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The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate ReleaseOctober 02, 2017
Remarks by President Trump and Prime Minister
Prayut Chan-o-Cha of Thailand Before Bilateral Meeting
Oval Office
12:33 P.M. EDT
PRESIDENT TRUMP:
Thank you very much. It's a great
honor to have Prime Minister Prayut of Thailand and Mrs. Prayut. This is a very great honor for us.
We've had a long and very storied history with
Thailand. In fact, we were just
mentioning that Andrew Jackson, who is on the wall, was the president when we first
developed the big relationship.
So we have a very strong relationship right now, as of
this moment, and it's getting stronger in the last nine months. We've done a lot of things together, and it
is a tremendous -- it's really very good to have you with us.
This has been a rough day for us because of what took
place in Las Vegas, but this was a long-scheduled meeting and it is a great
honor. Thank you very much.
PRIME MINISTER CHAN-O-CHA: (As interpreted.) As the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of
Thailand and on behalf of the people of Thailand, I am very delighted and it is
a great honor for me to be here to meet Mr. President and, of course, the First
Lady.
Mr. President has mentioned about the relationship
between our two countries. We are longstanding allies. Of course, Thailand would like to take this
opportunity to express my condolences to those victims and family of the
shooting incident in Las Vegas last night.
And I wish to express our solidarity with the American people.
Moreover, I would also like to express my condolences to
those victims and their family in the U.S. and in Puerto Rico who are affected
by hurricane. The government of Thailand
and our private sector have also pledged for financial assistance.
We wish all the best for all success to Mr. President to
tackle all these problems.
Coming to meet Mr. President today is a good opportunity
for me and for the Thai government and the people of Thailand to work closely
to further strengthen the cooperation between our two countries.
We work, of course, in hand on our security defense
cooperation to help ensure that our citizens are safeguarded from terrorism and
other threats. Of course, we will work
closely in order we solve the regional issue of concern, of course.
I am confident that, with President's leadership, we will
be able to tackle all the problems and work together in order to further
strengthen the cooperation between our two countries, which we already
mentioned that we have a long history of relationship -- 200 years.
I also would like to commend the First Lady on playing
such a vital role in looking after those who have less opportunity. Of course, your daughter also worked very
closely in order to tackle the problem.
I know that she developed the interest to solve the issues of women and
children. So therefore, Thailand stands
ready to work closely with the First Lady and with Mr. President of course.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I
do want to say that our relationship on trade -- and we've been negotiating
very long and hard, and we're meeting with our representatives in a little
while to go further. But our
relationship on trade is becoming more and more important. And it's a great country to trade with; they
make product and different things that are really very important to us, and we
likewise sell to you.
I think we're going to try and sell a little bit more to
you now, make that a little bit better if that's possible. But we have a big, full period of time
scheduled with our two staffs.
Tomorrow morning, early, I'll be leaving for Puerto Rico
with the First Lady. We are going to be
seeing all of the first responders, the military, FEMA, and, frankly, most
importantly, we're going to be seeing the people of Puerto Rico.
We've been very -- I mean, I think we've been -- it's
been amazing what's been done in a very short period of time on Puerto
Rico. There's never been a piece of land
that we've known that was so devastated.
The bridges are down, the telecommunications was nonexistent, and it's
in very, very bad shape. The electrical
grid, as you know, was totally destroyed.
But we've gotten tremendous amounts of food and water,
and lots of other things -- supplies -- generally speaking, on the island. So we're going to be going tomorrow morning,
first thing, very early.
We're also going to be meeting with Governor Mapp of the
U.S. Virgin Islands. He's going to
probably -- because of the difficulty in getting in to the Virgin Islands, he's
probably going to meet us in Puerto Rico.
And then, very importantly also, on Wednesday morning,
very early, we're going to be leaving for Las Vegas, where we're going to be
seeing the governor, who I just spoke to; the mayor -- governor of the state --
the mayor of Las Vegas, who I just spoke to; the sheriff, who has done such a
great job; the police department has done such a fantastic job, in terms of the
speed, and we all very much appreciate it.
So we'll be going to Puerto Rico tomorrow. And on Wednesday, we will be going to, as you
know, as I just said, we'll be going to Las Vegas on a very, very sad -- it's a
very sad moment for me, for everybody.
For everybody, no matter where you are, no matter what your thought
process, this is a very, very sad day.
So we're going to be doing that on Wednesday. And we'll be spending the full day there, and
maybe longer than that.
So thank you very much everybody. Appreciate it. Thank you.
END
12:40 P.M.
EDT
