Trump’s Speech to Congress Page #4

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We’ve lost more than one-fourth of our manufacturing jobs since Nafta was approved [Fact check: Not because of Nafta.], and we’ve lost 60,000 factories since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Our trade deficit in goods with the world last year was nearly $800 billion. And overseas, we have inherited a series of tragic foreign policy disasters.

Solving these and so many other pressing problems will require us to work past the differences of party. It will require us to tap into the American spirit that has overcome every challenge throughout our long and storied history. But to accomplish our goals at home and abroad, we must restart the engine of the American economy, making it easier for companies to do business in the United States and much, much harder for companies to leave our country.

(APPLAUSE)

Right now, American companies are taxed at one of the highest rates anywhere in the world. My economic team is developing historic tax reform that will reduce the tax rate on our companies so they can compete and thrive anywhere and with anyone.

(APPLAUSE)

It will be a big, big cut.

At the same time, we will provide massive tax relief for the middle class. We must create a level playing field for American companies and our workers — have to do it.

(APPLAUSE)

Currently, when we ship products out of America, many other countries make us pay very high tariffs and taxes, but when foreign companies ship their products into America, we charge them nothing or almost nothing.

I just met with officials and workers from a great American company, Harley-Davidson. In fact, they proudly displayed five of their magnificent motorcycles, made in the U.S.A., on the front lawn of the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

And they wanted me to ride one, and I said, “No, thank you.”

(LAUGHTER)

At our meeting, I asked them, “How are you doing? How is business?” They said that it’s good. I asked them further, “How are you doing with other countries, mainly international sales?”

They told me — without even complaining, because they have been so mistreated for so long that they’ve become used to it — that it’s very hard to do business with other countries, because they tax our goods at such a high rate. They said that in the case of another country, they taxed their motorcycles at 100 percent.

They weren’t even asking for a change. But I am. I believe ...

(APPLAUSE)

I believe strongly in free trade, but it also has to be fair trade. It’s been a long time since we had fair trade.

The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, warned that “the abandonment of the protective policy by the American government will produce want and ruin among our people.”

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