During today's meeting with the leading American corporate chiefs, President Trump said business regulations had "gotten out of control" and reiterated his threats of heavy import tariffs on overseas production.
Holding a meeting with a selected group of CEOs was on top of the 'to-do' list of the newly-elected President Donald Trump. For the first time since the inauguration, he met with 10 top corporate executives at the White House to speak about his plans on the development of the business sector during his presidency. The main highlight of this early meeting was, according to the sources, Trump's promise to reduce government regulations of the business sector by as much as 75% as “some of that stuff makes it impossible to get anything done", reported the Wall Street Journal.
He claimed that the regulations had "gotten out of control", what prevents the American companies from working more efficiently. Business Insider mentions that it is unclear whether Trump meant the total amount of regulatory acts that are currently in place in the country or the costs of maintaining these regulations.
On top of that, Trump said he wanted to significantly cut business taxes, as well:
"We're going to be cutting taxes massively for both the middle class and for companies, and that's massively. We're trying to get it down to anywhere from 15 to 20% and its now 35%, but it's probably more 38% than it is 35%," he said, as reported by Business Insider.
Yet, despite the numerous incentives for businesses, President Trump reiterated his earlier threats of imposing heavy import tariffs on companies that produce their products abroad. He said that companies that choose to move abroad and "close and get rid of" the employees in the U.S., will be subject to "very major" border taxes on all products they market in the U.S.
"We want to start making our products again. We don’t want to bring them in; we want to make them here. That doesn’t mean we don’t trade because we do trade, but we want to make our products here," he continued, reported The Guardian.
Introducing heavy import taxes was one of the main and most controversial campaign promises of Donald Trump. In the weeks prior to the official inauguration, Trump criticized several U.S. companies, including the largest American manufacturers Ford and GM, for their overseas operations. Today, he made it clear that the new administration planned to move further in that direction.
Tesla's CEO Elon Musk, Under Armour's Kevin Plank and Ford's Mark Fields attended the meeting, among others.