By Peter Nicholas 

President Donald Trump said businesses have to wait too long to obtain permits and vowed to create a friendlier climate for companies that want to invest in the U.S., stepping up a push to curb the flow of jobs overseas.

In a meeting at the White House Tuesday with auto industry executives, Mr. Trump said he would streamline and shorten the process by which applicants win approval to do business in the U.S.

He said environmental regulations, in particularly, have become unnecessarily burdensome.

"We're going to make the process much more simple for the oil companies and everybody else that wants to do business in the United States," Mr. Trump said at the start of a meeting with executives from General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV.

"I have friends who want to build in the United States," he said. "They go many years, many years and they can't get the environmental permits over something that nobody ever heard of before. It's absolutely crazy."

Environmental permitting requirements, he said, are "out of control." Under his administration, Mr. Trump continued, "we're going to make a very short process and we're going to either give you your permits or not going to give you your permits, but you're going to know very quickly.

"And generally speaking, we're going to give you your permits."

In his first days in office, Mr. Trump is focusing on job creation and the business climate, trying to make good on promises he put forward during the campaign.

On Monday, he met with a dozen chief executives of large U.S. companies.

In his meeting Tuesday, he pulled out the chair next to him so that Mary Barra, chief executive of General Motors, could sit down. He went around the Roosevelt Room and asked everyone to introduce themselves, beginning with himself. "I'm Donald Trump," he said.

Mr. Trump also suggested that businesses would pay a price should they not comply with his "America First" credo. He has said, for example, that companies would pay a border tax should they try to move overseas and sell products to the U.S.

"You're going to find us to be from very inhospitable to extremely hospitable," Mr. Trump said.

Ford CEO Mark Fields praised Mr. Trump's action Monday formally pulling out of a 12-nation Pacific trade deal that former President Barack Obama had made a priority. Mr. Fields said the trade deal did nothing to "meaningfully" address what he called a substantial trade barrier: currency manipulation.

"We appreciate the president's courage to walk away from a bad trade deal," Mr. Fields said.

Ms. Barra, in a brief statement, said, "There's a huge opportunity to work together as an industry with government" in a joint effort to improve the environment, safety and the economy.

Write to Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 24, 2017 11:42 ET (16:42 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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