President Donald Trump told prominent U.S. manufacturers this week that his administration hopes to "cut regulations by 75 percent, maybe more" during a meeting at the White House.
Trump, according to Reuters, also reiterated a goal of reducing the nation's corporate tax rate from 35 percent to as little as 15 percent, but he said that business leaders view regulations as more of a problem than the tax code.
"When you want to expand your plant, or when [Ford Motor Co. CEO] Mark [Fields] wants to come in and build a big massive plant, or when Dell wants to come in and do something monstrous and special — you're going to have your approvals really fast,” Trump said.
Critics warned that type of overhaul could jeopardize a wide variety of rules implemented to safeguard consumers, workers and the environment, but Trump vowed that dramatically cutting regulations would somehow yield a system "just as strong and just as good and just as protective of the people."
He also declared that he was "a very big person when it comes to the environment."
In addition to Ford and Dell, Politico reported that other companies represented at Monday's meeting included Lockheed Martin, U.S. Steel, Dow Chemical, Johnson & Johnson, Whirlpool, International Paper, Corning, Under Armour, Arconic and SpaceX.
Although Trump did not offer specifics about the proposals, his administration believes that economic growth in the wake of a tax overhaul would prevent the nation's debt from ballooning.
Analysts, however, previously said that Trump’s tax plan could add trillions to the nation's debt without changes to Social Security and Medicare.
Trump also insisted that his administration would impose "a very major border tax" on companies that shift jobs overseas and send products back to the U.S.
He previously called for a 35 percent fee, but a tax would need to clear the Republican-controlled Congress while a tariff would likely meet a legal challenge and could spark trade wars.