Trump: U.S. in Bad Shape Financially

The Donald reacts to volatile markets, global economic crisis

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST OF “YOUR WORLD”: Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden is in China today. He’s trying to reassure our biggest creditor that the U.S. is still a safe investment, these crazy markets here notwithstanding.

To Donald Trump, who says said images like this one, well, make him kind of sick. The Donald joins us on phone right now.

You have been very black and white about the Chinese and how we sort of kowtow to the Chinese and you say that we are always on defense, Donald. What do we do wrong? What would you tell the Chinese?

DONALD TRUMP, CHAIRMAN & CEO, TRUMP HOTELS & CASINO RESORTS: Well, we are always on defense. And there has never been a country that has abused us like China abuses us. And we have leadership -- or I should say a lack of leadership that doesn’t know what to do about it.

And the first thing we should do and the president should for is get our greatest businesspeople to negotiate, because we have a bunch of clowns negotiating with China. We have a vice president that right now is in China explaining how we love them, how we want them.

We cannot explain that, because they have taken advantage of us, they are making our products, they’re manipulating their currency, and they’re taking our jobs. And we need toughness and we need smartness with China. And we are not getting it from this administration.

CAVUTO: All right.

So, if the Chinese were looking at these markets, and they might bring it up with the vice president, I’m sure, during this visit: Look, your markets look volatile. You seems to be sinking like a stone. Support for the president seems low. Support for your Congress seems low. You guys do not seem like a good investment. If you were president, how would you respond to that?

TRUMP: Well, it would be very easy.

China is the thing and the -- one of the primary reasons -- between OPEC and China -- OPEC; I say is the number-one abuser and China is really a close second. OPEC, what they are doing with oil prices, every time we start getting a head of steam for the economy, OPEC starts raising the price, raising the price. We will never have a country again. We will never have a good economy, because any time we do well, OPEC raises the price of our blood, which is the oil, and they drain it out of us.

CAVUTO: But oil dropped today on the concern that we have got a slowdown going, so, maybe OPEC doesn’t have the power to get in the way of that. What do you say?

TRUMP: Well, sure, it always drops a little bit when we are doing badly.

CAVUTO: Yes.

TRUMP: But as soon as we start doing well, Neil, they pick it up and they start taking it out of us. So, that’s a huge problem. And we don’t have the people that know how to deal with them. And it is not tough. They wouldn’t be there if it were not for us.

And then China is actually a simpler problem, but what you do with China is, you explain to them you have manipulated your currency. We will be taxing you 25 percent. They will make $300 billion-plus on us this year and that is going to be a low money, because now those estimates, as you reported last week, are turning out to be low -- $300 billion is going to be actually a low number. It will be much higher than that.

CAVUTO: Yes.

TRUMP: And we can’t do business with people like that.

CAVUTO: What do you think? You are a pretty savvy businessman, Donald. What do you think is going on globally here? Talk about maybe a potential credit freeze for banks abroad reverberates here. Got a lot of folks now saying, hey, this is 2008 all over again?

What do you say?

TRUMP: Well, it was started by the United States, the downfall, and now Europe is picking up very nicely behind us. China continues to do well and will do well because of what they’re doing and because they are outsmarting this country in particular, also Europe.

The interesting and the ironic thing is, Europe, they formed the euro so they could take advantage of the United States. And now if you look at what is happening with the euro, it is a disaster. And Germany, which is very powerful, very strong, and really wanted to do this, all of a sudden they have to carry Spain and Greece and maybe even France.

The whole thing is turning out to be a disaster. And if we were in good shape right now, we could literally take over the world. But we’re not in good shape. We are just treading along and really much worse than that.

But if we were the old United States and this was happening, we would be in such a great position. But we’re not the old United States.

CAVUTO: Real quickly, about this credit freeze, we’re talking about a lot of people are just abandoning stocks in general. You were noteworthy in the middle of the downdraft last week, or early part of last week, saying you saw some great buys in there, particularly real estate. You still feel that way?

TRUMP: Well, you buy great things with -- if you have cash, if you are in a position where you have cash. We are very fortunate. We have a lot of cash as a company, and we are buying a lot of things.

And what I like best is real estate.

CAVUTO: What are you buying? What are you buying?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Well, I’m buying real estate. I’m buying real estate that I could never have even dreamt of buying.

CAVUTO: What about any stocks or sectors you like?

TRUMP: I bought stocks, and I’m continuing to buy some stocks. I think stocks are probably going to go down a little bit, but eventually I think they will be good.

CAVUTO: What stocks? What stocks have you have been buying?

TRUMP: I’m buying the ones that are most badly hit.

I’m buying some good ones, like Procter & Gamble, and Caterpillar, and -- let’s see -- a number of them. But I’m also buying -- I will start buying some Bank of America. I bought some, maybe some Citibank. Some of the banking stocks are getting hit very hard, even Goldman Sachs. You look at the pricing of Goldman Sachs.

CAVUTO: Absolutely.

TRUMP: So I am buying things that were hit very hard. And maybe I will call you in six months and say I made a mistake, but who knows?

CAVUTO: OK.

Donald Trump, thank you very much.

TRUMP: So long, Neil.

CAVUTO: Always good chatting. All right.

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