positive loan growth in the last two months than some expected. that's all reduced hopes for q-1 earnings which begin on april 13th. now i will send it back to post nine for the start of "squawk alley." thank you, wilf. and good morning. it is 8:00 a.m. at spacex headquarters in hawthorne, california. 11:00 a.m. here on wall street. and "squawk alley" is live. ♪ ♪ good morning. welcome to "squawk alley." i'm here with kelly evans and sara eisen once again. >> carl has the day off. and at this hour president trump

is meeting with the national association of manufacturers. he's expected to make some major announcements on trade today with two executive orders. our ylan mui is in washington, d.c. with all the details. >> reporter: sara, executive orders are focused on rooting out trade abuses designed to put other countries on notice and commerce secretary wilbur ross fired a warning shot on cnbc earlier this morning. >> there are unintended consequences of doing nothing as well. so as to doing something, tough think about it this way, we are in a trade war. we have been for decades. the only difference is that our troops are finally coming to the rampart. >> the first order calls for a review of any country with which the u.s. has a trade imbalance, the biggest one of course is china. they're looking for currency misalignment, over capacity in any industry and perhaps even lax enforcement of existing

agreements on the part of the u.s. this review will be due in 90 days. the second executive order will bolster the government's efforts to collect duties it had already imposed on countries for dumping products into the united states $2.3 billion have gone uncollected since 2001 according to a government report. that order will also beef up efforts to combat counterfeit and pirated products. now, the president is scheduled to meet right now with executives from small and mid size manufacturing companies. they're part of an industry group that has defended free trade and defended nafta in particular. so lots to talk about in the roosevelt room this morning. back to you guys. >> thank you, ylan. we'll get more from that meeting shortly. for more on the announcements today and potential impacts on markets as we wrap up the first quarter, let's bring in chief global strategist at charles schaub. jeff, first to you, when you hear the commerce secretary talking about ratrade wars, wha

do you think as arn investor? >> i heard wilbur ross talk about this before. this doesn't sound like we're about to label china a currency manipulator, this sounds very specific and something that we've been pursuing for some time. remember, there have been u.s. big tariffs on tires, on steel from china, a number of these things. increasing trade frictions you can count on that. but i think a trade war more importantly this is shedding light on the fact that we're unlikely to see that kind of trade war scenario unfold but more of a surgical approach by product and by country renegotiating some of these agreements. >> brian, that may be the case, but does trade friction still have you concerned about industries most exposed to that? >> no, not really. i mean, at the end of the day we don't really know what kind of any border adjustment tax looks like, number one. number two, we've had a tremendous move in the first quarter in the markets but more specifically things like technology which as you know

majority of the revenues come from outside the u.s. so at the end of the day i think technology stocks are going to be more impacted by what ultimately the repatriation number looks like in terms of taxes and how that is allowed to come back on the cash side. so i think jeffrey has it 100% right. this is going to be surgical. this is very trump like to look at things from the bottom up and not put a big umbrella over it. so i think so far so good with respect to what we're hearing. >> jeffrey, i wonder if there are perhaps unintended consequences to framing trade as a zero sum game, taking a look at some of the trade surpluses that we have, hong kong at the top of the list if you split that off from china, singapore, australia, brazil among those who could argue, hey, look, if we want perfect trade balance, then we need some skin back from the u.s. >> yeah, there's definitely a give or take here. and certainly classifying it as a zero sum game is obviously i think the wrong way to look at

it. but there were a lot of ways we can close some of these trade gaps that don't just mean stopping imports coming in. for example, china would love to import more technology products from the u.s. we block a lot of that because of concerns about their uses in weapons. but, you know, we could soften some of that up, export more tech product and close that gap from a u.s. export standpoint rather than blocking imports coming in from some of these countries. so there's a lot of things we can look at and i'm confident our commerce secretary will be doing that. >> so, brian, let's talk about this market performance for a moment because if you look at the general news headlines that dominated the first quarter, division inside the white house, division inside the republican party, russia investigations, record low approval ratings for the president and yet we're about to wrap up the best quarter for the nasdaq since 2013, best quarter for the s&p sixth quarterly gain since 2015. what's the message from the markets when it comes to the strump agenda?

>> isn't it great, sara? stocks are going up but everybody seems to think we're going to have a correction at any moment. the way that investors are acting and talking and the media markets down 1%, oh, today's the day, that's not investing. if you take a look at first quarter performances not outsized in terms of history, yeah, the average performance of the s&p 500 since 1990 in the first quarter is 2%. but remember in march of 2012 and march of 2013 we had double digit quarters. a lot of that was snapback rallies because of other stupidity things especially in march 2012 after the debacle of the supercommittee in the third quarter of 2011. be that as it may speaking of may, we probably think now given the 5% move in the market in the first quarter we're going to hear a lot more about pundits talk about sell in may, go away. >> you're fired up this morning. i wasn't sure if there was going

to be a theresa may or where that was going. >> well, at the end of the day markets go down and up for fundamental reasons. and we believe the laser focus on washington and trump is wrong. we're going to see some sort of a pullback driven by something that no one thinks about. and at the end of the day remember fundamentals in the u.s. economy and the stock market are the best in the world. >> i don't know, jeff, if it's great or not what brian said about the market performance. i guess the question is, is the market appropriately pricing in the odds of trump getting tax reform, infrastructure and deregulation? >> well, i think brian nailed it actually, i think my friend brian really hit the nail on the head. look, you didn't have to be a political strategist to figure out where stocks were headed in q-1. stocks tracked earnings revisions in lock step which then tracked economic data in lockstep. i think that will be true in q-2 as well. the risks are fundamental and not so much around politics. sure at the margin they move the markets, but hope for a pro

growth republican agenda isn't what drove stocks really in the first quarter. again, it was on the data. and q-2 again though had some volatility but really i don't see analysts have added the impact of lower taxes for example in the financial sector would have a huge impact or changes to import or even infrastructure programs on some of the industrial and material sectors. i don't see analysts doing that. and that's what stocks are tracking. again, i think q-2 is a fundamental story and not one so focused on politics. >> just look at the nasdaq. gentlemen, thank you. >> and global stocks as well. >> exactly. >> best quarter since 2013. >> yep. and sticking with trade let's bring in john chen, ceo of blackberry just out with earnings this morning. the stock up better than 12%, perhaps some shorts getting squeezed there. john, in your shift towards software over the past several quarters, it seems like a lot of your business has tilted toward

the u.s. 75% of your assets in the u.s. now up from less than half a year ago. more than half your customers now i believe in the u.s., up from a third 18 months ago. how does this talk of the u.s. becoming a little bit more inward focused when it comes to trade affect your business then being based in canada? >> good morning. yes. it does have an effect, but it does effect both ways. i'm very bullish on the infrastructure that the president and the team is trying to buildup and the spending there. like last week there was a big proposed bills by senators i think blumenthal and mark ki. we got the security car -- there are a lot of opportunities in the u.s. for us but of course we love not to see any kind of trade war or any final surgical

or otherwise. and we love to do business everywhere around the world. >> a slogan we've seen emerge from this trump administration is buy american, hire american. a lot of your workforce is in the u.s. is that slogan at all hostile to blackberry? or are you able to make the argument we do a lot of business in the u.s., we have a lot of assets in the u.s. so for these purposes we're american? >> we do. we do. and we also are big provider of security software and platform for various u.s. agency. and in addition to that we just got certification for u.s. certification for cloud base deployment. and i have our cyber security center is actually in the united states. so i think we quite qualify as definitely a somewhat of a u.s. entity but a key partner of the

u.s. government. >> mr. chen, i was looking up that bill you referenced, the democratic senators markey and blumenthal reintroduce bills in cyber security in automobiles and airplanes, we know staff workers are working with ford in the automobile, what more might we expect from you on that front? >> there's a lot to come. you know, we also wanted to set -- or lead, not set, but lead some kind of standard setting in cyber security readiness, like in vehicles or, you know, airplane or in devices. so if you look at blackberry, our heritage, our dna and our strength has always been cyber security, has always been enterprise. and always mobility. so basically everything we just talk about are all in that area. so we think we could contribute a lot. >> john, i want to talk about the internet of thing which is is an area you've staked out for growth. of course blackberry has a qnx,

but lately both intel with mobileye and qualcomm with nxp have staked out the car as an area where they want to grow and increasingly have influence. tell me why investors shouldn't view that as a threat to blackberry's ability to really help to shape where the car is headed as a computing device? >> a couple reasons. qualcomm and intel are both partners of ours. in fact this morning on a conference call i announced, well, i was just telling everybody reported on our new development platform for qnx that supported intel and arm technology. so all partners of ours. it's really more complimentary. in addition to that we have relationship with 60 million cars today using blackberry software running out there. and we have relationship with

all the direct manufacturers and ford being a pretty big partnership with us. so i think we shouldn't be concerned about blackberry. >> well, john, thanks for joining us first on cnbc. a quarter that certainly wall street seems to like, the stock up about 12% in the early trade. john chen. >> thank you, jon. >> always good to hear from him. thank you, john. let's get to our eamon javers with some breaking news out of washington. what now, eamon? >> yeah, hi, kelly. new development here in the saga of national security -- former national security advisor mike flynn's immunity. a senior congressional source telling with direct knowledge telling nbc news now that the senate intelligence committee has turned down the request by mike flynn's lawyer for a grant of immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony. nbc news reporting the official said flynn's lawyer was told it was, quote, wildly preliminary and that immunity was, quote, not on the table for the moment.

flynn's lawyers also conveyed the offer to the justice department. the official said in terms of asking for immunity. so there would be two entities who could decide to take that offer up one would be the senate and the fbi itself and they would make their own determination on whether or not they think mike flynn should get immunity or not, not clear what this means at this early stage. could be too early to make that determination. it could be that flynn himself is the target of the investigation. it could be that officials don't think there's anybody further up the food chain who they would need flynn to flip on in order to give him that immunity. so it's very early here. but it looks like at least for now the senate turning down that request from mike flynn's lawyer for immunity, kelly. >> eamon, thank you. eamon javers at the white house. >> you bet. >> when we come back on "squawk alley," awaiting sounds from the president's meeting with the

national -- manufacturers. then the president of that group, ceo jay tim mons will be joining us right after his meeting in the white house. a first on cnbc interview. find out what went on inside. "squawk alley" back in a moment. dow's down 34 points. flz . post nine is sponsored by fidelity investments, innovative ideas for serious investors. at fidelity, trades are now just $4.95. we cut the price of trades to give investors even more value. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage. fidelity, where smarter investors will always be.

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president trump expected to

sign two executive orders today. one addressing the trade deficit, the other targeting tariff enforcement. and we've got a pair of experts to discuss what all of this means. we're joined right now by former deputy secretary for international trade at the u.s. treasury gary as well as former trade representative and lead nafta negotiate ambassador carla hill joins us by phone. welcome to you both for being here. >> pleasure to join you. >> so ambassador hills, maybe you could just run us through. we're trying to figure out exactly how much power president trump has, not just in today's executive orders but going forward when it comes to renegotiating nafta and potentially going after china for its trade deficit? >> he's entitled under the agreement on six months notice to pull out of the agreement. and he is entitled on 90 days notice to talk to the congress, give notice, tell the congress what he wants to do with the

north american free trade agreement, and inform them and then move ahead with renewing the agreement. it doesn't have to be torn up. there are areas that we should address that would be good for all three parties that negotiated it. issues that didn't exist when we negotiated almost a quarter century ago like e-commerce and the like. >> so, gary, you've been reading a lot of the tea leaves and listening to the rhetoric from washington and from the trump administration. is ambassador hills right that there is some room for improvement and what we're actually going to see out of the administration will bring a nafta, for instance, up to speed with current technology? >> oh, sure. there's a lot of room as carla just said. if you read the draft letter that was released yesterday or

leaked yesterday, i describe it as an iron fist and velvet blood. we've got to see how much velvet there is and iron going forward because they talk about a lot of things that could be translated into very aggressive and back ward looking demands on mexico and canada. but on the other hand they could go for digital commerce, they could go for improving infrastructure across the border, rules on labor and environment, rules on state owned enterprises. but there would be a big improvement. so the way is open. >> ambassador hills, some interpreted at least this draft text of proposed changes to nafta as being less aggressive than one might have expected from the trump administration given the rhetoric around nafta. and also there's this talk of mexico wanting this process to hurry up and get on with because of stalled investment in mexico

as there's uncertainty around what kind of free trade zone there's going to be several months from now. how do you expect those two factors perhaps mexico's built-in eagerness and the perhaps velvet aspect of this glove to affect where we go from here? >> well, my hope is that we work constructively with our two neighbors, north and south. we have to remember that canada is our largest export destination, and mexico is our second largest export destination. we sell more to mexico than we sell to all the rest of latin america. and our supply chains are extraordinarily interconnected. indeed when we import something from mexico, and i know there've been a lot of frowns cast on imports, but 40% of that import is of american products. 60% of our imports around the world offer intermediate

products. if we start cutting off imports, our exports will be far less competitive. and we will be shooting ourselves in the foot. so, you know, i hope that we reach out, open up the markets, create greater opportunities for our entrepreneurs. we have about 300,000 exporters. about 90% of those are defined as small and medium size businesses who are the great job producers in our country. so if we want to generate jobs, let's have a good trade policy. >> well, you've been there before, ambassador hills. how willing do you think a china, for instance, would be? we have this meeting with president xi next week, to make some concessions to satisfy president trump and his aversion to trade deficits? >> the important thing is to sit at the table and see where you can develop one win situations. sometimes countries cannot go 100 miles an hour to a change in

their economy, but give them some time and they will get there and give you in return something that you want. and the important thing for our entrepreneurs is to know what the rules are. one of the problems with china today is it slowed up on creating rules that are even handed and discouraged one of our outspoken areas of collaboration with china, namely the business community. so there's lots we can do. >> gary, i love this phrase that you said earlier, an iron fist and a velvet glove when it comes to some of these early policies being rolled out. so the media's mostly focused on the velvet glove part of it with regard to nafta right now, but the iron fist, what might that start to look like, you think? >> well, let me just name three

subjects. there's one little bullet about the tax policies of our trading partners, canada and mexico. they have value added taxes, which are adjusted at the border, meaning imposed on u.s. exports to those countries and rebated on their exports to us. trump regards that as unfair. that happens to be international practice. if we ask them to stop their adjustments at the border, that's a big thing. so that's one. secondly, he's quite focused -- trump is quite focused on the trade deficit we have, especially with mexico, which is about $60 billion of about of which $50 billion is in autos. so it's not clear whether he thinks of a trade agreement as a way to reduce the trade deficit. most economists think that's not going to work. but he has a different view. and thirdly -- oh, go ahead.

>> no, just finish your thought. >> sure. well, he wants to hire america, buy america, but he wants mexico also to buy america and canada to buy america instead of buying mexico. you know, can you really have it both ways? doesn't sound very plausible to me. >> well, we're going to find out, i guess. guys, we've got to leave it there. thank you for joining us today. gary hufbauer and am bass dor carla hills. >> thank you so much. economists updating their growth forecast after this morning's economic data. let's get over to steve liesman who's got a cnbc rapid update. steve. >> yeah, really weak consumer spending in the data this morning prompting a decline in the outlook for q-1 in the tracking forecast cnbc rapid update declining by three ticks, 0.3% down to 1.4% with a range of 0.9% to 1.8%. came in 2.1. pretty good market slow down. bank of america coming down the most of all, they were probably

one of the more optimistic on the street, you don't see this every day. the atlanta fed coming down by 0.4, they are now below 1%. goldman sachs more optimistic down by 0.3, morgan stanley down by 1.4 and bank of tokyo unchanged kind of on the higher sigh side of the group we look at. jon, consumer sentiment is so strong, how is it possible consumer spending is quite so weak? and we'll see if we get a bounceback in march. back to you, jon. >> maybe we're saving up for something big. thank you, steve. and when we come back, we are talking rebuilding america all day here on cnbc. a coast-to-coast report after this. plus, nam president and ceo jay timmons joins us right after his meeting with president trump. we're back in just a moment.

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♪ welcome back. our nation's infrastructure in focus all day here on cnbc as the president looks to focus on rebuilding america. coast-to-coast coverage this morning. we're in fremont, california, eric at the brooklyn bridge. aditi, you first. >> yes, we've been talking about infrastructure and dams are a big part of infrastructure. want to give you a lay of the land here. you see those small white buildings behind me, they might be a little hard to make out, but they're right next to part of the calavais dam, controls the flows of water to this huge reservoir here, provides water for up to 2.5 million people in the state. here's the catch though, just 1,500 feet next to that dam lies an earthquake fault. and fears of a catastrophic quake causing major dam failure

has prompted the construction that you see here behind me. you can actually hear some booms coming from that construction site. they're building a new dam to replace the old one. it's part of a $5 billion water infrastructure project. and one of the few instances where you see preventive maintenance for a segment of infrastructure that you typically don't hear about until there's a problem. just north of here, the oroville dam which sparked a massive evacuation last month after intense winter storms damaged the spillway. in that case officials averted a dam failure, but the story underscores the failing d grades the american society of civil engineers gave dams and levees in its most recent infrastructure report card earlier this month. the organization said it would cost $45 billion to repair the country's aging high hazard dams and $80 billion to improve the nation's levees. here in california alone several dam and water infrastructure projects are on governor brown's

$100 billion infrastructure wish list to the state to the federal government. back to you. >> a problem that's been made all the more urgent this year. aditi, thank you. so too are the bridges in this country. let's send it over to eric chemi breaking down that problem for us. >> thank you, kelly. last night we saw a bridge collapse in atlanta, so this is a real relevant problem happening right now. president trump talked about the bad bridges all throughout his campaign. if you look at government data, there are 55,000 structurally deficient bridges across the country including the brooklyn bridge behind me. but here's the thing overall in the data most of the bridges are actually not in urban areas. only 27% are urban bridges, the other 73% are smaller rural area bridges you don't get the same kind of attention for. the other thing that's actually true despite the headlines, bridges are getting better over time. 3,000 bridges got repaired last year. there's only 55,000 deficient bridges now. that number was over 100,000 20

years ago. and the other thing is whatever president trump does from a federal budget point of view, 98% of these bridges are not owned by the federal government. like the brooklyn bridge behind me, they're owned by a city agency or state agency. so they're the ones responsible for raising the taxes, deciding what to fix and when to fix it. so he might raise a trillion dollars, which would be $100 billion a year, but that's for all infrastructure, it's not just for bridges and might not cover all the fixes we need to make. if he does get it done, look for stocks like deere or caterpillar, other construction related stocks to win out. and if you can't get it done, then you might see higher taxes in the local and state governments to get the money to actually pay for a lot of these repairs. back to you. >> if you can't get it done, we'll be all the more nervous crossing some of this old infrastructure, eric. thank you. our eric chemi at the brooklyn bridge this morning. we're awaiting a piece of tape from president trump this morning and meeting with the national association of manufacturers. we're going to have the president and ceo of that organization, jay timmons,

joining us in a moment here on "squawk alley." stay with us. what if we could bring you better value by having better values? at blue apron, we work directly with more than a hundred family farms. so instead of spending on costly middlemen and supermarkets, we can invest in the things that matter most: we've got president trump making an announcement with the national association of manufacturers tape, let's listen. >> -- to the white house. it's a great group of people. i know many of them well. and i want to thank your president and ceo jay timmons for being here with us today. great job. great job, jay. my administration's working

every day to make it easier for manufacturers to build higher and grow in america. we're removing job killing regulations and lifting the burdens on american industry like i would say have never been lifted before. we've done a lot of work over the last 60, 70 days. and i think you're seeing some real production. maybe i think we can say this, mike, like never before. earlier this week i signed an executive order to end the war on coal. we had coal miners up at the office, it was an amazing scene. you had very tough, very strong, very powerful men that were crying, actually. and they were crying with happiness. and produce more american energy and more american jobs, which is how i got elected in the first place. we've created a task force in every agency to eliminate

wasteful regulations. and today at 3:30 with the department of commerce wilbur ross will be up and we're signing two very powerful executive orders. it will be something very important, very, very special. that will be with commerce. one of the reasons we're here today is to announce the extraordinary results of a new survey from the national association of manufacturers. your survey shows that 93% of manufacturers now have a positive outlook on the future of their business in this country. 93, and it was just a few months ago 56. that's a slight difference. that's a slight difference. [ applause ] that's a 20-year record high. highest it's been in 20 years. and it's going higher.

believe me, you can come back next month, jay. i don't know how much higher it can go. so i'm very proud of that. we're all very proud of that. and the manufacturers are really starting to invest big money in a lot of things that are happening. it's a new surge in optimism, which is sweeping all across our land. the survey results are a vote of confidence and plan to bring back jobs, lower taxes and provide a level playing field for our workers. the manufacturing companies represent and represented here today are just an extraordinary group of people. they're leaders. they're brilliant in so many ways. the field has not been a level field. jobs have been leaving our country going to china and mexico and lots of other places. and you'll be seeing what's happening over the next few weeks. it should be very interesting for you to watch. as you know, president of china is coming to florida. we're having a big meeting at

mar-a-lago, call it the southern white house, which it actually is. it was originally built as the southern white house, a lot of people don't know. but it's sort of strange how it got there. but it's going to be something i think very important, very special. i look very much forward to meeting him and the delegation. and we'll see what happens. but i am very, very proud of what you've been able to do in a short period of time. just a little short prfd the optimism is so high. and the sigh the billions of dollars that are being invested by your people and your representatives in plant and equipment and jobs. and i appreciate that, jay, very much. congratulations. you may want to say a few words. >> i do. i want to reemphasize for the media here that this quarterly survey of our 14,000 members has been going on for 20 years. and to the point you made, this was the highest level of optimism our manufacturers have expressed in 20 years. >> that's fantastic. >> and the other statistic that i think you'll find interesting

is the right track, wrong track question that our manufacturers answered. just the month before inauguration day the right track number was only 26%. today it is over 60%. so that's a huge growth as well. and that's because of the focus on taxes, regulations, infrastructure investment. we appreciate your commitment to investment in job creation and manufacturing. and we're going to deliver. >> thank you very much, jay. >> thank you. >> patricia, would you like to say something? pretty outstanding what you've done. >> thank you. i appreciate being here today. i own a plastics manufacturing company in the northwest suburbs of chicago. we're a three-year entrepreneurial start-up in growth phase with a 40-year legacy. it's great to be part of manufacturing in the u.s. >> that's great. great job. you've done a great job. really great. >> good morning, mr. president. i'm ned, president of apache

stainless equipment, we're in beaverdale, wisconsin, we manufacture equipment stainless steel and other high alloys. we employ 175 and most are skilled trades people, some of the best skilled trades people in the state of wisconsin. >> you've been watching president trump in the roosevelt room meeting with some of the nation's manufacturers. by his side we've got jay timmons, head of the national association of manufacturing. he'll join us when he gets out of that meeting. they're talking about the sentiment boost that the national soerpassociation of manufacturing survey just put out. 93% of manufacturers have a positive outlook on business in this country. we've got our full team here to react. eamon javers, ylan mui and john harwood all standing by. john, what i keep wondering is, yes, we've seen sentiment numbers react as well. we've seen this boost of optimism on the trump policies. the question is going to be can he bring american manufacturing jobs back in this country? >> sara, that's exactly the challenge. there's no question that animal spirits have been aroused in a positive way for the american

economy. we saw similar confidence measures when the business roundtable met here in washington a couple weeks ago. the real question is going to be can the things that donald trump is saying actually translate into material advances for the people that he's talking about. for example, the coal executive orders that he signed earlier this week, there are a lot of coal executives who will tell you that jobs aren't going to come back in big numbers because of competition from natural gas. he says he's going to bring back domestic manufacturing by cracking down on trade. a lot of trade experts will tell you it's principally because of automation more so than trade deals that we've been losing manufacturing jobs. so the president's doing things, trying to get back on track after some setbacks that sound good. the question is are they going to make a difference on the ground? and i think the way we've seen the market taper off lately is a sign that maybe the markets

reconsidering exactly how much is going to get done. >> so, eamon, you're there at the white house. can you give us a little more color and context into this meeting today and what we're going to see on trade? >> well, look, sara, this is exactly the kind of thing this white house wants to be talking about. they want to be talking about business optimism. they want to be talking about manufacturing in america. they want to spotlight the stories of business people in this country. but right now they've got a lot of politics swirling around with mike flynn story, the russia story which they don't like to talk about here at the white house. they've got some frustrations in their legislative agenda in terms of the health care bill falling apart last week. their immigration efforts have been blocked by the court. so there's a lot of frustrating things going on for this trump team at the white house right now. this event though is an example of the kind of thing they really want to be doing here at the white house. >> ylan, congress is going to have to deliver for a lot of this optimism to pay off.

optimism is a bit of an iou. any thoughts about exactly the likelihood, i think jay timmons mentioned regulation, infrastructure investment and taxes as being the changes that manufacturers are excited about. which one of those is likely to get done first? >> well, it's really unclear right now. i think what's important is not just what he mentioned is driving up business optimism and manufacturing optimism, but also what wasn't mentioned which is trade policy. we've been talking about these two executive orders that the white house had planned to issue all day long, but the president did not sign them at this meeting. and i wonder if part of the reason is because manufacturers are actually split over the benefits of free trade. this group, the national association of manufacturers has come out in defense of nafta in the past. they've come out in defense of free trade, said it's really important to their business even as these manufacturers say the potential for deregulation is

driving optimism, one of their biggest worries is the impact of trade policy under this administration. so, you know, it really is an issue that cuts both ways for these businesses. >> yeah, it will be interesting to see where that balance meets because the president, jon, did say to the manufacturers seated at that table, you guys have been losing jobs to china and to mexico. and he said we're going to see some orders later today with commerce department. >> sara, you're right. but remember, manufacturing's pretty robust in the united states right now. it's just the number of jobs associated with manufacturing has diminished. but one other point to make about tax reform, the promise of tax reform is that you get rates down and you do that unless you're going to lose a lot of money for the government by closing loopholes. a lot of the republican tax plans talk about taking away the tax credit for domestic manufacturing. i guarantee you jay timmons is not going to be happy about that. >> hey, john, let's just listen

to president trump. we've got some more here. >> -- initiatives are really bringing michigan back. >> big progress in michigan. >> hello. it's nice to see you again. i'm the president and ceo of family business that manufacturers natural gas compressors. we're from mt. vernon, ohio. and gas compressors are used in the oil and gas industry, so i'm especially thankful that you have -- >> so it looks like they're still continuing to do their introductions as we've been accustom to in the meeting with the president. there are members there of the national association of manufacturing meeting with president trump to talk about the big sentiment boost they just saw in their latest survey. john, sorry to cut you off before. you were giving some thoughts on tax reform which is something that president trump mentioned in his opening remarks. said no wonder you guys are so enthusiastic, we're going to get you lower taxes and make you more competitive. >> right. all i was pointing out was that many of the proposals to reduce

corporate taxes would take away loopholes like the domestic manufacturing tax credit. the manufacturers are not going to be pleased with that. and the collision of business interests that ylan was referring to with respect to trade is very much going to be there on tax reform unless they simply leave loopholes in place and cut rates, which is possible they would do that. >> and also, john, i'm just thinking about the prospects for tax reform and whether they do one of these big bills that changes the whole system and closes those loopholes you referenced, or whether it becomes more piecemeal, they go back to something like the dave camp approach. >> well, the dave camp approach was a very serious product that people who have specialized in tax policy think was a very constructive addition. the science initially from the house had been that paul ryan and kevin brady are not interested in dave camp's

approach. they're looking for something different of course financed by the border adjustment tax getting the corporate rate down to 20%. but obviously the border adjustment tax has run into a real buzz saw in the senate in particular. and it's going to be difficult to do. so exactly what the nature of tax reform, how low that rate can get, whether it's going to be corporate plus individual, all of that is not known to us at this point. and they're clearly struggling within the republican party to come up with a governing majority that can move that forward. >> yeah. and, ylan, what were you going to say on that? >> that's okay. i was just going to say there does seem to be a growing sentiment that any bill that would put forward tax cuts would not only be smaller than thought but also perhaps temporary. you saw some comments from senator orrin hatch about this saying he's open to perhaps limiting the scope of tax reform, ending them after ten years in order for them to be able to use these reconciliation processes in order to get something passed. you also heard similar remarks from senator cornen as well. so some key lawmakers on the

hill on the senate side saying they would be willing to take a temporary tax cut so that they can get something done. >> we also learned very briefly, john, that mar-a-lago is officially the southern white house. president trump confirming that. what was he talking about that they originally built it as such? did you get that? >> i didn't actually get that. and i'm not sure what the official part of that would be. but clearly he's trying de facto to turn it into that as we see from the fact that the chinese leader's going to visit with him there. >> all right. john harwood, ylan mui, thank you both for joining us this morning. there will be more news out of the white house as we expect the executive orders coming this afternoon. heading to break look at markets dow's down 27 points, well off the lows. now the s&p has joined nasdaq in positive territory albeit slightly. nasdaq up seven after record close yesterday to close out the month. we'll be right back. price of to give investors even more value. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage.

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welcome back. check out shares of accorda therapeutics. tanking now out of a district court invalidating four patents on the drug. down now 25% on this decision. this come ons the heels of positive decisions on some other patent challenge frs this drug, but this bad news for the stock today. down now about 25%. more after this.

straight to the president and ceo of the national association of manufacturers, having just met with the president. we saw him side by side there. good morning. thanks for joining us. what can you tell us about the conversation about the cameras left the room after the initial dpro sbro duction sns. >> it was a great conversation. we had the opportunity, the national association of manufacturers does a quarterly survey of our 14,000 members. we had the opportunity to tell the president that confidence and optimism from manufacturers is at its highest level in the

entire 20-year history of the survey. 93%. just one year ago, that number was 56%. needless to say, the president was pretty pleased. >> so, did you pitch this to him? did you want to share the good news? >> obviously, this president has met with manufacturing many times since he was inaugural rated and this was another in a series of meetings. 90% of our mep shib are small and medium side an they were very excited to be able to talk to the president and tax reform and regulatory reform, infrastructure investment and those are the details these h d tackling that are making manufacturers confident about the future. >> a lot to have of the stuff has to get sold. although i don't have a survey,

my sense is this retailers not feeling as optimistic as manufacturers are. a japanese retailer saying that if he were forced to manufacture their clothing in the united states, he would just shut down. how do you balance the needs? >> you were talking about manufacturers who makes a decision about where to manufacture in the world based on the cost of doing business. i think the great news they're hearing from this administration and congress is is that they're committed to reducing the cost of business in the united states, which will attract more investment and job creation right here. in thfact, another statistic wa the right track, wrong track number. just a month before the president took office, it was at 26%. now, it's 60%. right track. that's because manufacturers are opt nimistic. >> we need to ask you about trade. how doo do they feel about the

president's trade policies? he's expected to sign two orders today. one as it relates to tariffs and antidumping duties. the other look iing at renegotiating agreements like nafta. you guys need foreign buyers to buy our manufactured goods, do you not? >> you better believe it. 95% of the world's customers live outside of the borders of the united states. we want to sell to them. but it's also important to remember we're a rules base soed. enforcement is a very important component of that. so we look forward to continuing that conversation as they start to determine what their path forward is. a lot of your manufacturers are are going to be anxious about that. from everything i've heard,

before the inauguration, actually, to everything i've personally talkeded to the president about over the last serves. they want to make sure we're manufacturing in the united states and we're able to sell our products overseas and that's a good thing. we just don't want unfair practices hurting those in the united states. theft or counterfeiting or dumping. >> we'll see what happens on the trade. thank you for joining us out of the meeting. of national association of manufactures. got to see if this translates into more hiring and investment and as you know, we're watching infrastructure all day here on krbz cnbc with a closer look at the president's plan to rebuild america, dom. >> as we talk about the investment in infrastructure, a number of companies in america could benefit and one of the

places some are taking this view is in one etft. the power shares etf. since trump got elected, we're up about 17%. take a look at winners and losers. it's not all u about just concrete. take a look at united rental, up 64% since the election here. they lease heavy equipment. u.s. steel, up 62%. we know the play there. you need it for construction and u.s. concrete, up 30% as well. also though, there are some relative underperformers during this time span as well. notably so when it comes to energy. we know natural gas energy prices, oil prices, have been under some pressure b as of late. pipeline companies are some of the ultimate lag lards in this. spectra energy, up 4% and kinder

morgan, up 5%. nowhere near the gains we've seen for some of these parts, but still as investors look for where they can play this, check out some of these stocks and etfs and all day on cnbc, we'll be looking at infrastructure stocks as a whole, but for now, squawk alley is over. out to scott wapner at the stock exchange for the half. after best qrter in years for stock, what happens now? is it too late to get in or is there another leg just ahead? with us today -- steve, it has been the best quarter in a number of years. you've had this tremendous run of quarterly gains if for stocks