During a press conference in the Rose Garden Tuesday night, President Trump announced the signing of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act and an executive order punishing the Chinese Communist Party for their "oppressive actions" against the previously autonomous region.
"The Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which I signed this afternoon, passed unanimously through Congress. This law gives my administration powerful new tools to hold responsible the individuals and the entities involved in extinguishing Hong Kong's freedom," Trump said. "We've all watched what happened. Not a good situation. Their freedom has been taken away. Their rights have been taken away. And with it, goes Hong Kong, in my opinion, because it will no longer be able to compete with free markets."
"A lot of people will be leaving Hong Kong, I suspect. And we're going to do a lot more business because of it, because we just lost one competitor. That's the way it is. We lost a very, very serious competitor. A competitor that we incentivized to take a lot of business and do well," he continued.
But President Trump doesn't plan on stopping there, especially after China unleashed Wuhan coronavirus on the world.
During an exclusive interview with Townhall earlier in the day, Trump said something "very strong" is coming to further entice American companies to manufacture products outside of China, either in the United States or friendlier countries.
"You'll see over the next few weeks I'm doing something that is extremely bold. You'll see. I think you'll be extremely impressed by it. I've been fighting this with China for a long time. You had the globalists, they want to make everything in China. We can make our pencils here," he said. "I'm very upset with China, I think what China did is a disgrace."
"Whether they knew it or not I won't get into that but one thing, they knew it well enough that it didn't get into the rest of China but it did get out to the rest of the world including Europe and the U.S. then they tried to blame it on Europe, then they tried to blame it on American soldiers, they did everything," Trump said. "It's the China virus, whether you like it or not, it's the China virus...I am very angry with China."
During the interview, the President also reacted to China's new military agreement with Iran.
"We may have to stop doing business with both of them," Trump said. "We made a great China deal. We'd have to buy $240 billion, including $40-$50 billion with our farmers. The problem is the ink wasn't dry on this deal, the ink wasn't even dry when the plague came in from China so if they want to make a deal with Iran that's fine, let's not do business with either of them. That would be just fine with me."
This is part four of a multi-story series from this exclusive interview. More to come, stay tuned.
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