WATCH | Donald Trump's first day in office was focused on growing American businesses
President Donald Trump’s first working day as commander in chief was focused on the area he knows best, business. He kicked off his day by meeting with business leaders, like Elon Musk of Space X and Tesla and Michael Dell of Dell Technologies.
Trump's goal in his first day was simple -- urge job creators to expand their footprint in America.
“Start making our products here and there will be advantages to the companies that do make their products here,” Trump told the press ahead of the meeting.
Trump pushed businesses to remain and grow in the U.S. and one of the carrots to achieve that goal, is lessening regulatory burden.
“We think we can cut regulations by 75 percent, maybe more," Trump said. "But when you want to expand your plant, you’re going to have your approvals really fast.”
He also outlined minimizing the tax burdens facing families and business, as a priority.
"We are going to be cutting taxes massively for both the middle class and companies we are trying to get it down to anywhere from 15 to 20 percent and its currently 35 percent," Trump told reporters and business leaders at his meeting.
But it's not just carrots for businesses, Trump's White House also plans on using a stick to keep companies here-- a border tax.
“If you go to another country and you decide that you’re going to close and get rid of 2,000 people or 5,000 people," Trump said. "We are going to imposing a very major border tax on the product when it comes in, which I think is fair.”
Some of Trump's ideas to spur business growth he can do on his own, like reducing regulations, but he will need Congress if he wants to revamp the tax system.
Trump also met with union leaders-- traditional backers of the Democratic Party and supporters of withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Earlier, with an executive memorandum, Trump withdrew from the trade agreement.
From a messaging standpoint they are going to have to get themselves way more disciplined.
Trump's first day was busy, but his jobs message was muddled by this weekend’s controversy over the crowd size at his inauguration.
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