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| U.S. President Donald Trump attends a joint press conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on June 30. AFP |
Following is the full text of U.S. President Donald Trump's statement and answers to questions during the joint news conference with President Moon Jae-in. – E.D.
I'm just going to make a short statement, because we are going to the DMZ border and I'll be meeting with Chairman Kim. I look forward to it very much. I look forward to seeing him. We have developed a good relationship. And we understand each other. I do believe that he understands me and I think I maybe understand him. Sometimes it leads to good things. I want to start by thanking President Moon and, very importantly, first lady Moon. She's a very special woman, a very special spirit. We had a very great dinner last night. Spent a large part of the morning discussing lots of different things, including trade and military, frankly, and many other items.
I would just mention that our great ambassador was talking about the turmoil going on. Because of the level of vitriol that was happening between North and South. But it was the North to a large extent, where there was a lot of risk, threat and a lot of bad things happening. That was before I became the president.
At the beginning, there was a lot of anger between myself and Kim Jong-un, but since, something happened. There was a point at which it happened and all of the sudden we got along. And I figured when I was in Japan, where they hosted a fantastic G20. And I just want to thank Prime Minister Abe. They did a fantastic job and a lot of good things came out of that, I can tell you, from the standpoint of the U.S.
But we decided to come here a while ago as part of going to the G20. I promised President Moon. And then yesterday I was thinking, "Hey, I'm here. Let's see whether or not if I can say hi to Kim Jong-un." And I put out the word and he got back. He wanted to do it from the beginning and so did I. But there's a lot of good feeling. When sometimes the media will say "Gee. What happened?" What's happened is there was nuclear testing, ballistic and missile testing; they had a hostage of ours, very tough situation. Now we're getting back our remains. We got our hostages back. There has been no ballistic missile test and no nuclear test. South Korea is a whole different place. And Japan. Prime Minister Abe was telling me that Japan is a whole different place. They had missiles going over Japan on a very constant basis. So I hate to hear the media give false information to the public.
There's also a good feeling. I can talk on behalf of President Moon. He feels much better about even Chairman Kim.
President Obama wanted to meet Kim and Chairman Kim would not meet him. And for some reason we have certain chemistry. I'm in no rush, sanctions are on. I'm never in a rush. I just want to say that we'll be heading out to DMZ. Something I planned long ago. But I had the idea yesterday. Just shake hands quickly and say hello. We haven't seen each other since Vietnam. We had a great meeting in Vietnam. People don't realize that. It's all part of the whole negotiation. We actually had a great meeting in Singapore and Vietnam. Meeting in Vietnam in terms of the deal was more important. We have tremendous military here. We're going to see some great U.S. military and Chairman Kim Jong-un.
Q. How about the possibility of the third U.S.-North Korea summit happening before the end of the year.
A: It's just a step, might be important or might not be important; probably a step in the right direction. Let's see what happens today before we think anything else.
Q. Why do you want to step into North Korea? What do you think that handshake could accomplish? Why does Kim deserve this moment?
A: We made tremendous strides; if you look again where we were two years ago. I would say that if President Obama's term was for some reason extended through any method, including having a successor that thought the way that administration thought, you would be in a war with North Korea.
We have the greatest military by far. We bought tremendous equipment, from jets to ships and equipment for soldiers. We are in a much different place than two and a half years ago. We are so far in advance than two and a half years ago.
We're doing well. As far as where we are with China, we are where we are. We're collecting 25 percent on $250 billion. China devalued their currency to pay for the tariffs and in addition to devaluing, they've also pumped a lot of money into economic models. We've been raising interest rates, they've been lowering interest rates. We're not playing on the fair field. The fed has not been a help to us at all. Despite that, we're winning and we're winning big because we've created the economy, second to, if not, the greatest in the world.
Just to complete, you have to value the stock market from the day after I won. There was a tremendous surge after I won, because of the fact that I won. If I hadn't won after the election, you would've had a tremendous decrease in the stock market. I noticed that the previous administration is given credit for thousands of points of gain right after the election. No, it went up because I won and will take the credit. We've increased the stock market more than 50 percent. It went up only because I won.
