Deciphering Trump's curious comments on Keystone XL pipeline

In his nearly hour-long speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday morning, U.S.President Trump talked about a lot of things the media, Obamacare, trade and crime. But he also ventured intopipelines.

"We have authorized the construction, one day, of the Keystoneand Dakota Access pipelines," said Trump to applause.

"And issued a new rule, this took place while I was getting ready to sign. I said,'Who makes the pipes for the pipeline?' Well sir, it comes from all over the world, isn't that wonderful?"

"I said, 'Nope, it comes from the United States or we're not building it.' American Steel. If they want a pipeline in the United States, they have to use pipe that's made in the United States."

That could createa problem for TransCanada, as the pipe for Keystone XL has already been manufactured. Asthe company has said in the past, only half of it was made in the U.S. Some of that pipe has been stored outside in the United States and will need to be replaced.

This may simply be talk, since the executive order that Trump actually signed last month read that pipelines that cross the United States would use U.S. steel "to the maximum extent possible and to the extent permitted by law."

Current World Trade Organizationregulations saythat governments must treat imported products in the same manner as domestically produced products.

What ismore positive for TransCanadais what Trump went on to talk about, specifically the previous approval process, in which the company spent millions of dollars only to have the project denied by former president Barack Obama.

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"Can you imagine?" asked Trump. "The gentleman, never met him, don't even know the name of his company. I actually sort of know it, but I want to get it exactly correct. Big, big powerful company, they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the pipeline."

"With the Keystone, they spent hundreds of millions of dollars with bloodsucker consultants, sucking the blood out of the company. Don't worry. I used them all my life, OK?"

Trump spokeabout how consultants weren't able to help get Keystone approved and then seemed to veer into the despair of an unnamedexecutive.

"Bottom line,Obamadidn't sign it. Could be 42,000 jobs, somewhere around there,alotof jobs, didn't sign it."

"He gave up. A year ago, it was dead. Now he's doing nothing, calling his wife, 'Hello darling, I'm a little bored, you know that pipeline has killed us, has killed our company.'"

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"Knock, knock, Mr. So and So,the Keystone pipeline sir, has just been approved."

Trump seems to have been talking about TransCanada chief executive Russ Girling. While we do not know if Girlinghad such a conversation with his wife, we do know that TransCanada wasn't idle after Keystone XL was first denied byObama.

TransCanadapurchased the Columbia Pipeline Group, expanded further into Mexico and continued with theEnergy Eastpipeline review before Keystone XL was revived last month.

Still, the company is probably heartened by the fact the Trump cited jobcreation in his speech. There is some trepidation that the U.S. administrationwill be looking for more than job creation and economic activity in exchange for approving Keystone XL.

TransCanadareapplied for its presidential permit last month, the State Department in the U.S. has until late March to review it.