Less than one year has passed
since I first stood at this podium.
I call upon
all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground and to summon
the unity we need to deliver for the people.
African American unemployment
stands at the lowest rate ever recorded.
The stock market has smashed one record
after another, gaining eight trillion dollars and more in value in just this
short period of time.
This in fact, is our new American moment. There has never been
a better time to start living the American dream.
We have eliminated more
regulations in our first year than any Administration in the history of our country.
We have ended the war on American energy and we have ended the
war on beautiful clean coal.
We are now very proudly an exporter of energy to the world.
America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair
trade deals, that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our
companies, our jobs, and our wealth.
The era of economic surrender is totally over.
We built the Empire State Building in just one year.
Isn't it a disgrace
that it can now take 10 years just to get a miner permit approved for the
building of a simple road?
The sacred duty of every elected official in this
chamber is to defend Americans, to protect their safety, their families,
their communities, and their right to the American dream, because Americans
are dreamers too.
We must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never
having to use it, but making it so strong and so
powerful, that it will deter any acts of aggression by any other nation or anyone else.
In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds and hundreds of
dangerous terrorists only to meet them again on the battlefield.
So today I'm
keeping another promise. I just signed, prior to walking in, an order directing
secretary Mattis,
who is doing a great job thank you,
to re-examine our military
detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay.
I am asking Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign
assistance dollars always serve American interests
and only go to friends of America.
And freedom stands tall over one more monument.
This one.
This Capitol, this
living monument. This is the monument to the American people.