Trump on Trade: I’d Much Rather Have Henry Kravis or Carl Icahn than Caroline Kennedy
CUOMO: “All right. Let me go back –“
TRUMP: “And interestingly, Carl Icahn agrees with me. And Carl Icahn, you know, is a great negotiator and I have many other great negotiators and they are dying to get involved.”
CUOMO: “But you wouldn’t really put him in-charge of China?”
TRUMP: “I would absolutely.”
CUOMO: “In-charge of China?”
TRUMP: “Can I tell you what –“
CUOMO: “Please, because you know what makes people think -- it’s like –“
TRUMP: “-- in-charge of China.
CUOMO: “This is not a business, it’s a whole political governmental thing.”
TRUMP: “No, no, no. It’s a business too. Hey, you can come up with me in this building you’ll see the largest bank in the world from China is in this — I have a great relationship with China just like I do with Mexico.”
CUOMO: “Right. But don’t we need diplomacy in all of the policy –“
TRUMP: “No. We have diplomacy now. They’re killing us and they don’t even like us. So we have diplomacy. So we’re diplomatic. They don’t like us and they’re beating us. With me, they’ll like us and we’ll beat them. OK?”
CUOMO: “The –“
TRUMP: “You know, how do I have the biggest bank as my tenant? I mean they’re tenants and I have them in order branch. China — I sell tremendous numbers of units, apartments to people from China. They love me. A Business Weekend story, ‘What are the 10 things that the Chinese most want?’ One of the 10 things was anything Trump. And I say, ‘Really is that right?’ They respect the truth. They understand they’re ripping us off. I take a guy like Carl Icahn, you take Henry Kravis, you take so many of the guys that I know, and you say, ‘You know what? I’d like you to watch over the deals that are being made with China because we’re getting killed on trade.’ Believe me, we will be so good. You should get a guy like Carl on, very smart, great negotiator. We will be so good.”
CUOMO: “Do you think he’ll take a job like that?”
TRUMP: “He’ll do it in two seconds. He’s already told me he’d love to do it.”
CUOMO: “To oversee China?”
TRUMP: “Oversee the trade deal.”
CUOMO: “The trade deal?”
TRUMP: “Oversee the trade deals in China.”
CUOMO: “Right.”
TRUMP: “In fact, I’d give him China, I’d give him Japan. He can handle both of them believe me. But I have others. These are the greatest -- we have the smartest, the greatest negotiators in the world. We have the greatest business people in the world. We don’t use them. We use people like -- I mean she’s a very nice person -- my daughter likes her -- Ivanka loves her a lot so she has to do wonderful -- Caroline Kennedy. In Japan, she didn’t even know how she got the job. I watched in ‘60 Minutes,’ she said -- I asked her the job. ‘They gave me the job.’ They said, would you like to be ambassador to Japan? I said, ‘Really? Really?’”
CUOMO: “Sure.”
TRUMP: “And you know, the ambassador to Japan has a big role in trade.”
CUOMO: “Sure.”
TRUMP: “I would rather much have Henry Kravis. I would much rather have Carl Icahn. I would much rather have other people doing it. An you know what? We’ll come out great. Hey, Chris, I was in Los Angeles. And I saw ships coming in from Japan -- the biggest ships I’ve ever seen loaded up with cars -- thousands of cars. They’re pouring off the ships.”
CUOMO: “Because they’re cheaper.”
TRUMP: “Wait a minute. They’re pouring off the ships, you know, we send them? Beef. And they don’t want it because they say, ‘We don’t want it.’ And we send them wheat, they don’t want it. And you know, what the imbalance is between these over the years millions of cars and the little stuff we send them? It’s massive. We’ve got to equalize it.”
