Grand Foyer
11:55 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Please. Very nice. Thank you. Big day. It’s my pleasure to welcome you all to the beautiful, great White House and to host this magnificent showcase of America’s incredible small businesses. I just got to witness some beautiful product.
Today, we received outstanding news from all over our country, really. The United States economy has added almost 5 million new jobs in the month of June. That’s shattering all expectations and shattering all records — historic records. History of our country, we’ve never added anywhere near that.
And last month, we also broke the record, but now we shattered it. Much higher than even last month. This is the largest monthly jobs gain in history. We added 2.1 million leisure and hospitality jobs, 740,000 retail jobs, 568,000 education jobs and healthcare jobs, 357,000 service jobs — and very importantly to me, because you know what’s happening with manufacturing, where we’re bring it back because we’ve made incredible trade deals — so manufacturing jobs are coming back, and we added 356,000 manufacturing jobs. Incredible. Incredible numbers. All records.
African American workers made historic gains, the likes of which we’ve never had before, with 404,000 new jobs in June. That’s a record, and that’s the highest number ever. We had 700,000 new jobs over the last two months for African American workers; that’s the highest ever. And both — both months are the highest. We shattered last month’s record. That was a record, and we shattered it.
Hispanic employment is up by 1.5 million jobs. Great businessmen and women, and they’re up 1.5 — think of it — million jobs. Hispanic.
Eighty percent of small businesses are now open. New business applications have doubled since late March. America’s economy is coming back much stronger than ever anticipated by most people, almost all people, because these numbers were — even the most optimistic people, these numbers are being doubled and tripled over what they thought would be possible.
We’re grateful to be joined today by Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. Thank you very much, Wilbur. Thank you very much. You’re doing a great job.
Every company here today embodies true American excellence. Your stunning craftsmanship — I just witnessed some of it; it’s incredible — it’s treasured and prized all over the world. The product you make is like none other. And your spirit for America and the greatness of our country is unrivaled.
With us are workers who make decorative American flags from Virginia; fly-fishing reels from Florida; grills from Illinois; pies from North Carolina — they look very good to me; coffee from Oklahoma; ice cream from Maryland; and sunscreen and baseball bats from Texas. With unmatched skill and devotion, you make the goods and build the products that proudly bear the wonderful phrase, “Made in the USA.” You’re seeing that more and more: “Made in the USA.”
We’re bringing our jobs back because of trade deals. We have great trade deals, and jobs are coming back. And we have a lot of great trade deals right now under negotiation. We got to get them done as quickly as possible.
The small businesses represented in this room continue a great and noble American heritage. You’re entrepreneurs, artisans, creators, craftsman who forge your own path, made your own products, and provide good-paying jobs for our citizens. Incredible jobs, incredible people, and they truly are artisans. And you’re doing it all with American hands, American heart, and American pride.
Several of these companies are entirely veteran-owned and operated. Especially as we approach Independence Day, I want to thank the courageous men and women who’ve served their country in uniform. We vow to honor your sacrifice by forever defending the rights, freedoms, and principles you risk your entire life to defend.
Following the arrival of the plague from China — and that’s what it is; it’s a plague and it should have never happened. China should have never let that happen, but China did allow it to happen. We just signed a brand-new trade deal, and the ink wasn’t even dry when this came over.
But we raced into action to save our nation’s small businesses. We passed over $3 trillion in historic relief measures — $3 trillion; think of that — including over $670 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program, a tremendous success, as you can see by the numbers.
To keep small-business workers on the payroll, I signed a bill providing federally funded paid sick leave and paid family leave for American workers. Things that have never been done. We’re allowing businesses to defer paying their income tax. And we expanded tax refunds very substantially.
Thanks to our efforts and the incredible resilience of our nation’s small businesses — and I really think we can add the foundation that we built. We built the greatest economy ever built, and that foundation was so strong that, instead of coming weakly back or going in the other direction — because this is coming back, and we haven’t totally succeeded yet; we will soon. But we haven’t killed all of the virus yet.
And yet, you look at these numbers — and that’s based on a very strong foundation that we built, a foundation like no other; a foundation that, had we not been attacked by this virus, this horrible virus — we were doing things and had things planned that nobody else had ever even thought of: paying off debt; building numbers, the likes of which nobody has seen. And yet, next year, we’ll be in a position where, I believe, in a certain respect, I think we’ll even be stronger than we would have been because of what we’re doing.
But only that strong foundation allowed us to be up here today talking about these record-setting job numbers and other numbers that we’re producing, because America’s economy is now roaring back to life like nobody has ever seen before. Nobody has ever seen numbers like this.
In May, retail sales surged by nearly 18 percent. That’s a record. We recently saw the best 50-day increase in the history of the stock market. So we had 50 days — go back a couple of weeks — we had 50 days, the likes of which we’ve never had in the history of the stock market, which to me means jobs.
And it’s lifting up 401(k)s and retirement savings for American workers. We’re doing numbers like nobody has ever seen before. Take a look at 401(k)s. In a pandemic, we’re almost even with where we were before the pandemic started, and nobody would have said that was possible — nobody at all.
We built the greatest economy in the history of the world, and we’re now doing it again. And I think we’ll do even better the second time than we did the first time, unless somebody comes along and says, “Let’s raise taxes on everybody.” And they’re raising taxes not only on corporations — they’ll just go to another country, and they’ll do just fine — but they’re raising taxes on people and middle-income people, and they’re losing jobs.
So you can’t allow that to happen. That will be — all of this incredible job that we’ve done will go down like that. It will be a terrible, terrible sight. It might even be a 1929 situation. So you have a chance to have the greatest numbers in history. You’re almost there.
We’re almost back to where we were from the standpoint of stock market. Think of that. But you’ll have a crash like you’ve never seen before. If you put the wrong person in office, you’ll see things that you would not have believed are possible. They want to raise taxes, they want to raise regulations. You know, a big part of what we’ve done is by cutting regulation. We’ve cut regulation more than any President in the history of our country, whether they’re there for four years, eight years, or in one case, more than that. Nobody even came close. And we’re doing much more. We have regulation, but it’s proper regulation, not strangulation.
We’re also tapping into the talent, genius, and the drive of our people to kill the virus. We’re speeding the delivery of new treatments, including anti-viral steroids, convalescent plasma, and other therapies. We have therapeutics that are really, really looking good, and this includes two drugs that have proven effective: remdesivir and dexamethasone, which is having a tremendous trial. And we’ll see how that all happens.
But we have three vaccine candidates. We’ve had many more, but three are really, really looking good, and I think you’re going to have an answer to that very soon. Three vaccine candidates are now in trial, with three more to start very shortly. These are all great companies. They’ve had tremendous success with other problems in the past.
And we’re accelerating production through Operation Warp Speed. Plus, we have our military ready, so that should we get — whether it’s therapeutic or vaccine — our military is ready, logistically ready. These are the best in the world to get it out to everybody as soon as we have it. And we think we’re going to have it soon.
As we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, let us renew our devotion to this nation, to its citizens, and the eternal values that define our past and shape our future.
I’m going to Mount Rushmore on July 3rd. We’re going to have a tremendous evening. It’s going to be a fireworks display like few people have seen. It’s going to be very exciting. It’s going to be beautiful.
They’ve been wanting to do that for years — fireworks. They used to do it many years ago, and, for some reason, they were unable or unallowed to do it. They just weren’t allowed to do it. And I opened it up, and we’re going to have a tremendous July 3rd. And then we’re coming back here, celebrating the Fourth of July in Washington, D.C.
And I want to also thank all of law enforcement. The job you’ve done is incredible. We signed a bill. If you play with our monuments or our statues, you go to jail for 10 years. It’s amazing how it all stops so fast. Stops so fast. We let the local authorities handle it as long as possible, but ultimately we said, “Let’s step in.” And we stepped in and it stopped. Ten years in jail if they do what they were doing.
So we’re very proud of law enforcement. We want to thank law enforcement. Really great job. Our military has been incredible. Our National Guard has been just incredible all over.
I’m glad to see, in Seattle, they took care of the problem, because as they know, we were going in to take. We were ready to go in and they knew that too. And they went in and they did what they had to do.
We’re a nation committed to equal and abundant opportunity for citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed. The American Dream is the sacred birthright of every American child, and that’s what we have, is we have the American Dream. And nobody is going to shatter the American Dream — not the anarchists, not the agitators, not the fools, not the looters. They’re not going to have any impact on the national dream — the national dream like no other.
That’s why we’re here today, to ensure that every citizen can achieve their dream, achieve their destiny, and realize their full and extraordinary potential. That is how we will renew, rebuild, and restore America.
We’ve done an incredible job in a three-and-a-half-year period, a job like nobody thought would be possible to be done. And we’re doing it again, and we’re doing it, I believe, bigger and better and stronger than ever before. You’re going to see that next year. And unless it’s tampered with, we’re going to have a year next year like no other. It’ll be a phenomenal year, a successful year.
And we’ll have our best job numbers ever next year. We’ll come back stronger and more prosperous than ever before. Next year will be — I think it’ll be one of the — from an economic standpoint, the greatest or one of the greatest economic years we’ve ever had.
So I just want to thank everybody for being here. I want to thank all of these incredible artisans and business people for showcasing your amazing products. And I just want to leave you by saying very important words: God bless America.
Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
