Trump meets with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at the White House

[0:00] Thank you for inviting me to the White House today. [0:02] Thank you. [0:05] My visit is timely, so given the current situation. [0:16] Oh, please, yes, absolutely. [0:19] You have a very good interpreter. [0:20] Yeah. [0:21] Your friend. [0:22] We've known for a long time. [0:23] I know, I know. [0:24] With Shinzo, right? [0:25] Your friend. [0:31] Right now, situations in the Middle East and also the entire world, we are actually experiencing [0:44] a very severe security environment. [0:53] And also the global economy is now about to experience a huge hit because of this development. [1:02] But even against that backdrop, I firmly believe that it is only you, Donald, who can achieve [1:23] peace across the world. [1:33] And to do so, I am ready to reach out to many of the partners in the international community [1:40] to achieve our objective together. [1:46] So today, I came here at the White House to directly convey this message to you. [2:02] And speaking. [2:04] Speaking of the situation in Iran, Iran's development of nuclear weapons must never [2:10] be allowed. [2:11] And that is why we, Japan, have been urging them and also reaching out to other partners [2:17] in the world. [2:18] And to do so, I am ready to reach out to many of the partners in the world. [2:33] And to do so, I am ready to reach out to many of the partners in the world. [2:36] In addition, Japan condemns Iran's actions such as attacking the neighboring region and [2:43] also the de facto or effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. [2:48] As a matter of fact, my fellow minister, Minister Motegi, Foreign Minister Motegi, also had [2:54] the direct exchange with the Iranian foreign minister and urged Iran to stop such activities. [3:03] Condemned. [3:04] You'll let me know. [3:05] You'll let me know. [3:06] You'll let me know. [3:07] So, in any case, it is the environment in the Middle East that is very difficult not [3:12] just the Middle East, but also the security and security of the Indo-Pacific region. [3:15] In such circumstances, I am thankful to Donald for his deep belief in Japan and his commitment [3:22] to an unwavering alliance. [3:29] And also the security environment in the Indo-Pacific region is also becoming increasingly difficult. [3:32] Thank you, Mr. President. [3:33] Thank you. [3:34] increasingly severe. Donald, you have shown deep trust in Japan and also the [3:41] unwavering commitment to the Japan-U.S. alliance. Once again, thank you very much [3:46] for that. [3:55] And today, I look forward to having a discussion on how we can cooperate to [4:01] make our two nations, both Japan and the United States, stronger and more [4:06] prosperous. [4:13] And I also brought specific proposals to calm down the global energy market. [4:31] So today, I really look forward to having our discussion, particularly focusing on [4:41] our collaboration in economic security in the important areas such as energy and bare [4:47] earth minerals. And also, I look forward to discussing with you how we can make our [4:53] two economies stronger moving forward. [4:56] Thank you very much. [4:57] Thank you very much. And you're doing a great job. [5:00] Again, congratulations. [5:01] On the biggest win in the history of Japan. [5:04] That's not bad. [5:06] That's a pretty long history. [5:08] That's a large nation with a really great reputation, but it's a tremendous victory. [5:15] Congratulations to everybody. [5:18] I'm very, very proud of you. [5:20] Very proud of you. [5:21] We've become friends, and I'm very proud of the job you've done. [5:25] It's not easy. [5:27] Any questions, please? [5:28] Mr. President, are you fully satisfied with the [5:32] level of support that you're getting from Japan on Iran, including around minesweepers? [5:38] Well, we're going to be speaking about it today. [5:40] Go ahead. [5:41] You can go. [5:42] We're doing — we're going to be speaking about it today. [5:56] We've had tremendous support and relationship with Japan on everything, and I believe that, [6:01] based on statements that were made today, we're going to be speaking about it today. [6:02] And I think that, based on the statements that were given to us yesterday, the day before [6:05] yesterday, having to do with Japan, they are really stepping up to the plate. [6:10] Yes. [6:12] Mr. President, do you — [6:13] Unlike NATO. [6:14] Please. [6:15] Mr. President, do you intend to lift sanctions on Iranian oil? [6:30] And do you intend to potentially put U.S. troops at risk? [6:31] I'm not sure. [6:32] Do you intend to put U.S. troops or more troops in the region? [6:35] No. [6:36] I'm not putting troops anywhere. [6:38] If I were, I certainly wouldn't tell you. [6:41] But I'm not putting troops. [6:42] And we will do whatever is necessary to keep the price as low as — I actually thought [6:48] when I did this — look, the Dow just hit 50,000 a couple of weeks ago. [6:54] They said that couldn't happen for four years. [6:56] It wouldn't happen in my term. [6:57] It's such an outrageous thing because I said it would happen. [7:01] I didn't know it was going to happen that fast. [7:03] But it just hit 50,000. [7:05] And we did that in one year, not four. [7:08] S&P had just hit 7,000. [7:11] They said that was even more impossible than the Dow hitting 50. [7:15] And we did that in one year. [7:16] So it's all done. [7:18] Everything was going great. [7:19] The economy was great. [7:20] Oil prices were very low. [7:21] Gasoline was dropping to — I mean, we had $1.99, $1.85. [7:27] We had great everything. [7:29] And I saw what was happening in Iran. [7:30] And I said, you know what? [7:31] I said, I hate to make this excursion, but we're going to have to do it. [7:36] And I actually thought the numbers would be worse. [7:38] I thought that it would go up more than it did. [7:42] But we're doing this excursion. [7:43] And when it's completed, we're going to have a much safer world. [7:47] And the prime minister agrees with me on this. [7:49] She considers it to be terrible what Iran — I think every country does. [7:53] Just about every country does. [7:55] Iran is a serious threat to the world, to the Middle East and to the world. [7:59] And everybody agrees with me. [8:01] I think virtually every country agrees with me. [8:02] I think virtually every country agrees with me. [8:03] And everybody agrees with me on that. [8:04] So I wanted to put out that fire. [8:08] And I said, you know, if I do that, oil prices will go up. [8:11] The economy will go down a little bit. [8:13] I thought it would be worse. [8:15] Much worse, actually. [8:16] I thought there was a chance it could be much worse. [8:18] It's not bad. [8:19] And it's going to be over with pretty soon. [8:20] We've obliterated the Navy. [8:22] We've obliterated their — just about everything there is to obliterate, including leadership. [8:28] The Navy is gone. [8:29] Their Air Force is gone. [8:30] Their anti-aircraft equipment is gone. [8:33] They're flying wherever we want, Pete. [8:35] We have no — nobody even shooting at us. [8:38] They have — I mean, and as you know, their leadership is gone. [8:43] Their leaders are gone. [8:45] They picked new leaders. [8:46] They're gone. [8:47] They picked new leaders. [8:48] They're gone. [8:49] And now they're looking for new leaders again. [8:52] We can take out the island if — anytime we want. [8:57] I call it the little oil island that sits there, so totally unprotected. [9:01] We've taken out everything but the pipes. [9:03] We left the pipes because to rebuild the pipes would take years for, you know, for [9:08] them to do. [9:10] But we are — I would say we are substantially ahead of schedule. [9:16] And I had to do this. [9:17] I had to — I call it an excursion. [9:19] I had to take this little excursion and do something that no other president had the [9:24] courage to do. [9:25] And everybody wanted to do it, but they never had the courage to do. [9:28] And I don't blame them. [9:29] I'm not blaming them. [9:31] It was left to me, and we've done a great job. [9:33] Our military has done a great job. [9:34] Our military is incredible. [9:35] We have an incredible military. [9:37] We have the strongest military in the world by far. [9:39] We have the greatest equipment in the world by far. [9:41] In fact, Japan buys our equipment — buys a lot of it. [9:45] And we're honored by that. [9:47] And that's one of the things we'll be talking to. [9:48] I want to buy a lot of the military equipment. [9:51] So it's just an honor to have the prime minister. [9:53] We've had a tremendous relationship. [9:55] Okay. [9:56] Mr. President, Mr. President, let's go forward. [9:58] I think she's going to have to go first before you. [10:02] Is that okay? [10:03] Okay. [10:04] Yeah. [10:05] Do you understand? [10:06] Very good. [10:07] I mean, it's so nice that we don't have to sit — no, it's very good. [10:13] I haven't picked up your language, so the next time you come, I'll have your language [10:18] mastered. [10:19] All right. [10:20] Go ahead. [10:21] The war is almost over. [10:22] Why is the Pentagon going to ask Congress for an additional $200 billion? [10:27] Well, we're asking for a lot of reasons beyond even what we're talking about in Iran. [10:33] When — this is a very — [10:34] This is a very volatile world, and the military equipment, the power of some of this weaponry [10:42] is unthinkable. [10:44] You don't even want to know about it. [10:45] Oh, you could end this thing in two seconds if you wanted to, but we are being very judicious. [10:53] But we want to do — don't forget, Biden gave away — I rebuilt the military my first [10:58] time. [10:59] Biden gave away so stupidly to Afghanistan a lot. [11:03] He didn't want to move it. [11:04] He was too lazy, too stupid to move it. [11:07] But it was a very small — it was a lot, but it was very small relative to what I purchased [11:12] and what I built. [11:14] We want to have a good — we want to have vast amounts of ammunition, which we have [11:20] right now. [11:21] We have a lot of ammunition, but it was taken down by giving so much to Ukraine. [11:26] They gave so much — you know, Biden gave $350 billion worth of cash and military equipment [11:32] to Ukraine. [11:34] And he didn't rebuild anything. [11:36] Fortunately, we have a lot. [11:37] We have a tremendous, unlimited supply of what you'd call middle and upper-middle armaments [11:46] and military equipment — munitions, armaments, but munitions in particular. [11:52] At the high end, we have a lot, but we're preserving it. [11:55] We don't really need it. [11:56] But we're building — our manufacturers of military equipment are building at a level [12:02] they've never seen before, they've never done before. [12:04] Pete's in charge of it with all of us, really. [12:07] But Pete's been very, very strong on it — the general and Pete, myself, the whole group. [12:14] And Raytheon is building four factories. [12:17] Lockheed is building five or six factories. [12:19] And they're building them fast, because we had a very tough meeting with them. [12:23] They were going out and buying — buying back stock for $51 billion in one case. [12:29] They spent $51 billion buying back stock. [12:32] Now they're not allowed to do that. [12:33] And they are now building a tremendous — there's never been anything like it, what's taking [12:40] place right now. [12:42] So we're in very good shape, but we want to be in the best shape — the best shape we've [12:46] ever been in. [12:47] We were that. [12:48] You know, when I rebuilt the military, we were in great shape, and then Biden blew it. [12:52] And he didn't do anything. [12:53] He didn't build — he didn't do anything. [12:56] And if you listen to the Democrats, they don't even want to have a military. [12:59] Now you see how important it is. [13:02] But we have the strongest military. [13:04] We have the best military in the world. [13:05] We have the best equipment. [13:07] We make by far the best equipment. [13:08] The other night, they had 114 rockets shot at a certain location. [13:14] And out of 100 — highly sophisticated rockets, out of 114 sophisticated rockets, every single [13:21] one of them was shot down with our equipment. [13:24] All our equipment. [13:25] It's amazing, actually, how good it is. [13:27] So we want to be sure. [13:28] And it's a small price to pay to make sure that we stay tippy-top. [13:35] Thank you, Mr. President. [13:36] The Treasury Secretary this morning said there were defections among Iranian leadership. [13:37] Are you aware of that? [13:38] And is there anybody the U.S. can work with as a leader going forward? [13:43] Well, we have a man named the Treasury Secretary here, so maybe he wants to discuss it. [13:49] Does anybody know? [13:50] Do you know who he is? [13:51] Central casting. [13:52] So, Ed, we are seeing the defections at all levels, as they're starting to sense what's [14:02] going on with the regime. [14:03] It doesn't get reported here in the U.S. [14:05] very well, but, you know, we are transiting them from the air, and the regime will probably [14:11] collapse within itself. [14:13] At Treasury, we've seen where they've wired their money out of the country. [14:16] We're coming for that. [14:17] We're going to get it back to the Iranian people. [14:18] Mr. President — [14:20] Have you seen defections? [14:21] Yes, sir. [14:22] On Israel — [14:23] There's a lot of military defections also. [14:25] You have a lot of military defections in Iran. [14:28] I don't — hey, I don't blame them. [14:30] Thank you, Mr. President. [14:31] You talked to Prime Minister Menendez about attacking the oil and gas fields. [14:34] Yeah, I did. [14:35] I did. [14:36] I told him, don't do that. [14:37] And he won't do that. [14:39] We didn't discuss. [14:40] You know, we do — we're independent, we get along great, it's coordinated. [14:46] But on occasion, he'll do something, and if I don't like it — and so we're not doing [14:50] that anymore. [14:51] And the last one, if I could. [14:52] The Fed chairman told me yesterday that he plans to stay until a new Fed chairman is [14:57] confirmed. [14:58] And he also plans to stay on the board until the investigation on the federal term is done. [15:02] He should — [15:03] Well, he's under investigation because he's building a building for hundreds [15:06] of billions of dollars more than it's supposed to cost. [15:09] The building you see over there is under budget and ahead of schedule. [15:13] That's the ballroom. [15:14] The ballroom is a much bigger building. [15:17] It's a much more complex building than what he's doing, and it's at a fraction of [15:21] the cost. [15:23] Something is going on, whether it's contractors — that's what I do best in the world. [15:27] I build. [15:28] I build great buildings. [15:29] I've always done it. [15:30] And I build them under budget and ahead of schedule. [15:33] They could have $4 billion. [15:35] This is a renovation job. [15:36] For $4 billion. [15:38] And if you look at the building, it's not even — I don't know if Kevin Warsh is ever [15:42] going to be able to move into it. [15:44] It's been under construction for years. [15:47] It's the most expensive building ever built. [15:50] Now, I know it's grossly incompetent, because I happen to think he's grossly incompetent. [15:55] Today, certainly, you should be lowering interest rates. [15:58] All right? [15:59] Certainly. [16:00] Who would not lower them? [16:01] But he's stubborn, and he's got Trump derangement syndrome. [16:04] But a lot of people have that. [16:05] You know? [16:06] Not a curable disease. [16:09] But he's also building — he should be lowering rates immediately. [16:14] But he won't do that, because he's — he's a stubborn, incompetent person. [16:19] And that's a bad thing. [16:20] You know? [16:21] When you're stubborn and incompetent, I think it's the worst combination. [16:24] And he's also not a smart person. [16:26] But he's building a complex over there that's under his jurisdiction. [16:32] He started it. [16:33] And it's out of control. [16:35] It's billions of dollars for a little building. [16:39] I could have done that building and made it beautiful for $25 million. [16:44] Twenty-five million, and it would have been beautiful. [16:48] Look what I've done at the White House, fixing it up. [16:50] And, I mean, the place was in bad shape. [16:53] You see the floors and everything? [16:55] It was in bad shape. [16:56] I could have — I could have made that building beautiful for $25 million. [17:01] They're spending $4 billion. [17:04] All right? [17:06] So it's — it's — it's — you know, it's not worth it. [17:07] All right? [17:08] But there is criminality. [17:12] Maybe it's with the contractor, because I know more about contractors than any human being maybe that's ever lived. [17:18] But that contractor is a very rich man. [17:21] Whoever the contractor is, and we know, but whoever the contractor is, is an extremely rich man. [17:27] He's going to make, I mean, he could make billions of dollars. [17:32] I'm hearing numbers from $3 to $4 billion. [17:36] That would make it the most expensive building on a square foot basis ever built in history. [17:42] And you're not even building a building, it's a renovation. [17:45] The exterior skin is staying, the steel is staying, the structure. [17:50] So all I want to do is bring out to the public that this guy is an incompetent, he's a very incompetent guy. [17:58] And he may be a dishonest guy, but somebody's dishonest because there's no way that building could be $3 to $4 billion. [18:09] Mr. President, you just mentioned Japan. [18:14] This looks like one of your people right here. [18:17] Thank you. [18:18] Is he good or bad? [18:19] Is he a good reporter or bad? [18:21] You know? [18:22] So-so. [18:23] All right, looks like a nice guy. [18:27] Go ahead. [18:28] Mr. President, you just mentioned Japan is stepping up. [18:33] What kind of support do you expect from Japan in the future? [18:39] Look, I expect Japan. [18:40] Japan is stepping up. [18:40] Japan is stepping up. [18:40] Japan is stepping up. [18:40] Japan is stepping up because, you know, we have that kind of relationship. [18:44] And we step up with Japan. [18:46] We have 45,000 soldiers in Japan. [18:49] We have, we spend a lot of money on Japan. [18:52] So, and we've had that kind of a relationship. [18:54] So I expect, I'm not surprised that they would step up. [18:58] We don't need much. [18:59] We don't need anything. [19:00] I mean, honestly, we don't need anything from Japan or from anyone else. [19:03] But I think it's appropriate that people step up. [19:06] In the case of Japan, I hear they get more than 90% of their oil through. [19:11] The strait, so that's a big reason to step up. [19:16] I mean, we've, we've demolished, that country is close to demolished. [19:21] The only thing is the strait, it's very hard. [19:24] You could take two people and they could drop little bombs in the water and they're holding things up. [19:28] We don't want that to happen, but honestly, Japan, China, Europe, parts of Europe get a lot of their oil through the strait. [19:39] We get none practically. [19:40] We're less, we're less than 1%. [19:42] We, we don't have to be any percent. [19:44] We don't even, I think we do it just to be nice, but we think of it, we don't use the strait. [19:52] We're defending the strait for everybody else. [19:54] And then in the case of NATO, they don't want to help us defend the strait and they're the ones that need it. [20:02] But now they're getting much nicer because they're seeing my attitude. [20:05] They're getting much nicer, but it's, as far as I'm concerned, it's too late. [20:09] You know, UK wants to send aircraft carriers now. [20:14] And I said, okay, we're going to send aircraft carriers now. [20:15] And I said, okay, we're going to send aircraft carriers now. [20:15] And I said, okay, we're going to send aircraft carriers now. [20:15] And they said, I want the aircraft carriers before the war. [20:19] I don't want them after the war is won. [20:21] They want to send me aircraft carriers after the war is won. [20:24] There's practically nobody to shoot at them. [20:26] You know, their missile count is down, Pete. [20:27] Maybe you could discuss it by about 90-something percent. [20:32] The drones are way down and the factories are being demolished. [20:35] Yes, sir. [20:36] Our missiles being shot are down over 90% since the beginning. [20:41] One-way attack drones down 90% since the beginning, which is a reflection of... [20:45] Overwhelming firepower. [20:47] But you mentioned the most important part, Mr. President. [20:49] Their defense industrial base. [20:51] If you can't make more of it in the future, then you have a limited supply. [20:54] And so we're going after all of their defense contractors that make all of their exquisite weapons [20:59] and ensuring that even if they wanted to rebuild more launchers or more missiles, [21:03] they couldn't in the future. [21:04] And that's a level of devastation for their military that they've never seen before. [21:08] So we have, in literally two weeks, we've demolished their Navy, their Air Force, all technology, [21:15] all technology is gone, all communication is gone, and all of the leaders are gone. [21:21] Other than that, they're doing quite well. [21:23] Okay. [21:24] How about one more question for the Prime Minister? [21:28] Let me pick a beautiful looking person from, a beautiful person from Japan. [21:33] A question for the Prime Minister. [21:35] Go ahead. [21:36] Me? [21:37] Yeah, sure. [21:37] Oh, he doesn't believe he's beautiful. [21:38] Oh, okay. [21:40] He's just, he's out and shy. [21:43] Go ahead. [21:43] Of course, no. [21:45] Japan and the U.S. [21:46] are very good friends, but one question, why didn't you tell U.S. [21:52] allies in Europe and Asia, like Japan, about the war before attacking Iran? [21:58] So we are very confused about Japanese citizens. [22:02] Well, one thing you don't want to signal too much, you know, when we go in, we went in [22:06] very hard and we didn't tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. [22:12] Who knows better about surprise than Japan? [22:15] Okay. [22:16] Why didn't you tell? [22:16] Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor, okay, right? [22:22] He's asking me, do you believe in surprise? [22:25] I think much more so than us. [22:28] And we had a surprise and we did. [22:31] And because of that surprise, we knocked out the first two days. [22:34] We probably knocked out 50% of what we, and much more than we anticipated doing. [22:40] So if I go and tell everybody about it, there's no longer a surprise, right? [22:45] Okay. [22:46] One, one more, one more, one more. [22:48] Okay. [22:48] Okay. [22:48] Okay. [22:49] One more for the prime minister. [22:50] Mr. President. [22:51] Thank you. [22:51] President Trump. [22:51] Are you going to, for the prime minister? [22:52] Yes, and I. [22:53] Go ahead, for the prime minister. [22:54] Yes, and I. [22:54] Thank you for you too. [22:54] Thank you very much. [22:55] Japan's GJ Press, Japan's biggest concern is China. [23:00] Now they're giving us export control and, you know, very harsh terms to criticize us, [23:09] so could you plan, would you really plan to bring out relationship between Japan and China, [23:17] I don't know. [23:17] Yeah. [23:17] Yeah. [23:17] Yeah. [23:18] Yeah. [23:18] Yeah. [23:18] Yeah. [23:18] Why are you there? [23:22] Well, I'll be going to China [23:24] very quickly, but [23:26] the I think I'd really [23:28] Like to have the Prime Minister talk about China because I know they have a little bit of an edgy [23:33] Relationship and I just like to know where it stands. How are you doing with China, sir? [23:37] Please you who I don't you go for in terms of the open the sky were open nice thing. What's it? [23:43] Sarah Cara [23:45] Manor, they say me die. Oh, Steve. Yes, I think I could be a to come came off committed [23:51] Yes, Nick. Oh, yeah, I'm a cheeky non-pay. So you could have on the second supply chain [23:56] When you call cancer, you're going to have a little negative. You must keep us very open [24:01] So first of all Japan has been consistently open to dialogue with China [24:08] And also second we have been [24:12] Addressing our relations with China in a calm manner [24:16] And also speaking of the u.s. China relationship [24:20] My sincere hope is that the relationship will be something conducive for a regional security and also [24:29] Ensuring the global supply chain in the world [24:32] Once again, I would like to reiterate that Japan has been consistently open to dialogue with China [24:38] And I think we're gonna have a great [24:41] Trip the trip has been postponed for about a month and a half. It's been reset [24:48] And we look forward to it and I'll be I'll be speaking [24:52] Japan's praises when I'm in China with President Xi [24:56] But we have but we're gonna have some good talks today [25:00] And I think mostly about trade because they want to do a lot of trade [25:04] They're a tremendous purchaser of our energy our oil [25:08] Gas from in particular Alaska because Alaska believe it or not is very close. It's much closer than any other sauce [25:15] It's just it seems a little cold [25:18] Compared to it, but it's just a short. It's just a short trip. So that's something that we will talk [25:25] We'll be discussing trade and a lot of the talk will be about energy. Thank you very much everybody [25:48] Thank you [25:57] Thank you, sir