Trump: NAFTA was worst trade deal ever made

 Trump: NAFTA was worst trade deal ever made

 

It's really great to see everybody on this beautiful beautiful day in Washington DC. Some people say the swamp, but I will not say that today I refuse this is too important what we're doing what are the most important deals and the most important trade deal we've ever made by far I want to thank senator Joni Ernst for being here. Joni thank you very much of Iowa and I'll be there very soon. We'll be doing something very important in Iowa but this is maybe more important than all of it put together right Joanie so I want to thank you for being here congressman holding congressman roe congressman Newhouse and congressman meadows. Thank you all for being here we very much appreciated you've been very instrumental. Thank you. I am thrilled to speak to the American people to share truly historic news for our nation and indeed for the world. I want to thank vice president pence for joining us this morning it's my great honor to announce that we have successfully completed negotiations on a brand new deal to terminate and replace NAFTA and the NAFTA trade agreements with an incredible new US Mexico Canada agreement called us MCA sort of just works MCA us MCA that'll be the name. I guess that 99% of the time we'll be hearing us MCA has a good ring to it I have long contended that NAFTA was perhaps the worst straight deal ever made. Since NAFTA's adoption the United States racked up trade deficits totaling more than two trillion dollars and it's a much higher number than that with Canada and Mexico at lost vast amounts of money and lost 4.1 million manufacturing jobs and one in four auto jobs lost about 25% of our auto jobs. Even more than that throughout the campaign I promised to renegotiate NAFTA and today we have kept that promise but for 25 years as a civilian as a businessman I used to say how could anybody have signed a deal like NAFTA. And I watched New England. And so many other places where I was just the factories were leaving the jobs were leaving people were being fired and we can't have that so we have negotiated this new agreement based on the principle of fairness and reciprocity to me. It's the most important word and trade because we've been treated so unfairly by so many nations all over the world that we're changing that we just signed a much better deal with South Korea. We had a horrible horrible deal and we just signed that at United Nations and that's worked out well and they're happy we're happy it's good for jobs good for a lot of things when that deal was signed they said 250,000 jobs will be given be by signing this transaction and they were right I've said it before they were right 250,000 jobs to South Korea not to the United States. So that's changed and very much for the better and this one is a brand new deal the agreement will govern nearly 1.2 trillion in trade which makes it the biggest trade deal in the United States history. I want to congratulate US Trade Representative Bob light Heiser who has worked nobody understands how hard he's wrong no matter when you called him he was in the office or he was in somebody else's office doing the same thing hey, Bob light Iser is great I've heard it for years I said if I ever do this I want to get Ally to Hauser to represent us because he felt the way I did and the entire team at the USTR standing behind me and some right here in the audience I want to thank you all 

[Applause] 

Peter Navarro everybody fantastic group of people they love our country I also want to thank secretary minuchin secretary Ross secretary Neilson secretary Perdue Jared Kushner Peter Navarro and the United States ambassador to Canada Kelly Kraft. 

 Thank you thank you Kelly I also want to thank president Pena Nieto of Mexico who we had a few disagreements but I really like him a lot I think you may like me. I am not sure but I think he's a terrific person and he'll be leaving soon but he's really done a good job and a wonderful wonderful person and the Mexican President Elect Lopez Obrador who has given his support to this agreement and we're developing a really good relationship which i think is very important for our country frankly. And for Mexico and so they worked together on this. This was done by both I said look I don't want to sign an agreement and then a new president comes in they don't like it and we have difficulty they worked very much together on it and I appreciate it from both I have to certainly give my highest regards to Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau a lot of stories came out about Justin and I having difficulty together do we did over the trade deal. But I'll tell you it's turned out to be a very very good deal for both and a very very good deal for all three it puts us in a position that we've never been in before or it's very good when you look at the world and what the world is doing and what when you look at the unfair trade practices that countries are using against the United States this is a terrific deal for all of us