unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington dc and around the country. c-span is brought to you by are -- your cable or satellite provider. coming up in 20 minutes of discussion on president trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and the impact it might have on trade, jobs and the economy. life here on c-span. here is the scene yesterday from the roosevelt room in the white house from when president trump made the announcement.

president trump: thank you everybody. i wanted to be here with our steel and aluminum workers, you are truly the backbone of america. you know that during you are very special people. and people closely related to you for a long time. i want to thank you. i also want to thank secretary mnuchin, ambassador lighthizer, pence, theyss, mike have worked so hard on getting it done that people are starting to realize how important it is. steel and protect our aluminum industries, that

showing flexibility and cooperation toward those who are really friends of ours, both on a trade basis and a military basis. aluminumsteel and industry are final to our industry. if you don't have steel you don't have a country. our industries have been targeted for years and years, decades, in fact, by unfair trade practices leading to the sheltered plants, the layoff of millions of workers and the decimation of entire communities. that is going to stop. not an economic disaster, but a security disaster. we want to build our ships, our planes, our military equipment was seized, aluminum from our country.

now we are taking action to correct this long overdue is a travesty. today i am defending america's national security by placing jobs and foreign imports of steel and aluminum. a 25% tariff on foreign steel, and a 10% tariff on foreign aluminum. when the product crosses our borders. the process is called dumping, and they don't more than any time and any nation anywhere in the world and they drove our plants out of business and our factories out of business. want a lot of still coming into our country, but we want it to be fair and we want our workers to be protected. and we want our cup -- companies

to be protected. we will not place any new tax on product made in the usa. no tax is the product is made in the usa. bring your plants to the u.s., there is no tax. we will benefit from the massive tax cuts that we have in place. taxave passed the largest cut plan in the country's history. that has caused tremendous success between that and regulation cutting. every bit astting much, and we have a long way to go on regulation. companies to all buy american. i am takinghat today follows a nine-month investigation by the department ,f commerce, secretary ross documenting a growing crisis in our steel and aluminum production that threatens the

security of our nation, and also is bad for us economically and jobs. the american steel aluminum industry has been ravaged by aggressive foreign trade practices. it is an assault on our country. they know better than anybody. other countries have added production capacity that far exceeds the demand. this has left the world with subsidized and are by foreign governments, creating jobs for their country. i have been talking about this for a long time. it takes china about one month to produce as much steel as they produce in the united states in an entire year. because we have close down so much capacity. plants are closed all over the

united states and some plants i see massive plants from 40 years ago and they are working now in a little corner of the building. we will get those buildings open and and producing again. it will be a great thing for our country. this is only the first step. aluminum imports account for 90% of the primary american demand. only two thirds of american ross steel companies have run out of business, more than one third have disappeared, six primary aluminum smokers have permanently shut down since just 2012, the actions we are taking today are not a matter of choice . they are a matter of necessity for our security. there already seeing national security benefits of

this order. yesterday, in anticipation that we would be here today, u.s. steel announced it is reopening a mill and illinois and recalling 500 workers immediately. that is going on all over the country. panels, on with solar which we did three months ago, and washing machines, where they were dumping washing machines all over our country, now they are expanding plants to make washing machines. a skilled trained workforce and steel is a crucial element of america's national security and must be protected. after the signing of this aluminumion, century in kentucky will be investing over $100 million to restart and upgrade their military grade high quality aluminum production

, which is also critically important to our national security. that is 150,000 additional tons of aluminum. plan.s a closed now they are doing 150,000 tons. and an additional 300 workers and ultimately many more hired in the great state of kentucky. of sometimes $90,000 per worker, our greatest presidents all understood from washington to leak in -- lincoln and jackson, that america must have a strong, vibrant and independent manufacturing base. president mckinley, who felt their -- strongly, the country is very successful. we upgraded out of --, if you can believe it. the protective policy of the republicans he said, has made

the lives of masses of our countrymen sweeter and brighter and brighter and brighter. it is the best for our citizenship and our civilization and it opens up a higher and better destiny for our people. admit theicians decline of our once proud -- no one took action. all of our politicians saw what was happening. i have seen it for 25 years i have been talking about it. , butabout japan and china the politicians never did anything about it. now they are. our factories, were left to rot all over the place. thriving communities turned into ghost towns. not any longer. the workers sued by poor there souls into building this nation were betrayed but that betrayal

is now over. i'm delivering on a promise i made during the campaign, i have been making it for a good part of my life. this,r thought i would do i said let's run for president and look what happened. part of the reason it happened is you. and my message. having to do with you. military, the wall, the border. this was one of the most important messages. my most important job is to keep american people safe, as you know we just had approved a $700 billion military budget, the largest ever. next year, it means not only safety but jobs. it also means the use of steel from our country. at the same goals can be accomplished by other means,

american will remain open to modifying or removing the tariffs for individual nations as long as we can agree on a way to ensure that their products no longer threatened our security. ambassador lighthizer in charge of negotiating with countries that seek an alternative to the steel tariffs. -- we haven treating been treated so badly over the years by other countries, i think we have been treated badly by our politicians, presidents come out by people that represented us that didn't frankly know what they were doing. $800 billion a year on trade. billion.r, 800 it has been going on for a long time. billion and it0

keeps going. it has to change. we are negotiating now china, we are in a bit -- myths of a big negotiation. i don't know if anything will come of it. we are going to cut down the deficits one way or another. we have a deficit of at least $500 billion. when you added to intellectual property it is much more than that. at the same time, due to the unique nature of our relationship with canada and mexico, we are negotiating right now. we will hold off the tariff on most two countries to see whether or not we will be able to make a deal on nafta. idea.al security is a big

deal, on't make the nafta and if we terminate nafta because they are unable to make a deal which is fair for our workers and farmers. we love our farmers. nafta and wenate will start all over again, or we will do it a different way. we will terminate nafta, and that will be it. i have a feeling we will make a deal on nafta. we will make a deal or we will terminate. if we do there will not be any terrified canada and mexico. one of the countries we're dealing with, great partners great military allies, we will be looking at that very strongly. it will go effective for another 15 days. who isgoing to see

treating us fairly and who is not treating us fairly. who is spending the bills, who is not paying the bills. we subsidize many rich countries with our military. they are massively wealthy countries. we have to stop that. that will enter into the equation as well. that came in from elon musk, who is using our wonderful space facilities and ago. great job three weeks he said for example, an american 25%going to china pays import duty. coming to thecar united states only pays 2.5%. a tenfold difference. an american car going to china -- think of that. pays 25% import duty.

there, pay car over 25%. they send their car over here, 2.5%. that is from a loan. -- elon. it has to change. we are doing a reciprocal tax program at some point. if china will charge us 25% or india charging a 75%, then we charge nothing, they are at 15 or 75 or 25 we will be the same numbers. called reciprocal. they charge us 50 we will charge than 50. so that's called a reciprocal tax, a mirror tax. the first year we have set the doge, a lot of it had to with structurally we had to go through surgery procedures.

-- certain sieges. american companies have not been treated fairly. some american companies have taken advantage and going to other countries and developed in automobileive plants, taking our jobs away and our companies down to mexico and then send them across the border. without tax, without anything. we lose the job, they make the cars, they get the benefits and then they sell the cars back in the united states. .e are changing things we will have a lot of great relationships. i think companies will be very happy. i think countries will be happy when we show great flexibility. many of the countries that treat us the worst on trade and military are our allies, as we

like to call them. we just want fairness. we just want fairness. we want everything to be reciprocal, and i think in the end we will have a lot of great jobs, great companies all coming back into our country. chrysler announced they are leaving mexico and are coming back into michigan with a big plant. we have not seen that in a long time. because i sort of grew up with this group of people, i know a lot about the steel industry, about the industry for olympian. i thought maybe a few of you might want to say a couple of words. only 25 million people watching. don't worry about it. come on up. stevens ands dusty i work in kentucky.

running on 40%e capacity. two years ago, we shut down 60% of capacity when we had a downturn in the market. my father worked at those plants for 40 years so this is home. these tariffs going into place, this gives us the ability to come back to 100% capacity and investing over $100 million to our plant and over 300 and some odd jobs brought back to the communities. i would like to say thank you very much. [applause] steel isality of our really much higher, a much better quality, especially for susan things is very important. scott i amis president of local 2237.

i would like to tell you a story about my father during the 1980's, he lost his job due to imports coming into the country. you -- tellto tell you what that does to a man with six kids is devastating. i never forgot that, looking into his eyes and what that does to a family. you hear about it but when you are involved in it impacts you, it will never leave you. , your storying said thenot and, not for all people that i represent. i never want to see it happen again. for these workers i appreciate the opportunity and i am humbled with this. it is very important to us. i never want to see it happen again. i thank you for the opportunity. >> your father hermann is

looking down and he is very proud of it. oh he is? anybody else, please come on out. davis, justs ron myted to say that in 2009 plant supplied the majority of armor for the humvees. it is said to say because of all the imports coming in our plant will be idled in september. at one time our plant had 400 members, right now we have 71. these terrorists -- tariffs will have an impact. thank you very much. anybody else?

you are going to be very happy. you will see things changing very rapidly. it is really my honor to start this process. it will be a very fair process, very fair to other countries especially if they treat us well. we look forward to it and we look forward to having lots of mills and plants opening up, both steel and aluminum and other things. we will be doing other things, positive things. you are great people. would you like to take a picture in the oval office? let's go and do that. we will go into the oval office and set this up. thank you. [applause]

president trump: about time, right? thank you. [applause] mike, get appear, my. -- gives up here.

we can take a picture in the oval office, right? thank you very much, everybody. thank you. trade shipping frankly is a big deal. china is that 2% but it sends much more. relationshipat with china but we have to do something. it will cost a lot of money. thank you very much, everybody.

on this friday afternoon we are live at the heritage foundation for a discussion on the possible impact for tariffs on steel and aluminum. life here on c-span. a process for other countries to seek resumption turkey process that will be determined. i think that the first thing to mention here could set the stage -- the continuing messages here at the heritage adopts the issue.