Posted by: thepinetree on 07/03/2018 12:37 AM
Updated by: thepinetree on 07/03/2018 12:37 AM
Expires: 01/01/2023 12:00 AM
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President Trump and Prime Minister Rutte of the Netherlands Before Bilateral Meeting
Washington, DC...Well, thank you very much. It’s a great honor to have the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. That’s the official title. PRIME MINISTER RUTTE: Absolutely. PRESIDENT TRUMP: Sounds very elegant and beautiful. But it’s a great honor to have you. We’ve worked together and have a very, very close relationship. I think the relationship with the Netherlands has never been better than it is now.
We’ll be meeting over the next two weeks, again, at NATO.
PRIME MINISTER RUTTE: Absolutely.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: And we’ll be discussing that today also. And we are discussing trade and the EU and lots of other things.
Tremendous numbers are coming out of the United States and our government. Our economy is very good. It’s probably the best it’s ever been. And we are very close to making some very good trade deals — fair trade deals. I didn’t want to say “good”; I wanted to say “fair” — fair trade deals for our taxpayers and for our workers and our farmers. And a lot of good things are happening.
I think the EU — we’re going to be meeting with them fairly soon. They want to see if they can work something out, and that’ll be good. And if we do work it out, that’ll be positive. And if we don’t, it’ll be positive also. Because —
PRIME MINISTER RUTTE: (Laughs.) No.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: — because we’re just thinking about those cars that pour in here.
PRIME MINISTER RUTTE: It’s not positive.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: And we’ll do something. Right?
PRIME MINISTER RUTTE: We have to work something out.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: But it’ll be — it’ll be positive.
PRIME MINISTER RUTTE: Yes.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: But again, Mr. Prime Minister, thank you very much for being here. Appreciate it. Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER RUTTE: It’s good to be here. And can I add to this — that the relationship between the Netherlands and the United States is over 400 years old. We are allies. We have always been friends, always been friendly, working closely together.
And our talks today will no doubt concentrate on jobs and on security, because the President and I, we are both convinced that, as leaders, our prime task is essentially to make sure that our countries are safe and stable and that we have an economy which is providing the jobs and the future growth for our people.
And there are so many opportunities between the United States and the Netherlands to do more, both in the area of security as well as in the area of having more jobs and having more trades and more investments.
Already, almost 1 million people — 825,000 — in a job in the U.S. because of Dutch investments, and a quarter of a million people in a job because of U.S. investments in the Netherlands. And our aim will be to increase those numbers, to be more successful.
So I’m really looking forward to our discussions.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Good. That’s a great honor.
And I will say that I just spoke with the President-elect of Mexico. We had a great conversation about a half an hour long. We talked about border security. We talked about trade. We talked about NAFTA. We talked about a separate deal, just Mexico and the United States. We had a lot of good conversation. I think the relationship will be a very good one. We’ll see what happens, but I really do believe it’s going to be a very good one.
He had a very excellent election. Did, I would say, even better than anticipated. I told him a number of years ago, when I saw him campaigning for a different race, frankly — a different year, a different race — I said, he’ll be — someday he’s going to be the President of Mexico. So he remembered that and it turned out to be correct. We had a great talk in the morning.
During the morning, I interviewed and met with four potential justices of our great Supreme Court. They are outstanding people. They are really incredible people in so many different ways — academically, and every other way. And I had a very, very interesting morning.
So between the President of Mexico and also the — I guess you would call him the President-elect — but I think he’ll do a — I think he’s going to try and do very hard. I think he’s going to try and help us with the border.
We have unbelievably bad border laws, immigration laws. The weakest in the world. Laughed at by everybody in the world. And Mexico has very strong immigration laws, so they can help us until we straighten out our immigration laws, which have been bad for many, many years — decades. And we’re going to have them taken care of.
But very interesting, though, was my four meetings. We’ll be — I’ll be meeting two or three more and we’ll make a decision on the United States Supreme Court, the new justice. That’ll be made over the next few days and we’ll be announcing it on Monday, and I look forward to that. I think the person that is chosen will be outstanding.
Thank you very much everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Q (Inaudible.)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Over the next — I’ll be announcing that on Monday.
Q Mr. President, do you want to quit the WTO?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: WTO has treated the United States very badly, and I hope they change their ways. They have been treating us very badly for many, many years and that’s why we were at a big disadvantage with the WTO. And we’re not planning anything now, but if they don’t treat us properly, we will be doing something.
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