Washington DC - 4 December 2019

1. Cutaway of US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office

2. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, U.S. President:

"Well first of all we're using much less here (funding) than we anticipated. We thought this was going to be a originally, this was going to be directed into Miami and where we would have been satisfied anyway. No we need to, we need help on the border. The numbers are really good. I want to thank again the country of Mexico. They have 25,000 soldiers right now protecting our border. And they've done a fantastic job. So we appreciate that very much."

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4. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, U.S. President:

"Secretary of Defense spoke with members of Congress and explained it to them (transferring funds to border). And I think he felt very good about it. He feels it is a national security problem, I do too. It is when you have thousands of people trying to rush our country, I think that's national security. When you have drugs pouring into our country, I view that as national security. And he had very good conversations with various members of Congress."

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6. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, U.S. President:

"Last year I gave the farmers 16 billion dollars out of tariffs. The year before that because they were targeted by China, the year before that I gave our farmers 12 billion dollars. And the way we figured that I said how badly have our farmers been hit by targeting from China. And I was told they were hit to the tune of 16 billion dollars. And I made up that 16 dollar for dollar to the farmers. So the farmers are extremely happy and they also know they're warriors. They also know we have to do this with China. We can't let this go on."

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8. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, U.S. President:

"Let me tell you if I wanted to do nothing with China my stock market our stock market would be ten thousand points higher than it is right now. But somebody had to do this. To me this, to me this is much more important than the economy. Somebody had to do this. We had to do it with China. Had to be done. And I'm not even talking about purely economically. I'm talking about in other ways also. And they were, it was out of control and they were out of control. So we'll see what happens if they want to make a deal, they'll make a deal. They don't want to make a deal that's fine."

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10. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, U.S. President:

"Iran is a country with tremendous potential. We're not looking for regime change. They have tremendous potential. And I think they're going to want to take advantage of that potential. I really believe that. I think North Korea is a country with tremendous potential and I think they're going to want to take advantage of it. So we'll see what happens. But Iran has tremendous potential. And I can't imagine they're going to want to go through what they're going to have to go through if they want to do it the hard way. So we'll see what happens."

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12. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, U.S. President:

"Well I mean, I very much appreciate President Macron and his involvement but we're not dealing through President Macron and people are dealing with us directly we don't have to go through another country. We have actually we've had a lot of help, if we wanted from Japan. Japan is one of their biggest possibly their biggest buyer of oil, they have a big relationship that's Prime Minister Abe. So we we don't need anybody to deal we can deal directly if we want."

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14. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, U.S. President:

"But other countries are offering help. They'd like to see it straightened out but they also agree with me we had a great G7 and they all agreed no nuclear weapons for Iran. They all agree, no nuclear weapons for Iran."

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16. SOUNDBITE (English) Donald Trump, U.S. President:

"Well Boris is a friend of mine and he's, he's, he's going at it. There's no question about it. He's in there, I watched him this morning he's, he's in there fighting and he knows how to win. Boris knows how to win. Don't worry about him he's gonna be okay."

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President Donald Trump defends the administration's decision to move money from FEMA to help on the Southern border.

""Well first of all we're using much less here we anticipated," said Trump.

"We need help on the border. The numbers are really good. I want to thank again the country of Mexico. They have 25,000 soldiers right now protecting our border. And they've done a fantastic job. So we appreciate that very much."

The Department of Homeland Security revealed last month it would move $271 million from other agencies such as FEMA and the Coast Guard to increase the number of beds for detained immigrants and support its policy forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases play out.

The president also spoke about on going trade stand-off with China and whether he was open to a new deal with Iran.

Trump's comments on  Wednesday come as his administration stepped up pressure on Iran, imposing sanctions on an oil shipping network with ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guard and offering a reward of up to $15 million for information that could disrupt its faltering economy even further.

The new measures are the latest installment in a campaign of "maximum pressure" aimed at forcing Iran to renegotiate the 2015 nuclear deal, from which the administration withdrew last year, and cease a range of activities that the U.S. and its allies say destabilize the Middle East.

In announcing these new steps, U.S. officials appeared to dampen expectations for European-led efforts to salvage the remainder of the nuclear deal.

"Iran is a country with tremendous potential," said Trump.

"We're not looking for regime change. They have tremendous potential. And I think they're going to want to take advantage of that potential. I really believe that."