Will impose huge border tax if business leaders shift jobs abroad, warns Trump

In a bid to make America great again, US Donald Trump has issued a warning to business leaders that a "substantial border tax" would be slapped on American firms that are setting up manufacturing bases abroad. He also promised offering a "massively" cut down regulations and taxes to those companies that produce products domestically.

He, while having a breakfast meeting with America's top 12 business leaders in the White House on his first full day in office, cleared that a "wave" of manufacturing is now headed back to the US and warned the CEOs of consequences if they shift jobs abroad.

"There will be advantages to companies that do indeed make their products here. So we've seen it. It's going to be wave. You watch, it's going to be a wave. I've always said, by the time you put them in these massive ships or airplanes and fly them I think it's going to be cheaper. A company that wants to fire all of its people in the US and build some factory someplace else and then thinks that that product is going to just flow across the border into the US, that's not going to happen. They're going to have a tax to pay, a substantial border tax," Trump said.

He also argued that massive free-trade agreements have disadvantaged American workers.

"Some people would say that's not free trade, but we don't have free trade now because we're the only one that makes it easy to come into the country. If you look at China, if you look at many other countries...many other countries, they can't believe what we do. So we take in things free, and yet, if you want to take a plant or you want to do something, you want to sell something into China and other countries, it's very, very hard," he said.

Trump told the business leaders, including Michael S Dell of Dell Technologies, Mark Fields of Ford Motor Company, Elon R Musk of SpaceX and Tesla Motors that in some cases, it's impossible. They won't even take your product. But when they do take your product, they charge a lot of tax. So I don't call that free trade. What we want is fair trade, fair trade. We are going to treat countries fairly, but they have to treat us fairly.

He also promised that he won’t impose any new tax if the business leaders agreed to stay local.

"All you have to do is stay. Don't leave, don't fire your people in the US, we have the greatest people," he said.

He promised that he would cut taxes "massively" and slash regulations by 75 per cent or more.

"What we're doing is we are going to be cutting taxes massively for both the middle class and for companies, and that's massively. We're trying to get it down to anywhere from 15 to 20 per cent, and it's now 35 per cent but it's probably more 38 per cent than it is 35, wouldn't you say? That's a big thing. A bigger thing, and that surprised me, is the fact that we're going to be cutting regulation massively. Now, we're going to have regulation and it'll be just as strong and just as good and just as protective of the people as the regulation we have right now," he said.

Trump said the problem with the regulation is that it puts a lot of hurdles for companies and businesses.

"When somebody wants to put up a factory, it's going to be expedited," Trump said.

The Vice President Mike Pence was also present at the meeting along with other senior officials.