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Trump had lots to say about the military-industrial complex today on CNBC, beyond the RTN-UTX merger. Here are his comments in full from the transcript:
[First he was asked about the merger and whether it's good for the country.]
Well, I am the one – I’m a budget cutter and I have cut the budget. But on defense, I don’t want to do any cutting. Because President Obama, and President Bush – you know, he was fighting the wars in the Middle East - I was left a very depleted military.
And I feel just the opposite. I am very much of a cost cutter. I want to have a great budget. But before a budget, I have to have a great military. So, as long as I am here, we are going to have a great military and they’re not going to have to worry.
We’ve rebuilt, we’ve ordered many F-35s, we’ve ordered ships and planes and missiles and we are ordering the best stuff in the world. Plus, I am a sales man for the country. I’m getting other country [sic] to buy tremendous amount [sic] of our military.
You know, you could ask any of the folks run our military companies - the different companies what they are doing because of me. I get nothing. I’m sitting there in the oval office, saying, ‘You’ve got to buy our helicopters.
If you don’t, we are not going to be happy with you,’ and they end up going out to buy our helicopters and our F-35s. Look at how many F-35s Japan and other companies are buying. So, you know, it’s good as long as I’m there.
I am a little concerned about United Technologies and Raytheon because one of the things that I bring up all of the time, we used to have many plane companies. We used to have many, many. They’ve all merged. Now we have very few.
We have the two main ones, as you know, and you have Lockheed and Boeing and you have a little bit some others, just a little bit. But they’re all merged in, so it is hard to negotiate when you have two companies and sometimes you get one bid.
When we had 10 and 12 companies, now that may not be sustainable because they all go bust. And so, that’s the purpose of what they did. But nevertheless, I can tell you because I get involved in negotiations. I got the plane cost down a lot.
So, when I hear United Technologies, which is a great company, I know it well because I bought many an Otis Elevator over my lifetime. It is a great company but when I hear United, and I bought a lot of carrier too, by the way—when I hear United and when I hear Raytheon ...
which is another incredible company, the missile systems they make are incredible, when I hear they’re merging, does that take away more competition? It becomes one big fat, beautiful company. But I have to negotiate.
Meaning the United States has to buy things and does that make it less competitive? Because it is already so very less – it’s already not competitive. You look at the budgets of other major countries: take a look at Russia, they spend $68 billion a year on military.
Take a look at China, they’re $200-$250 billion a year. Well, we are many times that. And part of it because we spend so much money and part of it is we have no competition. We really don’t. We don’t have competition.
[Trump was then told that analysts expect the merger to go through and was asked if he thinks there's a problem there.]
Well, only if they have the same products. They have some overlap, from what I understand. But only if they have the same products. That would be the thing that bothers me most. I mean, I can tell you from the airplanes, you want to buy a plane and you will have one bid.
You don’t have the people that make them. The companies that make them are incredible. They make them incredibly and they are great companies. But you don’t have any competition. It is crazy.
We have given up making like the F-22 fighter jets and that was a joint venture between Lockheed and Boeing. It was the greatest fighter jet, in my opinion, it was the greatest ever. And we gave it up because it was costing so much.
You have the two companies in a joint venture, and from what I hear, I wasn’t here then, that was a while ago, but from what I hear, you could not negotiate with them. This is what we want them, and the government says we’ll take it.
Okay. So, I just want to see competition, the two great companies, I love them both. But I want to see that we don’t hurt our competition.
