Travel pool report #7: Refuel & Gaggle quotes

Air Force One landed at 3:09 am AKDT, to refuel at Joint Base Elmendorf near Anchorage.

POTUS gaggled for 14 minutes shortly after we took off and rated the summit a 12 out of 10. Since much of the gaggle news has been out for hours, I will stick to highlights.

During the flight, which was pretty bumpy during the gaggle and at several other points, Steven Cheung came back to distribute a printout of POTUS’s Truth Social post about the meeting.

Some quotes:

Meeting recap:

"I thought it was an amazing meeting"

"He’s a great leader of a very powerful, very strong country, China"

"It was an outstanding group of decisions I think that was made."

"We are in agreement on so many elements. Large amounts, tremendous amounts of soybeans, and other farm products, are going to be purchased immediately."

Fentanyl/tariffs:

"I put a 20% tariff on China because of fentanyl coming in. Based on his statements today I reduced it by 10 percent."

"I believe he’s going to work very hard to stop the death."

Chips:

"They’re going to be talking to Nvidia and others about making chips."

[Jamieson Greer, USTR: "There’s so many chips we already send to China. Nvidia will talk to China and see what’s possible. We focused on export controls on rare earths."]

On rare earths:

"We have a deal. Now in a year we’ll renegotiate the deal but I think the deal will go on for a long time."

"We continue to produce rare earths and mine the rare earths."

"China, that whole situation, that roadblock is gone now, there’s no roadblock at all on rare earth."

"It will hopefully disappear from our vocabulary."

[Jermaine Greer: "They’re not going to impose the rare earth controls that they proposed."]

Tariff rate:

"It was 57, now it’s 47 - we reduced it by the fentanyl because I really believe they are taking strong action."

[November 1 deadline to raise tariffs is gone]

China visit:

"I’ll be going to China in April. And he’ll be coming here sometime after that. Whether it’s in Florida, Palm Beach, or in Washington DC."

Ukraine:

"Ukraine came up very strongly. We talked about it for a long time and we’re both going to work together. The sides are locked in and fighting. Sometimes you have to let them fight, I guess, it’s crazy."

Russian oil exports:

"He’s been buying oil from Russia for a long time."

"India’s been very good on that front."

"We really didn’t discuss the oil, we discussed working together to see if we could get this war finished."

Tawain:

"Taiwan never came up."

Posting about nuclear testing:

"It had nothing to do with them, it had to do with others."

"They seem to all be doing nuclear testing."

"We halted it many years ago but with others doing testing I think it is appropriate we do also."

Israel:

"It’s a ceasefire. It is."

"One of their soldiers was killed and they did retribution."

"It’s back to ceasefire."

Meeting rating:

"On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12."

Kim Jong Un

"We were never able to talk because we were so busy."

"I think it would’ve been disrespectful to the importance of this meeting if we did that"

"I’d come back" [to Asia]

What does he want to talk about with Kim?

"I had a great relationship with Kim Jong Un."

"He doesn’t like too many people other than me if you know the truth."

A new era of riskiness on nuclear issues?

"I think we have it pretty well locked up."

"I say well if they’re going to test I guess we have to test."

"I’d like to see a denuclearization."

"We are actually talking to Russia about that and China will be added to that if we do something."

On Xi:

"He’s a tremendous leader of a very powerful county and I give great respect to him and we appreciate the fact that he came."

On Carney:

"We had a very nice conversation with him."

Katie Rogers

White House Correspondent

The New York Times

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