Trump on Rising Debt Owned by Chinese

This is a rush transcript from "Your World With Neil Cavuto," April 8, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, ANCHOR: Meanwhile, the treasury secretary, well, he is in China today. The Donald is in an uproar over this — Tim Geithner meeting his Chinese counterpart. They’re trying to smooth things over with one of America’s biggest creditors by sort of realigning the Chinese currency, so we can compete favorably, yadda, yadda.

Anyway, Donald Trump is saying we’re looking like suckers and beggars here. He joins us on the phone right now.

Donald, you have been on top of this Chinese situation, I think, before really any prominent American executive. Your big worry is that they’re taking us to the cleaners, huh?

DONALD TRUMP, CEO, TRUMP HOTELS & CASINO RESORTS: Well, you have to understand, Neil, I know China. I know many of the people in China. I know many of the big business people. And they’re laughing at us. They think we’re stupid and our representatives are so stupid, that they can’t even believe what they’re getting away with.

They take our money. They suck it out of us. We charge them virtually no tax and no tax, and they loan it back to us. And then they have our treasury bills. And they say, oh, gee, we have to be afraid of China because they have our treasury bills.

It’s ridiculous. And, you know, again, the problem with our country is, we don’t manufacture anything anymore, I mean, very little. China is doing all — I just bid furniture out on a major project I’m doing, and I have six bids. Every bit of furniture is being made from China.

The one from America is more expensive because of all the other problems that have been caused by us. So, you know, if we...

CAVUTO: Well, why wouldn’t you give — even though it’s expensive, why wouldn’t you give the American company the job?

TRUMP: I did.

CAVUTO: You did? OK. All right.

TRUMP: I have to tell you, I did, because you know what? They actually make a much better product. I mean, the product is 100 percent better. The product, the stuff that’s been sent over from China is — it falls apart after a year-and-a-half. It’s crap.

CAVUTO: But I wondering...

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: I’m wondering — I always forget how frank you are.

But, Donald, I wonder what...

TRUMP: It’s more fun that way, right?

CAVUTO: It is, indeed.

But I’m wondering what the Chinese must be saying, even privately, to American politicians, who worry that they might pull out their support of buying T-bills and treasuries and the stuff that finances our debt.

Already now, China’s been retrenching a little bit. I think Japan is the country that now owns most of this stuff. So, maybe they’re threatening to make good on that.

TRUMP: Neil, we have all the power, because if we ever say we’re going to tax you 50 percent for all of the things that you sell to this country, you could pay off your treasury bills in a short period of time.

And, by the way, guess what would happen? People would start making things in North Carolina and Alabama and Illinois and lots of other places where they’re all unemployed. So, we have the power.

And the day that happens, the Chinese stop working and we put our people to work. It’s crazy. I mean, between OPEC and China, this country can never be great again, because OPEC just keeps lifting the price of oil as we get better. And then, ultimately — because I have a theory that OPEC really caused a lot of the problem that we had a year-and-a-half ago, because the oil price went to $150.

And when that was up at $150, that’s when you had — and not enough people giving credit for the oil price causing the problem. You know, they talk about mortgage. They say — and I’m not blaming those other things, but a big factor was our blood. And the blood was oil.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: So, between OPEC — between OPEC and China, every time we do something, I mean, we’re working in order to keep China — Chinese people working. What about our people? What about the people of this country?

CAVUTO: But what about our companies that generally don’t heed this sort of get-tough advice? I mean, maybe with the exception of Google that risks leaving and maybe still risks leaving the entire country, most don’t do that. Most...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: The thing is, we don’t need Chinese products. OK? We need oil, unfortunately, because there’s so many alternatives now that pretty much soon maybe that can change, if we’re smart. But we don’t need Chinese products.

And, frankly, they have taken advantages...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Let’s say you’re with Tim Geithner and his Chinese counterpart what, and you’re talking man-to-man there. What would you do if you were Tim?

TRUMP: The first thing I would do is, you better start worrying about currency, because what you’re doing is, with this cheap currency, you know what’s happening with us. OK? So, number one.

And they are manipulators. There’s no question about it, just the way they manipulated in the Olympics with their 13-year-old kids that weren’t supposed to be there, just like on their anthem sung by somebody that wasn’t singing, if you remember that mess.

CAVUTO: That’s right. I forgot about that.

TRUMP: You know, I mean, I deal with these people. I deal with this country so much. And I could tell you so many different things.

They’re laughing at our country. Now, what we should do is tax the Chinese, but tax them big and their products that come in. You won’t have any treasuries. You will have a country with tremendous — we will put our people back to work. And instead of letting all of this blood flow out our country, you will be putting our people back to work.

We don’t need Chinese products. We don’t need them to make the toys for our children. We can make them right here.

CAVUTO: All right, Donald Trump, good luck coming out of your shell. It seems to be working.

Very good seeing you again, my friend.

TRUMP: Thank you very much. So long now.

CAVUTO: Donald Trump.

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