President Trump Participates in a Bilateral Meeting with the Prime Minister of the Republic of Iraq 1080p

The President Well, thank you very much. We've had already a good meeting. We're going to decide to do a little lunch. It wasn't scheduled, but we are going to do it on the fly because we have a tremendous chemistry together. The Prime Minister of Iraq has been amazing. He won an election that a lot of people didn't anticipate could be won by anybody else other than another person who was not, in my opinion, a good person. Not good for America. I don't think good for Iraq. And I played a role. And I mean, it was very important to me to have somebody get in there that can do the job and do it well. And we have a fantastic champion, a new champion. And he won the election very soundly, very conclusively, and he wasn't favored. But by the time they got to know him, he ended up winning. And he's going to be there for a long time. So, I just want to say it's a great honor to have the Prime Minister of Iraq with us. He's been a great fighter and he's been a great fan of America. We will be discussing that a little bit with you. But they have tremendous oil reserves, they have tremendous potential wealth, and they have tremendous wealth, not only potential. But he's done a fair in a short period of time. He's changed that country so much, especially toward their thinking about the United States. And we have partnerships. Chris was just saying we have tremendous oil partnerships all of a sudden being formed over the last short period of time. And I guess you're going to be announcing them this week or next week. But massive, though, among the largest. So, they have they have done a fantastic job over the last short period, a very short period of time. But they have a great leader, the new Prime Minister. He's a great leader. I think he's going to be there for a long period of time. And it's great to have you at the White House. Thank you very much. He's a young man. He's young and he's handsome, which I don't like. I'm not happy about it. Thank you very much. We had a good meeting, and I invited him to lunch. And that wasn't part of the program and the schedule that we agreed on. But there is a great chemistry between us and them. The Prime Minister is doing a great job. I didn't expect anyone to win in these elections. But the opposing candidate was someone I didn't like. And I didn't have a good opinion of America. But it was very important for me that you win in these elections. And you're doing a great job. And now we have a new winner. His chances weren't great, but he still succeeded in these elections. It is a great honor for me to host the State of the Prime Minister here at the White House. He is a great fighter. He is also a big fan of America and the United States. Iraq is a rich country. It has a lot of oil reserves. It is a country full of wealth. And in a short time, you were able to do a lot. And at least change the feelings of the Iraqis towards America. And as Chris said, the Minister of Oil, and he pointed out that there are big trade deals in the field of oil, which will be announced this week. You are doing a great job, and you have done a great job in a short time. The Prime Minister is also a great leader, and I think you will serve in this position for a long time. Of course, you are young and handsome, and of course they don't like that. But nevertheless, we are honored to have your friend here. Please, Mr. Prime Minister. Thank you for the warm welcome by His Excellency President Trump. This is my first visit to the United States of America. This visit was not just like any visit. Rather, it's an announcement of economic partnership. Before I talk to His Excellency, by the 30th of September, the U.S. forces will be out of Iraq, while U.S. companies will be inside Iraq. While the social relations is about like economy, it's not about like military relations. I will convey my greetings from the oldest civilization in the world to the biggest economic and technology heart in the world, and I will express my thanks to His Excellency, the President, for the warm welcome. Thank you very much. Who you with? Okay. Well, we don't think we need the military there anymore. It's a very big operation, and what we do have is the oil companies are all going in now, and they're doing partnerships with Iraq, and they're getting along very well. The relationship is a whole big relationship where we don't need the military there. We're there to help them. We're there to protect them, if need be. But we don't think that's going to be necessary. And their primary, I consider, an opponent. They might have considered a friend, but I consider that an opponent was Iran, was a big burden on Iraq because they were the bully of the Middle East, as you know. And we were just talking about that, but they're not going to have that problem anymore because Iran has been very much destabilized. And really, their military power is just a tiny fraction of what it was just four months ago. So they're not going to have that problem. I think it's really, in a sense, it's given them freedom to do what they have to do. And I think that's one of the reasons that our oil companies are going in there at levels that have never been seen before. So it's pretty good. You want to answer the question? Thank you for your question. According to the program of the government, it's to restrict the position of weapons to the state. And this is a basic point. And this is like a decision. It's not an option. We received weapons by different factions. And he, whoever surrendered his weapon, turned into like a political civilian. We will cooperate with them. After the 30th of September, there's no need for the presence of any faction because factions is a need. It's not a profession. And there's no justification for their existence after the 30th of September. So hopefully by the end of this year or by the beginning of the next year, we will announce the sovereignty conference is the biggest conference in the region. The Iraqi decision is by the hand of the Iraqis only. And our security forces are capable of protecting their borders. So after the 30th of September, we will never accept for any entity to carry weapons outside the control of the state. Thank you. Thank you, President Trump. I have two questions. I was wondering if you could explain your changing thinking on the Strait of Hormuz, applying a 20% reduction on the oil. How did you get to the decision you just announced? So when I put that out yesterday, we've been doing that for many, many years. It was never fair to me that we would be guarding the Strait when we basically don't take anything. We don't need the oil at all. And it wasn't important for us, but it was important for allies. It was important for people that we get along with very well, including the major Gulf state countries. So I put it out yesterday. I thought it was good. I was called by different people, different countries, kings and amirs and all of the people that we all know and we all love. And they've been frankly, they've been very strong partners. And they said, we'd love to do it a different way. We'd love to invest in the United States with billions and billions of dollars and continue our record setting because we would. There's never been a time like this with the United States, with the factories, with the plants, with everything else. And we would like to invest tremendously in the United States as opposed to charging a fee. And I like that, actually, because I don't think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the for the Strait or for any other straight relationship in terms of other sections of the world. I don't think anybody should be really in that position. But we were doing it as a reimbursement. The Gulf states are going to invest a tremendous amount of money into the United States. And that was very satisfactory to me. I think it's actually much better. I could also ask, are you aware of why the FBI is looking into Senator Graham's death? Have you gotten any updates on why they were at his home? Well, I don't know why, because I think, you know, he had a problem. His father had a very similar problem, as you know. It's very unique. At first, I heard it was clogged arteries because he did have clogged arteries. He had a problem with that. I wish he took better care of himself. I say, you can see, you know, you can solve that problem. But what happened is actually something that's very hard to detect. It was not related to the any blockage. It was a totally different thing. And supposedly, and I've watched all the medical reports, I've had the doctors from the White House come in and explain what happened. And this is something that is very almost undetectable. And if it happens, there's not much you can do about it. Sounds unfortunate, but there's not much you can do about it. If you look at his, his father died of the same thing at about the same age. So there was not much. They say it's almost undetectable. You can detect it by if you have a very bad back. That's a sign. It's a bad sign. So if anybody has a bad back, it's a pretty rough thing to think about. But the fact that it's one of the primary signs. And he would tell me he had a bad back. But little did anyone realize it was for that. So and when that bursts, which it did, it burst. There's not much. So I don't see a lot of evil there. I don't. I know there's all sorts of conspiracy theories going along. And I don't think the FBI. I think the FBI is wasting their time and they're doing it. Yeah, sir. On the prior question, the important straight whole idea for you that that's dead now. No, I just told you, you have Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, primarily, and then others. They I spoke to all of them and they would love to invest more money in the United States at record amounts. And that would be very acceptable. And this way, there's no fee. I don't like the concept of a fee. But at the same time, it's not fair that we're protecting this straight for the entire world, for China and everyone. I don't mind protecting it for China. I don't mind protecting it for anybody. But it's unfair that we're not in somehow compensated. And we've been doing this for many years. It's bothered me. Twenty five years ago, it bothered me during my first term. I was doing things like you have to invest in the United States. And but by doing it that way, there's no fee. They're investing and they're getting a return on their money. And it's good. But they're going to be making massive investments into the United States. And I like that much better. Reporting that Iraq pushing for changes to OPEC, a larger share, even that they might consider leaving. You know, the gentleman, right, because here he is. Would you like to know about are you? Are you considering, Mr. Prime Minister, leaving OPEC? Are you pushing for changes in Mr. President? Would you support? Well, I support him. You know, I supported him very early in the I endorsed him, something I rarely do. But I've had great success. It's endorsing. You know, we just had Colombia, which was a big one. Argentina was a big one. We had many I've endorsed. I think everybody I've endorsed from a foreign standpoint. They just win. And, you know, I've been hearing great things. I am a student of a lot of history, and I do know a lot about the history of Iraq. And I've watched what was happening in Iraq with the elections. And I put a very strong endorsement out because I was very unhappy with the man that was supposed to win the election. And this great gentleman, I think he's going to end up being a great leader. He won. So I'm very happy about that. As far as OPEC, that's his decision. And you might ask him that question. No, sir. We are one of the countries that established OPEC. However, we need, like, a fair share for Iraq. Iraq fought ISIS and terrorism and all in support of the United States of America. And this fight with ISIS will cost us, like, huge amounts of money and destroy the Iraqi infrastructure. The damage that really was against Iraq is more than $400 billion. And so today, like, some Iraqi cities are totally destroyed. And they're like living camps. And I have a plan to get them back to their homes. We need a fair share. I might just answer, because if you remember, even though I was a civilian and had no thought of running for President, I get a disproportionate amount of publicity, as you probably heard. And I used to say, don't go into Iraq. Don't attack Iraq. Frankly, they attacked the wrong country. And they did a lot of damage. The Press Thank you. Given how the Iranians have been behaving, do you have any thoughts about lifting the Mabel blockade or giving the sanctions waivers? No. I gave them a chance. I wanted to give them a chance at making a deal. You know, we had a deal two days ago. It was done. And then, all of a sudden, they couldn't do it. They didn't like something about the deal. They couldn't do it. And they shot first. And that was a big mistake that they shot first, because we have been knocking the hell out of them. They're very difficult people. Forty-seven years we put up with it. The SS call. You go back all the way. Thousands of people. Thousands of Americans were killed. A lot of soldiers were killed. A lot of soldiers are walking around or not walking around. I mean, they've been so badly injured. The arms, the legs, the face. With the Soleimani, with the bomb, they call it the roadside bomb. Most people call it the roadside bomb. It's a disaster. And I killed him in my first administration. Had I not, it might be a different story today. He was a mad genius. He was a mad — probably a mad man, but he was a general, and he had total control over the country. And I actually think the leaders of Iran were afraid of Soleimani. But I killed him. And, by the way, with him went a very bad person also. They happened to be meeting each other at the airport. And a very bad person from Iraq happened to be a leader of Iraq happened to be killed in that same incident. So I don't know if I did you a favor or not. I've never asked you that question. You probably would know better than me. But, no, I think — I think that — I think that what we've done to Iran is we've taken away all of their — almost all of their military capability. Go ahead. You — explain it. Explain it. All that — he has to hear that. Go ahead. At that time, I was not in politics. In my visit, like, I'd like to talk about the future. Now, like, we are fed up with the past. Thank you for your time. Last year, in May, the Prime Minister of Kurdistan Region, Massoud Barzani, signed about $110 billion in energy deals with U.S. companies here in Washington, D.C. Mr. President, if Baghdad and Erbil work together better, that investment could grow, grow, grow. What is your message and advice to the leaders in Baghdad and Erbil to work together? Why I'm asking this question? Because you are our miracle makers, Mr. President. Thank you. I love this question. It's my favorite question so far, by far. Thank you very much for the question. Look, Baghdad, I think, and I, and this country, we're going to make some tremendous music together. We haven't been dealing very much over the last four or five years with the previous administration. Iraq has tremendous potential because of their oil, and because of other things, but because of their oil. And we're going to be doing a lot of deals. We're going to create a lot of jobs for both countries. And we're going to be taking out a lot of oil. A lot of oil is coming out, and the American companies are doing it. Mostly American companies now. They don't want to do business with others. They want to do business with America, and that's good. And that's one of the reasons that I felt so strongly that this was going to be a great Prime Minister. And I fought for that. Go ahead. The Press How would you describe your relationship with Kurdistan Regional Government at this time? Because Prime Minister yesterday had a statement on fully support you. I look at Iraq as a body, and each part of Iraq is part of my own body. So I would never distinguish between two, any organ. And I cannot cut off any part of any organ from my own body. Kurdistan is such an important part of Iraq. It's no different than Basra and other provinces. But because such nice things were said about him, that means he likes the man that said those nice things. The Press Thank you so much, Mr. President. I have a question for you, and a question for the Prime Minister. Go ahead. For the first question, Mr. Prime Minister, why did you choose the United States as your first trade partner? And what steps, concrete steps, do you take when you go back to Iraq to make sure that the agreements you are reaching in Washington, D.C., implement? Prime Minister al-Baghdadi I inherited such a heavy burden, country. I, as I have a master's degree in finance, I analyze the economic situation of the country. With this burden, I need such a strategic partner to really lift this burden. And the most important strategic partner in the world is the United States of America. It wasn't just like any visit or I came out of the So it's not emotional. It's about mind. Yeah. Thank you. I think so. I think it's going to inflation's down. We inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country. They say 48 years. It was the worst in the history of our country from Biden. Sleepy Joe. He might have been sleepy, but boy, he could create inflation like nobody. And I inherited that and I got blamed for it. And it's not my fault. We are we are putting it to sleep. And we've done a great job. Scott and Howard and Marco and even Pete, because he's watching his dollars. Right. But they've done a fantastic job. We've all done a fantastic job. So we had the worst inflation in history and the history of our country. I mean, we had months where it was nine and 10 percent. And now we have a report just came out. It was just released. And thank you for bringing it up. But the report was incredible. Inflation is way down. That means prices are coming way down and we're doing a great job. Remember that. Remember that for the midterms. I say to that camera, remember that because nobody else could do it. Prices are way down. Prices are coming way down. And we're going to bring them much lower yet. Well, I'd rather save it. It will concern that subject. And we'll have a couple of other things to say. But I'd rather save it. But it's really big news. It's really, really big news. And our country has to shape up. But that's what we're going to be talking about Thursday is it doesn't get bigger because without free and fair elections, you don't have a country. We'll be discussing other things, too. But but it's going to be a very big announcement. Mr. President, your administration pushed hard to shape Iraq's leadership and tied U.S. support to disarming Iran-backed factions. With the September 15th deadline weeks away, what happened in the Baghdad incident and does the U.S. troops withdrawal from Kyrgyzstan, would you still consider it unscheduled? I think everything's unscheduled. We have a great. Here we are. I mean, we're right now. I even called for a lunch. It was unscheduled. Okay, so in that way. But now we usually we I don't think I've ever done that where we didn't have lunch. I said, let's have lunch. You know why? Because I like I like him. So I think I think that's all going to work out very well. Yeah, sir. You know, this Russia sanctions bill signed within the next week or two. And will you sign? Well, I know that Lindsey wanted it very badly. I think they may be adding Iran to it. They're going to add Iran, which is a very big thing. If they did that, they may add Hezbollah to just put maybe you do business with Hezbollah. So we're looking at that. But they're seriously thinking. And this is in honor of Lindsey. This was his thing. He wanted this more than any other thing. You know, you know how he felt. And there's a good chance that it gets done. But they'd like to add Iran and they'd like to add Hezbollah to it. That's what I'm hearing. And if that means secondary sanctions on China, India, we'll have to look. That hasn't been discussed. The Press The question is, are you the Prime Minister, but you say he has not a campaign to break with his held by Malaysia and the United States. How does your administration support him to accomplish his vision? And my second question, how do you envision the future relations between Kurdistan region and Iran? I think everything is going to work out. I think people are the Middle East, believe it or not, is coming together. We're getting rid of the bully of the Middle East. Iran was the bully of the Middle East. They bullied Iraq. They bullied every country. There were they there was fear all over the Middle East with other countries. I understand that. But there was fear. But there's no fear anymore because their military capability has been knocked to hell. And there's no fear. I think the Middle East is coming together like it's never come together before. You can't have a dominant factor like Iran that would kill 52,000 protesters. You know, they kill. Nobody likes talking about that. I don't like talking about it. They killed 52,000 protesters. So the bottom line, all regions, I believe, are coming together. And I think it's going to be this is going to be one of the great leaders right here. It's going to be one of the great leaders in the Middle East. Go ahead, please. Just explain that. And I think I think we can go into this for a long time. And the bottom line is that we have a fantastic relationship with many countries now. We just had a I just came back from NATO. Many of you were there and you saw how that worked out. It was a phenomenal it was a love fest, to be honest. And they love the United States. They even like me, but they love the United States. And we're going to cut costs there by hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe. But the NATO event was incredible. Today's event is incredible. This is a potentially really great country. And many people would say it's a great country. We're helping it. We want to help it. We have a fantastic relationship with the new prime minister. He's a strong person. He's a very brilliant guy. Very much acknowledged. Or he couldn't have won that election. That was a highly competitive election. And he went out and won. And it's a big story. I mean, it's a big, big story. And I just want to say that the United States has never done better. We're doing well. You know, more people are working today in the United States than at any time in history. We have more things being built. Factories, plants, A.I., automobile plants are being built at record numbers, more than we've ever had ever before. The tariffs have been used very judiciously and properly, and companies are pouring in and countries are pouring into this country to build factories because when they build them, they have no tariffs. And we have numbers 19.2 trillion dollars. As an example, under Biden, it was less than 1 trillion for four years. We're at 19.2 trillion for 12 months. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. Our relationship with Iraq is, I would say, it went from being not so good to being outstanding. And we're going to have a long-term relationship with Iraq. We're going to have a long-term relationship with a man that will be a great leader. You mark my words. I knew what I was doing. This man is going to be a great leader in the Middle East, beyond Iraq. His influence is going to spread all throughout the Middle East. And we're very happy about it. And we are very happy to have you with us. Thank you very much. Mr. President, I don't think there's anything much else you can ask us. This is a very important meeting. It's something I've never done before. No lunch was scheduled. I said, let's have lunch. I've never done that before. Sometimes we'll have a lunch scheduled. But I've never done this. Right, Suzy? This is a first. So I have no idea what we're going to be eating, but it'll be fine. But we're doing it because we like the people that we're with. Thank you very much.