Inaudible] work with -- [Inaudible]. Kevin Hassett says you're not looking at alternatives --