ADMINISTRATOR MCMAHON: Certainly. Thank you. Well, we are here today talking about, you know, workforce. And I'm really on the ground visiting with small businesses all over the country. And one of the greatest needs they have today - not only big business, but small business - is a skilled workforce.
So we've been talking about different programs. The apprenticeship program, for one, has been really big. But, you know, small businesses a lot of times do things on their own to start programs and don't realize that it has a name. Like, for instance, there was a small landscaper that I visited recently, and he is going to high schools, and he is talking to juniors and seniors in the high school about the advantages of having their own business but of also how you can get to having your own business. For instance, he talked about how he drove a dump truck when he was in high school, because he worked after school to build a business.
So going to the schools at different levels - K-12, high schools; working in these very sophisticated apprenticeship programs that we're seeing - Toyota, United Technologies - and other companies putting with those community colleges. All of it is adding.
And the pledge, Ivanka, when I'm going around talking to small businesses, they'll sign the pledge for one to two reskilling or retraining employees. And, boy, when you start adding that up around the country for 30 million small businesses, that can have an incredible impact.
MS. TRUMP: And the Administrator mentions an unbelievable point. Because some of the best examples we've seen is when the employers reach into the vocational schools and reach into the high schools, and develop curriculums and then employ the student right on the other end. And one of the things we're seeing just across almost all populations is the lowest unemployment rates in this country's history.
So we just hit the lowest youth unemployment rate in the history of America. We hit the lowest unemployment rate for African Americans in the history of this country. The lowest Hispanic unemployment rate in the history of this country. The lowest unemployment rate for women in 65 years. In the month of June alone, 600,000 Americans came off the sidelines and entered or reentered our workforce.
So there's so much opportunity. So, engaging American students and workers at different moments in the lifecycle, whether it's directly in high school and having employers reach in, or later in their career and reskilling them for the jobs of the future, and enabling them to secure better jobs in the modern economy represents just a tremendous opportunity.
And one of the things we're looking at, and we were talking about with Director Mulvaney, is there are a lot of government funds that are going towards these initiatives that are not being spent efficiently and don't have much accountability.
So one of the goals of this council is creating that accountability, and making sure that every dollar that's spent of taxpayer money is being measured and is achieving the end result that we desire, and ultimately working more with the private sector to make them take on this mission, ready to ensure that they're doing the work of training our workers.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Mick Mulvaney, could you say something and maybe respond to that?
DIRECTOR MULVANEY: I could say a bunch of different things, Mr. President. I want to start and go back to what Kevin talked about. Sort of hard to start - know where to start to talk about the economy. You mentioned the quit number. And I know that's a strange number to look at, but what that tells us is that people are confident. They're confident in themselves and they're confident in the ability to go out and make a better life for themselves.
And so the difference - and you know, I've talked about this before - the difference between a job and a career. And that's what folks are having the chance to do now in a way they haven't done for a long time: the chance to build their careers.
So they're at a job, they don't like it, they want to go do something else, and they have the confidence now to be able to do that. It has been a long time since you could do that in this country. That's what you can do when you have 3 and 4 percent economic growth that you cannot do at 1 and 2 percent.
It's also reflected in the new business formation. More women are starting businesses. More African Americans are starting business. More Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans are starting new businesses. This is a reflection of the confidence that you can have in the system. It gives us a tremendous problem, which is that we need more workers. We have too many jobs available and not enough workers. And the federal government does a lousy job right now.
You've heard Ivanka mention - she's absolutely right - most of the job training programs we have don't know how to measure what they do. We asked them, "Were you successful in job training?" And they'll say, "Oh, yeah. Well, we spent $100 billion last year and we helped 52,000 people." Okay? And we asked, "Okay, did any of them get a job?" Hardly any of them know the answer to that question.
So that's what we're trying to fix here, is to bring some accountability. Because we need it. Now is not just a question of saving money. The economy needs more workers. And this group, I think, is going to make that a priority. So thanks for letting us do it.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Wilbur? Thank you, Mick.
SECRETARY ROSS: Yes. I think one of the key markets is not just the few unemployed, but also the very large percentage of people who are of working age but don't identify themselves as even being in the workforce. We need to pull them back into the workforce. Training and better jobs are what will do that. And that's what will help drive the economy to these very, very high rates of growth. Because if you don't have increased workforce participation and you don't have increased productivity, we won't be able to meet our aspirations for growth. So it's very, very critical that we do that.
And that's why we're convening an advisory council of leading CEOs, leading academicians, leading thought people in order to provide advice to the council - how we can do better, how we can cooperate better, and how we can increase workforce participation.
THE PRESIDENT: Great. Thank you very much, Wilbur. And I want to say, as per what all of you basically were saying, we have some tremendous trade deals coming along. Mexico, we're largely finished. It's being papered. But we have a wonderful relationship, and I think we have a great deal for both. We had a very unfair NAFTA deal. It was a terrible deal for this country for many years between Mexico and Canada. It was a horrible, horrible deal. We lost thousands of businesses and millions of jobs. And that's not going to happen anymore.
But we have a really great deal with Mexico, and I think great for both of us. Very, very pro-jobs. Very pro-everything for both countries. So we look forward to that. That's in the process of - the deal is made. It's in the process of getting concluded. We'll see what happens with Canada. We've told them what we have to have, and we'll see how that goes. I'm sure it will go fine. And so we're working on that.
China is now paying us billions of dollars, and we will see how that all works out. It's a - I have great respect for President Xi, as you know. I was over there for two days with him. I have a lot of respect for China. But last year, we lost $375 billion in deficits, and we had, in my opinion, way over $500 billion in cash. And that's not including certain items that we won't even talk about.
So we're not going to lose that. We can't do that. We can't do that anymore. It should have been done many years ago. It should have been done by other Presidents. And actually, it's a disgrace that it wasn't done.
So China is now paying us billions of dollars in tariffs, and hopefully we'll be able to work something out. We'll be having an announcement tonight after close of market, and that will take place. Pretty comprehensive statement. Kevin may speak and Larry Kudlow may speak a little bit at that time. But some very positive news. I think it's going to work out very well with China. I think they want to make a deal. They do want to make a deal - that I can tell you. They want to make a deal.
But from our standpoint, it has to be fair. It has to take care of our workers. We can't have them pinpointing our farmers, because they think that weakens me a little bit because our farmers are the great - they are incredible patriots. They understand what's happening. The markets were closed to them. Vast markets were closed to them. And the farmers have been hurting for 15 years. If you look at soybeans, the pricing before the election, for five years, it was cut in half. And so we're going to open up markets.
The EU, we're moving along. They didn't want to talk because they had such a great deal. And last year, they made $151 billion off the United States. And they had tremendous trade barriers, and we'll see what happens. But as you know, they want to make a deal very much. And we'll see if we're going to be able to make a deal with them. But there's a good chance that we can.
And no matter where you look, we have new deals going - new trade deals. And that's going to have a huge impact on our country. It's going to have a huge impact on jobs. Going to open up markets that weren't opened before. And if they don't want to do that, that's okay. Then we're just going to have to charge them when they sell their products to us. And our Treasury will take in tremendous amounts of money, which is great for our country. And we'll create jobs. So that's all very important.
And you know, what's going to happen is businesses will start moving back into the United States, which to me is - that's the dream. The businesses are going to pour back into the United States. That's jobs, that's a lot of other things; that's a lot of taxes coming to us. And product will start being made here again.
You remember the old days? We used to make our product, Kevin, right? Now we buy our product from everybody else. And frankly, we can make it here. And ultimately, if you include the fact that we have to have jobs and others things to do it, it will be far better economically.
But we'll see what happens as to whether or not we're able to do something in particular with China. That's a big one - because the losses have been staggering for so many years for our country. And we just can't let that happen anymore.
So I want to thank you all for being here. I want to congratulate the people around the table for what you've done with respect to workforce. We really need workers. I mean, with the companies coming in like they're coming in, we need workers. One of the things we'll be doing at the border is we want people to come into our country, but they have to be qualified. They have to be merit-based. I want merit-based people.
Right now, 60 percent over the last 10 years - you take a look - 60 percent or, let's just say, so I get it exactly perfectly, large, large numbers - a large percentage of the people coming into our country immediately go into welfare or relief. And a lot of times they never work. And we have some very foolish policies in our country. We have to end that. We want people to come into our country. We want them to come in through merit so they can work for all of these massive companies that are coming back - in many cases, coming back to the United States.
So thank you very much. And we're very proud of the people around this table. And, Ivanka, I want to thank you for your leadership, also. You have done a fantastic job of putting everything together. And, Chris, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
MR. LIDDELL: Thank you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you everybody.
Q Judge Kavanaugh, Mr. President. Judge Kavanaugh - do you believe the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh?
THE PRESIDENT: Judge Kavanaugh is one of the finest people that I've ever known. He's an outstanding intellect, an outstanding judge. Respected by everybody. Never had even a little blemish on his record.
The FBI has, I think, gone through a process six times with him over the years where he went to higher and higher positions. He is somebody very special.
At the same time, we want to go through a process. We want to make sure everything is perfect, everything is just right.
I wish the Democrats could have done this a lot sooner, because they had this information for many months and they shouldn't have waited until literally the last days. They should have done it a lot sooner. But with all of that being said, we want to go through the process.
One thing I will say is that, as I understand it, Judge Kavanaugh spent quite a bit of time with Senator Feinstein, and it wasn't even brought up at that meeting. And she had this information. So you would have thought, certainly, that she would have brought it up at the meeting, not wait until everything is finished and then have to start a process all over again.
But with all of it being said, we want to go through a full process. I have great confidence in the U.S. Senate and in their procedures and what they're doing. And I think that's probably what they're going to do. They'll go through a process and hear everybody out.
I think it's important. I believe they think it's important. But again, he is one of the great intellects and one of the finest people that anybody has known. You look at his references; I've never seen anything quite like it.
So they'll go through that process and we'll get it done.
Q Should it be delayed?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't know. It depends on the process. I'd like to see a complete process. I'd like everybody to be very happy. Most importantly, I want the American people to be happy, because they're getting somebody that is great. I want him to go in at the absolute highest level. And I think to do that, you have to go through this. If it takes a little delay, it will take a little delay. It shouldn't certainly be very much.
But again, this is something that should have been brought up long before this. They had the information in July, as I understand it. That's a long time ago. And nobody mentioned it until the other day.
It's very - you know, it's very unfortunate that they didn't mention it sooner.
But with all of that being said, it will, I'm sure, work out very well. You're talking about an individual who is as high a quality individual as you'll ever see.
Q Have you spoken to him today? Have you spoken to him today? Have you spoken with Judge Kavanaugh?
THE PRESIDENT: I have not spoken to Judge Kavanaugh.
Q Do you know if he's offered to withdraw from the process? Has he offered to withdraw?
THE PRESIDENT: Next question. What a ridiculous question that was.
Q Do you think he has a path towards confirmation?
THE PRESIDENT: Say it?
Q Do you think his path towards confirmation is on track?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I think he's on track, yeah. I mean, I think he's very much on track. If they delay it a little bit just to make sure everybody is happy - they want to be happy.
I can tell you, the Republican senators want to be 100 percent happy themselves. They're doing it very, very professionally. Again, this should have been brought up a long time ago.
Thank you. Thank you very much everybody.
Q The $200 billion in tariffs, are you going to do all two-hundred?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, you're going to see on China today, right after close of business, we'll be announcing something. And it will be a lot of money coming into the coffers of the United States of America. A lot of money coming in. But you'll be seeing what we're doing right after close of business today - the markets closing. Thank you.
Q (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: You'll see. Thank you very much.
