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Trump Gaggles with Press On Air Force One, Apr. 6, 2025

April 6, 2025 · The White House · 0:15:44

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump gaggled with the press aboard Air Force One on Apr. 6, 2025, carried on the White House channel, in the first days after the reciprocal-tariff announcement. Asked about the Chinese foreign ministry’s remark that “the market has spoken,” the President answered with the trade deficit: with China it is a trillion dollars, as he stated it, and “unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal.” He said he was willing to deal, but China had to solve its surplus first.

The President said the tariffs already in place would bring in over a trillion dollars and that companies were already relocating — furniture makers returning to North Carolina and car companies building in Indiana, as he described it. Asked whether there was a level of market pain he would not tolerate, he said he did not want anything to go down, “but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.” He said Europe had also treated the United States very badly and was coming to the table, that a near-deal on TikTok had stalled after China changed its position over the tariffs, that talks with Russia were continuing and he wanted the bombing to stop, and that he fully supported former Governor Chris Sununu running for the open New Hampshire Senate seat.

Why it matters

This gaggle is the President’s own first defense of the tariff program in its first market test, stated as a condition rather than a negotiation: no China deal without the surplus solved. It sets the terms against which every later trade announcement in the chronicle is measured.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the President’s stated conditions — no China deal until the surplus is solved, and tariff revenue of over a trillion dollars as he projected it — are the benchmarks his trade record will be checked against.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Gaggles with Press On Air Force One, Apr. 6, 2025” (YouTube, Apr. 7, 2025) — official description and broadcast transcript as aired.