Trump said tariffs will be the "greatest thing we've ever done as a country."
President Donald Trump is defending his decision to pause some tariffs to Canada and Mexico for another month -- a notable reversal after imposing historic levies on the key U.S. trading partners earlier this week, causing markets to tumble.
On Friday, Trump signed more executive orders at the White House before he convened a first-ever cryptocurrency summit with industry leaders.
Trump is set to sign more executive orders at 2 p.m. ET. It's not clear what the orders will address.
Later in the afternoon, at 3:00 p.m. ET, he will participate in the White House's first-ever cryptocurrency summit -- an industry in which the president and his family have a personal stake. The summit is being chaired by the White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks. Trump will be delivering remarks.
In another clip of his Fox Business interview, President Donald Trump said he sent Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a letter this week saying he hopes to negotiate a nuclear deal, while also threatening military action if a deal can't be reached.
"There are two ways Iran can be handled, militarily or you make a deal. I would prefer to make a deal," he said.
"I would rather negotiate a deal. I'm not sure that everybody agrees with me but we can make a deal that would be just as good as if you won militarily. But the time is happening now, the time is coming up. Something is going to happen one way or the other. I hope that Iran and I've written them a letter, saying I hope you're going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it's going to be a terrible thing for them," Trump said, adding he sent the letter Wednesday.
-ABC News' Molly Nagle
Trump defended his decision to reverse the tariffs he put in place just days ago in a new clip of his interview with Fox Business, saying he thought it was "a fair thing to do" for Canada, Mexico and U.S. carmakers.
“I wanted to help Mexico and Canada to a certain extent. We are a big, big country and they do a lot of their business with us whereas in our case is much less significant we do very little with Canada by comparison. I wanted to help the American carmakers until April 2. April 2 becomes reciprocal what they charge us we charge them,” Trump said.
"I thought it would be a fair thing to do, and so I gave them a little bit of a break for this short period of time," he said.
-ABC News' Molly Nagle
President Trump signed an executive order to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve on Thursday evening, according to social media posts from White House officials.
"The Reserve will be capitalized with Bitcoin owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings. This means it will not cost taxpayers a dime," White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks said in a post announcing that the order was signed.
Trump previously announced intentions to create the reserve. The order also comes as the White House is set to host the first-ever Crypto Summit Friday.
"The U.S. will not sell any bitcoin deposited into the Reserve. It will be kept as a store of value. The Reserve is like a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency often called “digital gold.” Premature sales of bitcoin have already cost U.S. taxpayers over $17 billion in lost value. Now the federal government will have a strategy to maximize the value of its holdings," Sacks added.
