We still have a way to go. Today, I urge other nations to follow our example and liberate your citizens from the crushing weight of bureaucracy. With that, you have to run your own countries the way you want. We’re also restoring the constitutional rule of law in America, which is essential to our economy, our liberty, and our future.
Continued from part two:
And that’s why we’ve appointed over 190 federal judges — a record — to interpret the law as written. One hundred and ninety federal judges — think of that — and two Supreme Court judges. As a result of our efforts, investment is pouring into our country. In the first half of 2019, the United States attracted nearly one-quarter of all foreign direct investment in the world — think of that.
Twenty-five percent of all foreign investment all over the world came into the United States, and that number is increasing rapidly. To every business looking for a place where they are free to invest, build, thrive, innovate, and succeed, there is no better place on Earth than the United States. As a central part of our commitment to building an inclusive society, we established the National Council for the American Worker.
We want every citizen, regardless of age or background, to have the cutting-edge skills to compete and succeed in tomorrow’s workplace. This includes critical industries like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and 5G. Under Ivanka’s leadership — who is with us today — our Pledge to America’s Workers has become a full-blown national movement with over 400 companies committing to provide new job and training opportunities to already very close to 15 million American students and workers.
Fifteen million. America is making sweeping changes to place workers and their families at the centre of our national agenda. Perhaps the most transformative change of all is on trade reform, where we’re addressing chronic problems that have been ignored, tolerated, or enabled for decades. Our leaders did nothing about what happened to us on trade.
Before I was elected, China’s predatory practices were undermining trade for everyone, but no one did anything about it, except allow it to keep getting worse and worse and worse. Under my leadership, America confronted the problem head-on. Under our new phase one agreement — phase two is starting negotiations very shortly — China has agreed to substantially do things that they would not have done: measures to protect intellectual property; stop forced technology transfers; remove trade barriers in agricultural goods and on agricultural goods, where we were treated so badly; open its financial sector totally — that’s done — and maintain a stable currency, all backed by very, very strong enforcement.
Our relationship with China, right now, has probably never been better. We went through a very rough patch, but it’s never, ever been better. My relationship with President Xi is an extraordinary one. He’s for China; I’m for the U.S. But other than that, we love each other. Additionally, China will spend an additional $200 billion over two years on American services, agriculture, and energy, and manufactured goods.
So we’ll be taking in an excess of $200 billion; could be closer to $300 billion when it finishes. But these achievements would not have been possible without the implementation of tariffs, which we had to use, and we’re using them on others too. And that is why most of our tariffs on China will remain in place during the phase two negotiations.
For the most part, the tariffs have been left, and we’re being paid billions and billions of dollars a year as a country. As I mentioned earlier, we ended the NAFTA disaster — one of the worst trade deals ever made; not even close — and replaced it with the incredible new trade deal, the USMCA — that’s Mexico and Canada.
In the nearly 25 years after NAFTA, the United States lost 1 in 4 manufacturing jobs, including nearly 1 in 4 vehicle-manufacturing jobs. It was an incentive to leave the country. The NAFTA agreement exemplified the decades-long failures of the international trading system. The agreement shifted wealth to the hands of a few, promoted massive outsourcing, drove down wages, and shuttered plants and factories by the thousands.
The plants would leave our country, make the product, sell it into our country. We ended up with no jobs and no taxes; would buy other countries’ product. That doesn’t happen anymore. This is the wreckage that I was elected to clean up. It’s probably the reason I ran for President, more than any other thing because I couldn’t understand why we were losing all of these jobs to other countries at such a rapid rate.
And it got worse and worse, and I think it’s probably the primary reason that I ran, but there are other reasons also. And to replace with a new system that puts workers before the special interests. And the special interests will do just fine, but the workers come first. Our brand-new USMCA is the result of the broadest coalition ever assembled for a trade agreement.
Manufacturing, agriculture, and labour all strongly endorsed the deal. And, as you know, it just passed in Congress overwhelmingly. It shows how to solve the 21st-century challenge we all face: protecting intellectual property, expanding digital trade, re-shoring lost jobs, and ensuring rising wages and living standards.
The United States has also concluded a great new trade deal with Japan — approximately $40 billion — and completely renegotiated our deal with South Korea. We’re also negotiating many other transactions with many other countries. And we look forward to negotiating a tremendous new deal with the United Kingdom.
They have a wonderful new Prime Minister and wants very much to make a deal, as they say. To protect our security and our economy, we are also boldly embracing American energy independence. The United States is now, by far, the number-one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world, by far. It’s not even close.
While many European countries struggle with crippling energy costs, the American energy revolution is saving American families $2,500 every year in lowering electric bills and numbers that people said couldn’t happen, and also, very importantly, prices at the pump. We’ve been so successful that the United States no longer needs to import energy from hostile nations.
With an abundance of American natural gas now available, our European allies no longer have to be vulnerable to unfriendly energy suppliers either. We urge our friends in Europe to use America’s vast supply and achieve true energy security. With U.S. companies and researchers leading the way, we are on the threshold of virtually unlimited reserves of energy, including from traditional fuels, LNG, clean coal, next-generation nuclear power, and gas hydrate technologies.