>> c-span's history series landmark cases returned this month with a look at 12 and a supreme court cases. to strengthen experts join us to discuss the constitutional issues and personal story behind a supreme court decision beginning monday, figure 265 at 9:00 p.m. eastern and to help you follow all 12 cases, we have a companion guide written by tony amaro, landmark cases volume two. the book costs $8.95 for shipping and handling. to get your copy, go to c-span.org/landmark cases. >> now, discussion of the role congress is in the ongoing renegotiation process of the north american retreat agreement or nafta. the next round of talks is scheduled to take place in mexico city february 26 to march 62018. the johns hopkins school of advanced international studies posted this 90 minute panel

discussion. >> hello, welcome, jennifer join us here today. i'm a master of arts student here. the north american free tradee agreement was enforced on january 1, 1994. the agreement was signed by president george bush on december 7 t. and a 1992 when approved by congress in november november 101994. excuse me, 1993. nafta is significant because of the most comprehensive free trade agreement negotiated at the time and several groundbreaking provisions served as a template model for the new generation of free-trade agreement the united states later negotiated and also served as a template for certain provisions of multilateral trade negotiations as part of the round. this year congress will decide on what legislation to consider into a man on the current nafta.

they will also consider the ramifications of negotiating or regarding nafta and how it might affect the u.s. economy and foreign relations of partners mexico and canada. some contend withdraw from the tpp issue of competitiveness from economic leaders in the region while others either withdraws a way to prevent lower-cost and potential job losses. key provisions of the tpp may be addressed in modernizing the renegotiating nafta. which is at this point more than two decades d old. some proponents of open and rules a straight contend maintaining nafta or deepening economic relations with canada and mexico will promote a common trait agenda with shared values and generate economic growth while opponents of the treaty of say the agreement has caused worker display rack. we areem lucky to have such a distinguished panel with us here today from the center for

strategic and international studies. first of either to introduce scott miller. he is currently the senior adviser at the leadership academy at csi leadership academy is the sis, focusing on leadership development programs are public and private sector executives from 1997-2012, mr. miller was director of global trade policy for procter & gamble appeared he led many campaign supporting u.s. free-trade free trade agreement and has been a contributor to u.s. trade and investment policy with mediators. mr. miller insisted advisory committee and international economic policy. richard miles in the middle is a senior fellow and director of the u.s.-mexico futures initiative and the deputy director of the american program at the sis. he has over 20 years of experience as a foreign service officer with the department of state intelligence officer with the u.s. army. his diplomatic assignments

include the u.s. embassy in argentina, barbados, germany and iraq. he's also been the ultimate representative of the united date and the western hemisphere affairs at either to the under secretary for political affairs. dr. chris sands is director for canadian studies and senior associate at the sis. he's directed research on the mass implementation of the automotive industry and bilateral agreement. he's a member of the advisory board of the mcdonald institute and the canada united states fought institute as well as the frequent commentator on media in regards to bilateral trade issues. to start off today's conversation, mr. miller, would you like to comment and this is a question for going on theld panel. would you like to comment on how much commercial oversight there

has been in the current negotiationsre so far in the roe of trade promotion authority so far the national negotiations? >> sure, thank you. and thank you for hosting this event. it's a great pleasure to be here. book, one of the reasons i found this participate in this panel appealing is because it's focused on the right topic. the right topic being how does congress deal with the trade agreement just as background, a lot of the coverage of nafta is executive branch actions and takes the play-by-play. follow the news coverage is who said what and what we think about it. when you consider the role of congress come you start to think about the endgame. the united states to recall civics class, the united states government has limited and enumerated powers had one of those enumerated powers is the power to regulate foreign commerce and is an article i of our constitution which is the

article dealing with congress. congress has the power to regulate foreign commerce and i mention this thing called trade promotion authority or fast track which is delegation of authority from congress to the executive branch to do the work of negotiating the treaty, but ultimately the successful free-trade agreement of any sort on almost any level requires in implementing though that is passed by both houses of congress and signed by the president. the endgame deals with the congress because you're considering the congress, you -- you're endgame is some arm of coalition politics. in other words, there has to be a set of elements to the agreement or changes to the agreement in the case of nafta that can garner support of 218 house members and 51 senators in the president. that's always the endgame and it's a very important thing tond think about it one of the

reasons the u.s. position on nafta has been somewhat confusing on how it raises the important question of what is going on, what is congress' role now somewhat behind the scenes. there are a few reasons for that. first, we started these negotiations from the u.s. do with the president promised to renegotiate nafta without a compelling coalition in support of that promise. most of the time you recall when the president decided to launch a and notify the congress, and everyone knows quoting the hypocritical that the credit goes. first, do no harm. a lot of resistance initially appeared the second element is somewhat behind the scenes activity is republican house, republican senate, republican president. there are thingsey they want too together. there are things whereo they disagree and there's been a tendency early in this congress to focus on things that they

want to work on together, specifically tax reform and add regulatory changes that have been made with the help of the congress led by the administration. nafta was somewhat controversial because of this do no harm request from the congress or insistence from the congress. it became a family conversation on the site for a long while, at least all of 2017 until the tax reform bill was signed into law. now you are beginning to see, here we are february 28 teen come you see the things happening. the house ways and meansnspp committee met with the members of the republican side of the senate finance committee had a meeting with the president in the white house on trade and just the quotes are not. all of a sudden, congress is beginning to exercise its appropriate and constitutional role of not just oversight of

the executive, but ultimately the power to determine what is in nafta. it's been slow coming of frustrating for those who wanted to see it sooner but at least it's happening now. let me stop there. >> first of all, i am from johns hopkins. sais, thank you for hosting this panel. the constitutionalal responsibility of oversight, but there is another dimension entirely political in what i mean by that is the start of, but it picked up speed in late summer and early fall. that is the state delegations, governors and state legislators contacting our representatives in washington and underscoring how important nafta was to their individual states. here i'm talking about farm exporting states and state to have a heavy automotive sector present. there are 28 states that have mexico as their number one

export partner. you are talking about billions of dollars of everything from corn, soybeans, groups from california, wheat, lots of different products that if nafta were to go away, these were heavily contingent. if mexico were to choose to engage in a trade work come in those states in particular would suffer badly. it is no coincidence that at least 28 to 30 vulnerable for the use gop seats are in play in those particular states. you can connect the dots. on one hand the committee in on theersight other hand state governors: the white house for calling congress and saying if s nafta goes awayn the getting to trade work, my state is going to be hurt badly and will probably lose seats in the house and maybe even a couple in the senate. as i said, that process started relatively late. that's an argument we should have been making northeastern

states should state should have been making for years. it didn't start happening until last march when it went out the night dates is about to unilaterally withdraw in the new site on a tv by chamber of commerce, trade associations, individual state and also the canadian and mexican governments gotten in the actin realized they themselves should be going to state governors and making the case about jobs tied specifically to this day with canada or mexico. canadians visited every state and talk to every governor and give them a little chart. you can google right now canadians have the best data on u.s. jobs. they've done a fantastic job. mexicans not as much good they played a little catch up but it didn't come. >> thank you for pulling this all together. you were the one who inspired

the panel and it would be happening without you. thank you for that. you've asked the right question. i want to echo what scott miller and richard miles have said with a couple of interesting twist. for people who remember the trade policy r history, when president obama went to congress and asked for trade promotion authority and 2014, he was met by some bewilderment. democrats knew he was in b after critic of the washer while he said he wanted to do the trade agreements which asia and a lot of republicans didn't trust obama on anything. what they wrote which became the bipartisan trade promotion act of 2015 was the most restrictive piece of legislation on administration with so many conditioned strict deadlines that we have seen since the trade act of 1974 during the ford administration that set up the fast track process.

congressss gave itself a big roe because he wasn't sure where negotiations were can i go. when donald trump became president there was an open question. would you see trade promotion authority to renegotiate nafta and ultimately he did not because the authority granted to the obama administration was still available to him and he felt that he wouldn't get any more leeway than congress had given obama, that he would be on a short leash. you might think this is all inside, which it is to a degree. fascinating to me as chaotic as they say in the donald trump administration to be, they've never missed a deadline under this trade promotion authority bill. they've been very faithful to its terms and announce things when they're supposed to announce them. they put out their preliminary agenda, negotiating objectives on schedule and what that reveals as he rations seriousness about getting the deal and congress' role. in that vein, which is i think a

surprise to many of us. when you look at what the administration set out for negotiating object is, it's much more about canada than it is mexico. the issues congress cares about on trade are often things that affect a number of states like georgia to washington and oregon. we see very important in new york and wisconsin getting a high profile. we see concerns around the auto industry, but as major trade industries come forward, canadians have been much more in the target bull's-eye than the mexicans. what's also interesting is dynamics were canadians. richard is quite right they've been proactive in trying to engage inside u.s. government, talking to states and so on. what's interesting is the politics in canada. the canadian and mexican partners, governments have felt a bit on the defensive because

there's almost an implicit accusation for the trump administration that nafta is the worst deal ever, the partners of ours are cheating. at the beginning, and the trudeau government in canada, mr. justin trudeau's government took the view that is going to stay calm, get along with the trump administration to the extent that it could not allow it all to be put on the defensive. as time has gone on to become quite contentious and go actually to the states, some of you remember the dispute, the antidumping dispute, the political dynamic in canada startedd to shift as some canadian started asking we are being so nice to donald trump. why is he beating us up all the time. all we are getting our trade penalties and not lead the trudeau government to decide they have to take a punch as well. they had to push back and we saw this wto case lunch a few weeks ago, which is a challenge to the

way the u.s. calculates penalties and trade remedy. it specifically deals with lumber, but it actually goes to challenge a lot of trade remedy as that goes back to 74 and before the united states. this is going to be a tricky asset going forward in the negotiations. obviously annoyed ustr considerably appeared because it's a broad challenge, it is also brought into in a very negative way, brought into a challenge the way congress has written u.s. trade remedy laws. though surprised the u.s. has written laws to protect its industry and make sure if there's cheating abroad the commerce department another step forward defending u.s. industry. what is fascinating to me is canada chose to challenge u.s. trade law at a time when the congress is so important. the criticism is not just the

trump administration or before that the obama and bush administration. it is a challenge the way congress has writtenge these las in canada is on both sides of the asking congress to do better double make the negotiations tricky going forward. >> thank you. how do you think the you think you need to congress in order to have legislators that they can improve is going to affect negotiations that are ongoing themselves? anyone? >> look, what will have to emerge a something that looks a lot like coalition politics. some group of affect that industries are parties have to take a look at the negotiations as they stand, and decide what they think about them in terms of the effect on businesses, states and markets, whatever its might be and begin to band together to form a side of

coalition that will actively build support among the congress did this happens every time. if you want a possibility house and senate may get offended the president come you have to do this work. it often emerges after the negotiations stars. the fact it hasn't shown up that was not a surprise. there's usually an inkling of it beforehand. the coalition believe it or not the u.s. korea free trade agreement started with a comment from senator max baucus, chairman max baucus at the time. committee chairman of the senate would name a comment are taken with a fair amount of weight. that was the emerging idea but were quickly built into a fairly substantial coalition that supported free trade with korea. what has been emerged as a coalition in support of anything in particular in the united states. there's now a coalition not screw up nafta by generically

characterizing the business community. this is funny because for 20 or so years, firms across north america dial with nafta as a set of commercial rules in no set of commercial rules is ever perfect. nafta was the perfect when it darted. it isn't perfect today. it was stable enough that people plan and build business around it. you develop a supplier base, serve customers based on that set of rules. they take it for granted. a friend of my works that the farm bureau, very important coalition, part of any coalition that passes the trade agreement. prettier farmers think about nafta? they think it's great. i said what's on the farm bureau's website when it comes to nafta and he admitted for the past 20 years they have not

been. there was not enough to tab on the website of the american farm bureau federation. that's a problem. that problem has been solved. the coalition do not harm nafta has materialized and is at it by the way. you will find a nafta page that is pretty comprehensive and affect lives. there's been some corrective action of people who now understand political dynamic in our making voices known. what hasn't happened yet and i'm interested to see whether it's happening in canada and mexico as well. there's really no clear idea what a final product might look like that might garner a majority in the congress. that is the mystery of why it's been so difficult to predict the duration of these talks and what the potential and state might look like. i think we are kind of behind

the curve versus a difficult agreement. we got into it not because anybody ever asked for this. >> i think congress is a concern about nafta is directly related to the perception of how the negotiations were going. when i started last august, most people thought this will sort of be a standard trade negotiation about the trade representative do his job. by the time you got to november, early december, i think we had three or four rounds by then, the other capital is very dark and very pessimistic because one of the rounds had really gone badly. a lot of very tough statements coming out of ustr. or one i to in town and scott coming you heard the same thing, the people from a senior-level people with very good access to what was going on were batting that we were going to walk, which is really sobering to hear that from people sort of in the

know. the panic has subsided and passed. there is now a general consensus that thehe montréal round whilet didn't necessarily the ball forward, chris and i had decided they might collapse during montréal. they didn't. the expectation is in mexico and may show a little bit of flexibility. rules of origin, which is hard to imagine that i heard back from a couple people who i trust. the worst-case scenario in the best case scenario the mexico city round they go into dormancy until the end of 2018 or 29 team. my point being that was the governing trade that in 1974,

was it 1982? what sort of lawsuits can they filed? a lot of talk about mechanisms available to stop the trump administration. you don't hear that anymore and that reflects a sense of relief that we've united states are not going toct walk away. there will be some other full solution that kicks in. >> which is a good thing. but the president pulled out no one knew exactly what happened. the last president was 1866, andrew johnson's presidency. nobody knows. >> is sort of remarkable to me, just hearing both of you. i remember when nafta was passed was very contentious debate in congress in november night 293. but when we finally got a vote, i felt well, all right, now committed to a north american economy would hear the discussion going forward. in the years that followed was

how silent the community was. not just the farm bureau, but in general people benefited that nobody b wanted to be out front defending it. we had one of the situations you have in politics sometimes were critics have a field day. and when raises complaints and criticisms of some of the people who benefit just keep silent. nafta had a terrible reputation in american politics in a way than in canada free trade skeptics came around. even in mexico there is a feeling that nafta wasn't the worst. willy in the u.s., the only place you saw that negativity. that kind of created an interesting political dynamic. donald trump and his campaign help to bring the voices of the critics to our attention. we've been ignoring. a lot of people didn't like them for aie ready reason, but withot has in turn done as it's brought the business community and

beneficiaries back into the public square. the number of businesses that are started to talk to employees about how the north american trade minds -- richard is nice to give credit to canadian canadians. i think they've held for sure. also, a lot of people didn't even know their community was benefiting are worth affected by free trade. i think it's been a nice side effect that was scott miller mentioned the sort of notion of the business community having taken this on board and decided they are a big change in nafta but they don't want no nafta and so therefore they better do something to talk about why they think it's about thing. it's been tremendously helpful and also picking up something richards said. donald trump captured the sense that nafta was a good, but there isn't an agenda. a tremendous amount of flexibility a thing. it comes up with o an agreement

that satisfies the business community and canan say it's a good deal, better deal, probably a huge deal, fantastic deal. then i think that he'll be able to sell it and therefore able to move forward in a nafta to point out air with a broader base of support for the idea of north american trade, that will be a benefit even if it came with donald trump driving a car, it will be good that we are engaged on not. .. give your employees a bonus we see a number of perks that forward and that the president wanted to encourage. i'm looking and what will it

take to get to congress and looking for that sign that businesses once they see that final nafta 2.0 and what they're willing to step forward as they would like this deal is good for business and we will invest more in north america because of it. when you see those things before or after it will make congress feel more comfortable waiting into this especially comes before midterms in 2018 which it still could do although probably won't. >> going up he said, the issue of nafta has been used recently as an electoral issue and trade is complex. it's difficult to understand and go to summarize. how do you think that politicalization of nafta taking it from what it is as a simple trade issue and distilling it into a political issue and transforming it into how to picture daily life and how that

affecting the actions of congress might take going forward? >> it's a great question. let me give you the long view on the switches from sort of the end of the civil war till about 1980 trade politics were amazingly stable in america. there's a outstanding book the size of the doorstop and be forewarned is by doug irwin, classical for commerce and it's a history of american trade policy. one of the points he makes is that trade politics were an astonishing stable for about 100 years up until about 1980, 1985, somewhere in there. the reason they were stable is because the benefit of trade focused on key factor endowments that were closely tied to geography in the united states and we go back and you want to know where the industrial midwest was in 1880 it was the industrial midwest, by the way, in northwest ohio today they make honda automobiles in

marysville and up the road from marysville is lima. in 1880 lima with leading producer of steam locomotives in america and that is what people did their much like in the wheat belt people grew crops for export in particular for the same in the northeast with the financial services that were very important to trade from the beginning. there was a stable political geography reflecting factor endowments in everyap trade agreement was a essentially votd on in a bipartisan but geographically specific manner so if you were a senator from york didn't matter whether your democrat, patrick moynihan or a republican trade is good for new york city with tray. likewise about salina you had republican strom thurmond and democrats chris hollings andti south carolina were protectionist because it was

textiles and apparel in south carolina. that all changed in the first time it changed in three board ways. the first way was technology. what happened was because of the information revelation all of a sudden communication costs fell to zero and in 1990 long distance to new york to los angeles a dollar a minute. anyone remembers those itemize c long distance. what you rememberr pete today? cost of electricity. this change the way you coordinate tasks andnd it sprea. a lot of things that used to be transplant in manufacturing are now international trade. that is a fundamental change. what that did to politics is caused trade to the benefits and cost to be in a much more regular level and it was at the firm level instead of the

industry level and no longer tied to geography. think of south carolina. no longer a textile stapler still mom and pop firms which are which have foreign competition in our import and at the same time there's brands but it's a global apparel company with headquarters in south carolina bute likewise you also have bmw and volvo that has two major exporters foreign investors in salina. tim scott has a different view of how the politics of trade work in the state than his predecessor strom thurmond. because of that technological change and it's confusing. second thing that happened was the weapon eyes to politics. basically it was a matter of keep in mind republicans never held aee majority from 1954 to 1994. political stability and we don't

have that anymore. that helps weapon eyes politics in general and likewise we had a bunch of senate leaders bipartisan fashion didn't like the senate and decided to turn it into the house. we now have two majoritarian travel bodies in our legislator which has a nice politics including trade. third and this is the one that almost no one misses if you read a bruce stokes or the research is there's been a shift where the party bases are different parts than the party voters. labor movement and environmental movement, democratic membersnt here that in democratic voters the more urban and younger they are the more the support trade. likewise, the republicans listen to the chamber of commerce and chamber of commerce likes trade and underneath that the more referral and order a drink older your boaters are the more skeptical you are of trade. both parties are disconnected so you combined technology and for small, nice politics. second, technology cause

globalization to affect firms much finer level both winners and losers and your party base is in a different place than your party voters. what that means as no one wants to vote on trade. it's a mess. >> i can't really add to what nafta has done politically in the united states but in terms of mexico i would say that nafta is a much greater political symbol in mexico than it ever has been and the reason for that are when mexico entered nafta is the same year they entered the organization for economic cooperation basically the rich country which industrial life. this meant that all of a sudden mexico joined the global economy and the number of products available in the amount of investment that went into mexico started skyrocketing after 1994. you can see that and it's obvious. anyone who mexico before and after it's possible. what that means is nafta for mexico was there to get into the

wider industrial world. it's not just a trade agreement as being in the ranks of the top countriesg in the world. that is why it is interesting in the mexicans have elections on july 1st and we would call the campaign but mexican election laws are very strict but they are not campaigning but it's a not a controversial subject for is not being used by any of the candidates any of the major candidates as a weapon or tool and no one favors getting out. even lopez on the far left is not proposing that the mexico get up and walk out of nafta. there's a very strong political consensus that nafta essentially has been good for mexico and that was not the case when they entered and that's basically gone for the most part and so in a strange way as chris alluded

to earlier donald trump saying that the united states will leave nafta in and strengthen the political consensus in mexico about the good value that isav come out of it and he has done that favor in terms of perception. >> i think very much that's those beautiful member the 1988 election in canada the conservative government progressive at that point was running to defend that adjustment renegotiated so they could see it ratified in the country was divided. it wasn't for the us canada free trade agreement and this is not even nafta but the cursor was interesting was if the opposition had not been split between the new democratic party andig the federal liberals you might well have seen the election go the other way is the famous canadian election rejected free trade with the united states and there was so much fear that this agreement

would transform the economy that americanize is an canada will lose jobs and the fact that where everything was on the open rdand everyone was afraid the border would be raised and yet in fact canada grew more prosperous and standards of living rose and change the politics in canada quite effectively so the politicalization there has tended to support nafta and support openness and pretrade to such a point that justin trudeau his father had been a pretrade skeptic and launched a commission to take a look at whether this would be good for canada and seem to be coming aroundse before he retired and w his son is a quite progressive supporter of not only treat itself but openness but how this could advance inclusion for women and indigenous peoples and for others. it has changed the politics of

trade for canada but i want to pick up on something that scott muller also raised which is one of the more interesting stories we haven't begun to debate not only on campus but in a wider public. that is something that bruce stokes and the pupils are shown there is a gender, generational gap over trade. if you go to older people, many who were baby boomers and in the 40s and 50s when nafta came in felt there prospects do not improve or someone they knew lost her job and became trade skeptics and many of them ended up feeling ultimately that they were unreconciled to trade so they voted for donald trump. not to pick on you but if you look at this generation there more cosmopolitan and the lowering of medication cost means their friends in other countries and it's not like my generation were at 10000 stamps

but more fluid and because of that they tend to see openness as a value and they are not threatened by people on the other side of the border and they see collaboration not only in the classroom but in the future lives as being a normal thing. the trick for the politics going back to congress is you have a critique of nafta that is coming from an older generation. people usually build nafta 2.04 is the millennial generation. you need to build an agreement because that person that is now in her 60s or 70s a retired will not get their old factory job back. they don't expect it to what they want is americans always wanted which is better life for kids and it's all these politicians and other countries want. can we come up with a nafta 2.0 that is goes back to the old nafta debate in close quarters and certainlyrt when you hear donald's rhetoric that is what you hear or will we get in

agreement that is a net positive that sets the table for economic growth and weight the price opportunity and t get to the latter you will see congress really get on board because i see this is something that will bring them both because it not only makes voters happy but convinced the older voters that it will create a better opportunity for their kids. that is the sweet spot. >> they have to look past their bases and look at the rotors. >> exactly but not the professional based the actual voters. >> imagine that the nafta 2.0 they would be creating would be basically for the millennial generation in mexico and canada have been trying to add clauses in negotiation security environment issues, gender issues et cetera. social issues that have not been negotiated at least not in north america and how do you see this as affecting the possibility that they might want to ratify and in these new terms coming

from trading partners. >> look, three basic areas of work in the nafta. one part which you mentioned was the modernization. certainly today a us style free-trade agreement if you start to go .-ellipsis they would unpleasantly have chapters on labor in the environment and equal prominence with access to the street from it. we didn't do that and after. nafta had the famous side agreement after the negotiations. also in 1994 there was zero commercial use of the internet in today the way young entrepreneurs and small businesses going to conduct international trade is electronically. the digital trade is an enabler of services is so powerful particularly for small businesses that it can't be ignored. also,za there are some other

modernization elements that would be important to. for instance, when we conclude and after there was a constitutional ban or bar in mexico to foreign activity in the energy sector. mexico has to its great credit reformed and changed its constitution and there's still a national holiday for the day of the oil industry but the policy has changed and now it's permissible foreign investment but because of the original constitutional ban in the '90s there was not much of an attacker and north america is an energy powerhouse and there's amazing opportunities on hydrocarbons and we all want to be answer noble energy and we have separate standards and that genius got to get together and these are the modernization elements the second greatest are lumber and sugar for mexico and intellectual property as a applies to pharmaceuticals in canada and the stalinist sugar program and poultry aches and

likewise sectors of mexico. we didn't get it done in the original nafta. there's a third group of other brush clearing where things have changed substantially and we like to improve them. how you parse those out as a negotiator is the art of putting together something that would wind up being appealing to congress and obviously that the greatest hits are the hardest to solve. >> i heard we been fighting about lumber since almost the founding way back. >> where have you seen the most improvement, scott? >> well, what amazed me was the degree to which firms adapted to the existing and sometimes you need sections to be creative and the existing rules of nafta were great spur to innovation.

automotive rules and they get a lot of your time. you gotll the sector is large ad its political sensitive and that goes back to the auto pack to throw and other politics what amazes me t is that in nafta original will be call the big three were very much involved in negotiation for the automobiles and they were specifically trying to harm their japanese competitors in particular but any foreign competitors. they were trying to solve the market and build a set of rules that match their supply chain and interfered with their competitor supply chain. what happened in the meantime? all these foreign nameplate manufactures looked at the rules and said not bad and we could do that. and they did it in this quarter in the united states more vehicles will be produced by foreign nameplate automakers than by the detroit pretty. first time in history. that's a product of nafta and

they thought they would advantage and disadvantage auto companies but they dids was the set of rules for stable enough, predictable enough that people build their businesses rounded and that immense creativity is so hard to make that no one gets it and you can't put it on a piece of paper and you can't put it to a bill but that dynamism is what the product we have today. >> it's funny. first i have to defend lester pearson because he was actually the guy who did the auto pack johnson but to go -- >> to go got credit. >> but i will say also what is interesting is we are all to some extent being treated in american way of doing business and that people prefer not to think about and you talk about the sausage factory that congressll is and what happens n congress is that when there is something that is popular and moving through everyone wants to hitchh a ride on that thing that

is popular whether it's a war funding bill or big budget and so you take issues that have nothing to do with the main project and they don't fit but you attach them as amendments and the momentum is enough to get them through we do that all the time but certainly not the common practice in the canadian parliament in other settings. what we have seen in trade is a trade is important and there's money on the table and business community get behind it and we really want to get a bill through people with other concerns tried to find ways to tie their concern to the trade agenda and i think that is what you see canadians called the feprogressive trade agenda. with nafta thanks to the clinton administration as they move toward ratification there was a real feeling on the part of organized labor but also on the environment to limit their

issues were completely ignored in the agreement and that the agreement went forward without the concern they would try to block it and fight it. the labor that made sense because they were concerned about the effect on organized labor of growth and especially how it helped nonunion firms and so on so the environment was more of a stretch but they felt the economic growth could add to carbon in the atmosphere and so on. the clinton initiation realized what it would take to get a deal tacked on to sign agreements the north american commission environmental corporation and labor cooperation and since that time we have largely accepted that those issues blog in the main body of the agreement. it's gone forward in the transport partnership would have had elements i built in to the core of the agreement. what has happened has more and more of those sorts of issues that you wouldn't think are primarily related to trade want to see at the table. not necessarily because they are intricately involved in north america and trade because they

recognize this is important enough that they can hitch a ride get something. for example, first nation in canadana which we could call original communities over mostly remote, often not in the mainstream and they're looking for jobs and opportunities in their community and the canadian government for some reason tried to reconcile with native communities and years of disputes and so on and they have added original communities to what they think they would like to talk about here. i don't think from the story and we think that fits but as a practical matter when you talk about the politicalization and how it affected things i think people recognize the trade agreement is the ability to carry a lot forward people will bring things particularly if scott and richard are right what

people expect to get a deal and more people will come in and they wait a minute and do something for me. that will make what we think of it as a trade issue or trade piece of legislation become much more complicated with easy riders along the way. >> and the more those will come to -- >> if i could add from mexico's perspective what the most important develop of nafta wanting nafta did is made investors particularly us investors feel safer about investing in mexico. the initial surge of investment is mostly in the north when you had the assembly factories but it's paying off now because 20 years later mexico opened its energy sector and the development in the last five or six years has been incredible. mexico now gets half of its energy from the united states. half. most of that is natural gas pipelines and liquid natural gas.

they just had a few days ago for a successful auction in the gulf of mexico for oil and gas. the art auction of 19 out of 29 blocks they are with the signing bonus of 525 and that will potentially rate 92 billions of investment. i don't think investors particularly for that quantities of money would be even thinking about that if they didn't think mexico could achieve a level of investor security and investor confidence. i think that is one of the biggest side effects of nafta is increasing. >> we forget where mexico was when this started. they just came to the debt crisis and they had leaders in salinas and [inaudible] but they had no way to deliver reform. they weren't engaged with the world. nafta brought about not just free-trade but for instance there was no such thing as notice and comment rulemaking in

mexico for the nafta but because of the chapter on transparency mexico basically what us negotiators accomplished and read in the administering of procedures act into mexican procedures. mexican operations. all of a sudden keep in mind that is not only valuable to foreigners that regulations are published in advance and are open for comment and the government has to respond to the comment. that's like breathing air in the united states but what is important in mexico most important forpo the domestic purpose this would no idea whether regulations would be prior to this transparency so all this additions is exactly right about investment in security of investment and what it has done for raising living standards in mexico but we now tend to take this for granted and it's a very american habit ghof forgetting things might hae been at some point in assuming it's okay. >> i would add to that that the us does and love us or hate us

it's an american thing is we are willing to be the bad guy and put enough political pressure to encourage our partners to make a political difficult decision that is ultimate good report. one of the most contentious issues and after renegotiation is canadian dairy. you can down and i like the idea of canadian stalinist chickens but. [laughter] this idea that these are areas where canada has a management system that leads to higher prices for consumers and it's not particularly efficient but quite politically potent in the us is putting tremendous pressure on canada not because it's trying to hurt canada but because it is willing to be the bad guye so that canada will me a change but i think mexico we saw and the canadians are willing to be a source of pressure that can help

performers do something that politically might not be possible and will never get things for that but that's one of our habits. >> to richard's comment about howw politically support there s for nafta in mexico today because all sides of the etpolitical spectrum recognize that mexico's a different and probably better place as a result of those reforms that were very hard-fought and difficult to implement and all that. >> thank you. in regards to canada prime minister trudeau came out and said he would prefer and i quote no nafta over a bad nafta. can you comment on that what you think he meant by that? >> well, i think the prime minister his remarks go to a couple of things. one is that canadians are happy with nafta as is so why change that to make it different it will be a bad change because that will leave it alone going back to do no harm. the other thing is many

canadians feel although it would take some action to make it happen if nafta disappeared we go back to the trade history agreement. you have to revise it and it would but it still on the books and they felt that gives them a belt and suspenders and second pair of underwear that they've got a way to survive even this and thirdly, i think the prime minister is with his recent speeches including in california and chicago this week to signal that he is not willing he will not case on canadian interest and will be a firm defender of canada here. this whole dynamic where the us is hit canada with a number of trade actions while the trudeau government has trying to engage positively with the trump administration has put pressure on him at home. we seen some senators come out and be quite critical of canada even suggesting that perhaps we split the talks and do a deal with mexico on the side and come

back to mexico later. there's been sharp criticism of howell unimaginative canada has been and that they have aren't serious but a deal. i think that puts this pressure on trudeau any need to step up to that criticism and that's what he's trying to do. remember we focus on the mexican election which is coming up this summer but canada should have an election next year in importantly this year elections and the two biggest provinces in the country both of which are currently governed by liberals which is the same party as trudeau, ontario and québec. those will be harbingers of what happened in 2019 and little year and he's like anyone else because of politics. his organized that he may have been too friendly for too long and needs to suggest that he has got the ability to walk away. what trump has been saying in the beginning. >> is the congress concern about mexican elections next year at all or so they concern the mexican elections extra?

>> what is our paid attention to them they might be and that is starting to happen. look, the other big issue we have in mexico at stake is security cooperation. particularly in the area of heroin and opioids. 90% of the heroin in the united states comes from mexico. it's a huge switch. mexico is also a transit point for federal and car personal coming out of china which is used in part of the opioid crisis. to their credit they've been cooperative in trying to shut that down with your security agencies and also mexican authorities have been very cooperative and trying to stem the flow of central american migrants transiting mexico on their way to united states. last year for the year before theyd were more central americas detained at the us southern

border than mexicans. arvery responsive to that. there is a feeling by some in mexico that they are doing the us dirty work in stemming the flow. those two a programs potentially would be at risk if say lopez on the left takes power and if you were to win he might say why are we doing this. i think there will be a level of concern particularly about lopez or [inaudible] even some of his past statements access positions but at the same time i think there's a surprising amount of acceptance that that would not necessarily be a disaster for the united states. for some of the reasons we have talked about in just taking energy as an example. those are constitutional reforms so lopez might try to overturn them and it would be difficult and i don't think he would even try it could slow the process down and not auction off to there is concern in the sector

on matt and on security cooperation that could be an issue problem particularly has a different philosophy about going off the cartels and so on.t everything else the us officials they don't see this as an end of the world cereal so i think the policy community would deal with it. >> if you think of the united states congress in terms it's all people who won their last elections and we have elections in november and most members of congress at least a third of the senate in every house member are most concerned about. i also think is one of the reasons the nafta talks more constructive than they were six months ago. for me the turning point was a three word phrase senator doug jones. when the republicans lost the most winnable senate seat in america i think there was

serious consideration by the particular white house but lots of people involved in politics and probably the president himself realizes that the loss of the senate majority he loses his ability to confirm judges and all sorts officials in life gets harder. i do think if you look at some of the states where democratic incumbent senator is facing the voters in november of this year in trump on the state many of the states are independent in north dakota would be the prime example. heidi has been a good senator and mr. trump carried north dakota by 25 or 30 points. big win. 78% of agricultural exports from dakota go to canada and mexico. nafta is pretty important and that may have a constructive effect on things as they go forward. >> on the politics which i think is interesting g normally way te us government is perceived in canada and mexico is this group

in congress that are very much caught up in the messick politics and say all sorts of critical and negative things about mexicans and canadians because they bring up the disputes their voters care about. ond the other hand have a president who is both head of government andnd had a state who takes the longview says the things our canadians are great friends and allies and they say all the positive things. we saw that under obama and under t george w. bush and so o. now we have a president who is unusual in that he is a combatant in the arena. he's perfectly willing to say tough things about canada or mexico and there's no one in the american body politics with profile to say kinds of things you have to say as a statement that wee are friends and allies and there are things and/or be on the data rate of trade. they dynamic has donor partners off because they are missing something they usually get from washington they don't today. >> right. thank you. briefly before you move on to the q&a is the u.s. congress making well with his colleagues in canada and mexico and could that play a factor in the

negotiations? >> one of the interesting things is that our mexican legislators and canadians legislators the prime minister day do a lot to talk to congress. i think congress in its own little way has been focused on its issues. see the ambassador for canada and investor for mexico talking to representatives and passing on information and trying to engage so it's not congress that is commuting very well it's that canada and mexico are unlike the british or the chinese and they have come to play a little bit in american politics and they know they have to talk to possible players and it has changed the way our international relations are in america. they're much more interested, to use that famous work, they are little domestic but little foreign butom not to worry becae

we are also interconnected with each other. the thing that brings us something different in north america than in us relations with almost any other part of the world. >> richard made the point earlier and i agree with it totally that canadian embassy in washington dc probably have more packs and more things there at their disposal about the us relationship with canada than anyone in the us. they are professionalized that relationship and they've got it down to the district level in terms of relationship with congress and they utilize it well. it's impressive when you look at it. you consider it in concept as a government relations effort and i would put the canadian embassy in washington is done in the past ten or 15 years as a real standard for how you do this j job. >> i would add that there's .36 million americans who identify asin being of mexican descent in onene way or another. i think therefore that plays a role. you have your number of

hispanics congressman and senators and certainly staffers and encouragement large share in the communications between the two bodies and even at the executive branch level is three surprisingly good. in fact one stunning statement if think about it couple days ago or a week ago when 60 estate tillerson was mexico city at the end ofn the press conference mexican foreign minister got a question about relations with the united states and he said something and i am paraphrasing relations are better now than the previous administration which is stunning to think about the mexican moran said that in his home territory and he didn't have to say that. that supports the things i heard from officials that the relationship seems surprisingly good in between state department officials mexican for ministry and national security council and those levels. i think there is a lot of communication going on behind

the scenes that is surprisingly good. >> to see the same level of negation with canada and the us? >> absolutely. one of the things that we often forget is there's a ritual of parliamentary groups for members of congress join us canada or us-mexico in those groups meet usually once or twice a year and they travel to each other's countries and this is educators getting to know each other but there are to the council of governments a regular interaction between potential and state legislators. governors and mayors and the political class, if you call it thatol or i guess you could say the active politicians regardless of party have opportunities to interact with

one another on a personal level and there is something about politicians talking to politicians which is to people in any common business that builds that trust they understand each other and things are different they know the other is about and that has built a real thickening of the trust that is so necessary some of you remember frank books trust that lee's trust is the foundation of economic and so much and that has grown in north america on a personal level. nafta has gone off the rails now we may be able to credit some of those interactions for keeping peopleth at the table until andt the end of the day we like each other enough to do the right thing in the end. >> thank you. i'd like to open up the 420 questions. if you have questions do you mind going over to the microphone in the back. thank you. >> justin, from québec.

question regarding what canada called the poison pills which are not necessarily poison pills for canada because many industries and taxes as well. think about the rules of mortgage and [inaudible] is there any coalition in congress that youou see supporting any of the poison pills? >> poison pills. so far, no. his when one of the more disruptive elements of this negotiation. usually administrations are pretty solicitous in terms of the views of the congress and early on in negotiations our us trade representative was astonishing professional but he said to the house ways and means committee i have an audience of one. there was some tension in the early days in particularly most of the us administration tabled li their headline demands in this case santa claus which everyone thought was nuts and

you have a withdrawal clause and said the party can withdraw with six months notice but they were talking about essentially if the numbers had it changed in five years that it would terminate and seemed insane and totally opposed by anybody who values credibility which is everyone who has a balance sheet to worry about. that wasas insane. the idea of limiting dispute settlement may no sense and why would you negotiate an agreement not be able to settle a dispute. that was bizarre. this created a spectacle i have never seen which is us decided tod propose that rules of orign which they cannot explain the benefits to the united states of these rules when asked about our trading partners and second generated a fly in from executives from the motor equipment parts supplier

advocate is fine into washington to tell their elected leaders that they hate these rules and they can't live with them and it will hurt their companies. they were poison for everybody. government document proposal for the trump administration was we will buy america and are canada and mexico and that would be the headline for that and why canada would accept a proposition where they could have a smaller share of us government government escapes me but that was the proposal. no one really liked them or greeted them or supported them that i had run into at least not publicly. i initially interpreteded them n a very despondent way. i thought they were basically creating a narrative for withdrawal that they would that the string of paints announcing our withdrawal would basically be the canadians refuse the total reasonable proposals and we are withdrawing. apparently, things have change to happen. we talk less about them and at

the same time the word poison pill was used in the last round by robert like kaiser with card to the canadian proposal. who knows but for me as someone who views trade agreements as coalition politics at the end of the day i couldn't see how it you will be mystify me. whether they persist, you'll find out. >> i think it is interesting that we have talked often about when nafta was negotiated there was an internet, and e-commerce economy but when nafta was negotiated there wasn't social media. one of the things that is made this negotiation fascinating is i think trade negotiators always have outrageous proposals and they go back and forth and they call politics poison pills but we've all had ringside seats on this and when the canadians characterized the american shock and all proposals as poison pill it would send a signal that people were concerned about

nafta and what the canadians intended which are these things are designed to force canada and mexico to walk away from the table and designed to blow up natalie to withdraw. that gote people concerned that the administration was bound for destruction. i suspect they thought themselves they were making an outrageous offer and hoping for middle ground but the way that played out in the wider world was not at all what they expected. now they have used this rhetoric against some of the canadian ideas. i think poison pill probably is an unconstructive way of deferring to these things because it gets people alarmed. on those l issues on sunset, we also, in addition to the withdrawal clause, we have regular meetings called the north american trade commission or free-trade commission which is a training ushers who talk about what we need to do. we've done a number of updates to nafta without reopening the agreement customs rules and

minor things over the years with security 30 partnership adult with and we have a north american nafta group structure for a while and both the beyond the border and regulatory preparation with canada and high-level regulatory counsel with mexico as well as us canada border commission so you had structures and had things going on in yet we took this negativity in the idea of the things and we could basically beef up those ongoing negotiations and not have this paid distribution to kill nafta. on m automotive will of origin agree the proposal didn't make anyone happy at all but laid out some movable parts and i think what we have seen since round four is auto company suppliers because no one understands the mass of all of us going in and saying if the goal is to raise the will of origin higher than

16.5% whichhi is what it is a nafta which is the only rule that is higher than the highest will of origin in any trade agreement in the world if were to go higher in mexico suggested maybe 70% is tolerable then how would you do it and how would you work the math. it will come out of the industry that knows how the pieces. a government procurement i don't think that's t been constructive and will come up with something and set aside that taxpayers or something but let's open a door in dispute and well, i don't know where we will go in the us seems to thank you can resolve these and it's interesting because i think in canada and mexico court do tend to favor the government. he had to go in front of the canadian national trade they will criticize the way that meeting government apply the law the effective decide with federal government in most cases

but what is interesting about the us international trade tribunal is our judges tend to be skeptical of the government case usually. [inaudible conversations] so i think in that case the americans were more positive this cell because they were used to their own expense. the poison pill language wasas unhelpful. the bold and somewhat outrageous demands on the other hand might have been helpful in that they started a conversation and we will come to a point where we can hopefully have a deal that elyse contains some elements but i think the idea those would be the outlines of the agreement was never going to happen. >> can i speak from here sensitive not to be working? >> it seems to be working now. you have a larger audience outside the classroom. >> chris, current state. to your point about the security concerns were looking now to just make do you think that some of the debate about immigration

probably not daca but the wall could be used to gum up the works at some point and we talked about how trade agreements are becoming more progressive and that some members of congress tried to sneak something in. nancy pelosi spoke the other day about our eight hours within the rules of trade promotion authority or is that not really realistic? thank you. >> anything is possible.bl you can't rule out with a member of congress will or will not do andr what they will propose. i think it's unlikely because to try to deal with something as politically contentious as immigration within the context of a trade agreement i think you'd have a chorus of various surprising and that will not happen. again, the hard-core faction of theon republican party is now nt

just against illegal immigration but legal immigration which is a huge key chains and republican thinking. it still doesn't address the problem of immigrants who are already here undocumented. to try to pull that into nafta negotiation i just think it's completely undoable. i can't see anyone seriously proposing that. will someone make a speech proposing that like nancy pelosi, possible. >> the regional map did have a section in the it was available toca mexicans and canadian nationals for work in the us. it is there. not in in substantial numbers and i read this week that the ministration has discovered this provision. so what to watch for is whether nafta 2.0 overcomes that provision. look, we can talk about movement of people for business reasons

being different than immigration but if there is an official issuing of a visa it is immigration and gets caught up in the net. for some reason probably the lack of social media and the way trade negotiations happened in the '90s nafta did contain the provision where there's a special unit class and i don't know how it's arrived but maybe we will just forget about it again. cares under and knows? >> the obama administration made a change to the procedures through the making. used to be a one year visa and it took a while to get approved so you get in and to apply for your next year, six months into your first visa and that's what we call the t and visa and the obama administration extended the termoo of a t and visa to three years and did something

surprising. the extended benefit so if you have a visa your spouse, domestic partner, also has the right to look for work which is not true for each one be in other categories and your working ageng children have a right to look for work so that also makes a big difference. this is one of the most generous visa categories chris was intended for professionals and others going back and forth. i'll give you a counter argument. by running nafta which is why i'm not running for office i would like to see a debate about labor mobility. increasingly servicing the economy requires non- citizenships changing individuals crossing the border to do business whether to fix the machine to talk to partners about some collaborative innovation or anything and yet we have unlike europe and other places we don't have a particularly good labor mobility system in north america. we could talk about that now but i will give you hope because i

think some people are depressed. [laughter] if achieved nothing else the idea that there could be a nafta 2.0 opens up the ability there could be a 3.0 and 4.0. one of the weaknesses is that it was an agreement meant to last for the ages but certainly was not written in a way that evolved there could be updated well. we always said especially academics great ideas are out there for can't reopen nafta because it would blow up. we have reopened nafta and get through 2.0 there is potential we could come back to the table in the future and have a constructive discussion about how do we meet the labor needs and i'd love to see that. i don't think we will win this round but i love you. >> good afternoon, gentlemen. my name w is chris, as well. i'm a student here. that's when, i think you've answered this question so i will throw it out there to put a finer point on it. explains how nafta institutionalized many regulations that have benefited states and by state timing countries. personal businesses and their

interest, positive circumvention of political configurations, if you will, of their respective states. if nafta were to dissolve in order to wto terms are there other instanceses where is thera danger that states would not remain inherent to the previous nafta inspired relation so long as they didn't violate other organizations, terms of trade, or another way to put this, howard industries respond. you believe industry is respond and powerful enough to [inaudible]? interesting. i think what is interesting is i will unpack a little bit the way the us trade agreements if you think nafta is a treaty and it's not. it's an agreement or negotiation with an executive which the legislator trains translate into statute. they grant agencies to go about rulemaking the normal comments

so customs for example does rule and says if your product meets the school of origin that you are eligible to not have a tariff on your goods. that's the mechanics of how this unpacks. regulation as an area of government is fascinating and very complicated. many of the regulations that we have on the books in the united states is written the way they're written because industry wanted to do what we talked about withso the auto industry favors the way they do business and give them a leg up on competition from someplace else. that's the way in which we get a very complicated often counterproductive and economically inefficient legislations in our society which becomes hard to change. nafta inspired a lot of people see the benefit of harmonizing their approach so it made sense for them to get rid of barriers

that got read of way of them doing business. this is particular and one of the things in canada is that they don't have the same internal market structure that eliminates trade barriers and it makes it difficult for those in new plan to working with roberta or vice versa and its it's been a story going back to 1867 how can they knit together and candidate free trade in nafta gains an incentive because they would say we don't want to concede to the way québec or manitoba does something but we want to line up the way americans do it and if that happens to make us line up with québec we haven't conceded anything to them still doing something that's more economically. there has been as a result of nafta some improvement and i

don't think industry would self regulate in the sons. no one wants to pollute like mad and i don't think worried about that but at the same time businesses feel that regulation is their job. they will behave themselves but there worried about the business is done the street that would cheat and give them advantage. about the rhetoric donald trump is used with regard to trade. one of the things that animates what other countries do is that they cheat. they don't follow the rules. he uses that language. in terms of international regulation if nafta were to fall apart certainly in terms of domestic regulation there would be concerned with enforcement and making sure that without nafta projections we don't have cheating. my hope is it doesn't come to that. >> something to add is that you would have a exploitation game going on if nafta were to go away l even for instance the

mexico did nothing to change the law or regulation investors between the risk analysis would assume that it is not possible than it was before. they might curtail or totally forgo a new investment in particular if it's an expensive infrastructure investment thinking gosh, gloves are off now and who knows what will happen. again, theo mexicanss would not have to do a thing but the expectations for what they could do might change in effect could be dangerous. >> at a practical level, yes, certainly dissolving nafta would increase frictions and tariffs alone would go up but there are a lot of frictions that exist and it's not just a good day and the further you are from something and have your the object in moving the more expensive it is. currencies change rates a box with all the time and can become barriers to trade just like tara

but for me actually i think there is a worse option than terminating nafta in terms of the commercial environment which would be a zombie nafta one that isis neither dead nor a life. we are not committed to the existing nafta 1.0 and we are not all the way to nafta 2.0 and because the risk there is it deters this decision-making. if you eliminate nafta companies would still make decisions and they would know what the commercial environment is and you might not like it but you would know it. in the world of zombie nafta you don't know. i have friends and yoda tell me that tacoma pickup is in awesomely successful and it's a product theyo? are basically a 100% capacity and selling every truck they can make and it's a great product. i'm happy for them they need to expand the facility near to

production facilities. one mexico and one in the united states. what you do? nafta makes a problem hard to solve. >> here's another example that i remember from after nafta. one of the things that bimetal groups were concerned about took place after nafta there were somein mexican plants that were got into the business support of automotive paint and you can imagine it's very metallic. there's a lot of toxins in it and you don't want that in the water you don't want that getting into the atmosphere and the use of magnetic process to get the paint on the car. if you do that in canada and the us give a sophisticated set of rules and relations that you have to close the facility so that there's nothing to get into the air and can harm the environment. mexico had not been a place where automotive paint was done. it just hadn't been a big part of mexico's contribution to the auto industry. some suppliers within and started moving in this direction and the mexican government encouraged by nafta reached out to canada and the us and said are starting to see the activity we don't want to be the bad andn this

what is a standard? the conversation between regulators straightforward is that these are what you need to ensure and this is what we found in our experience we have seen it before. mexico went ahead and bought the standards in and we didn't have a cheating experience. going to your question if we didn't have nafta and ended up with bad willen between america, canada and mexico you don't have the opportunity to try to learn from each other and make sure that you set the standards to protect everyone. one of the things we never acknowledge about nafta is that has encouraged us to talk to each other, to cooperate and learn from each other at the governmental level. no one writes about that but that's one of the benefits i think that we would lose the lost nafta. >> david with counsel state government. i have a two partner.

you started-p talking about the congress and then we went into this basically administrative talking about nafta and my one question is does the administration test you mentioned the us chair has an audience one and going back -- well, right but does to the americans know what they want? it sounds like we want a better nafta and the things keep changing and what the hell where are we today and the next part is to yank this conversation back to congress and maybe that would be a good way g to end it but when it comes back to congress where are we? >> great questions. look, that is one of the mysteries of the current nafta negotiations is no one that i talk to and i talked to both in the government and this in the

united states no one has a clear idea what the endgame is. it's as if nafta is complex and it's as if we are going up to a complex advanced military helicopter and you have technicians working on the helicopter and a politician arrives and says to know what were doing here? ... disconnected from the actual operation because it operates as a set of rules that has this incredibly rich texture and ecosystem it is too complex to how you can make it go faster so we do have that disconnect seems to persist but i do think that we got into this

because the president promised. he wasn't the first candidate to ever promise to renegotiate nafta. the ohio primary in 2008, where democratic primary where both candidate hillary clinton and senator barack obama both promised to renegotiate nafta so the promise has been around but to actually do it, absent a coalition that understood what, where there is general agreement about what needed to be fixed and what the potential solution might be, that's never happened. and because of that, we have this mess that we are in now. where did that end? it probably ends in failure. one of the easiest things to happen is for congress to ignore implementing the report to bail. this is the story of tpp.

their third day in office, they could kill the transpacific partnership because the obama administration was unable to get to congress. that's the fax and there are a lot of reasons for that and there's always reasons but it's quite hard to get that coalition built and you have to be able to stay and the state clearly what that does, why this is good and make a political case for it. we are nowhere near that. i'm mystified and ifear, what i really fear is the zombie outcome . >> i think that we had a couple models. you're right, sometimes you bring something very complex in front of the public and my guess is most of the american public will sit back, watch nervously and pass judgment once they've seen the final results. we had two examples in 2017 that went to different ways. one was the congress attempt to follow up on another of the presidents promises to get rid of the affordable care act. repeal and replace obamacare. this is a very complex area

but it affects a lot of people's daily lives. a lot of people directly or through their family and although the politicians back and forth h and came up with various solutions, none of them proved passable and ultimately, the public keeps scorn on the attempt because it looked reckless, it looked like it was going to hurt people. they were talking about replacing it with something the public could say okay, you came up with a good substitute. if we go down the road of a repeal and replace nafta and the replacement isn't very good, it may not get through congress but it also maybe scorn on those who pushed the idea. how can you pull the rug out from under us and not give us something in return? the other possibility is that it flows like a tax reform bill. taxes are also notoriously complicated. as the president proposed it, it wasn't what happened.

congress had any changes. they didn't go as far on some rates, made changes on other rates to get that is not said the coalition together to get it through. when it passed, opponents were very critical.the public seemed very dubious about this. wait a little bit and it seems, we will see, it seems a lot of people have come around and said we can live with it and maybe some people become more enthusiastic, some don't but life goes on and we go forward so the question is the complex nafta 2.0 look like a reckless obamacare repeal and replace or does it look like a complicated but ultimately survivable okay piece of legislation like the tax reform and my guess is that for most congressmen, they would prefer the latter because they want to be as donald trump would say winners and i want to look like they did something good and they're all thinking about reelection so they're going to try to make it something like that. whether this administration can produce that, i don't

know but i'm hopeful. >> when candidate donald trump wanted to give examples of why nafta was such a terrible deal, time and time i again he stood in front of facts that had either been shuttered or were about to shutter or lost jobs to mexico in particular and it could be that congress through passing a tax reform which is partly responsible for some of those jobs coming back , whether that's real or sustainable i don't know. it may address the one thing that trump kept coming back to again and again. which he and twitter, jobs, jobs, jobs so if the tax reform has an effect of loading some of those manufacturing jobs back to the united states, it couldbe that that's good enough . >>. >> thank you. >> and that's all the time we have. thank you for coming today and if you have any more questions, feel free to come afterwards but thank you very

much. [applause] >>. [inaudible conversation]. >> the senate returns today to begin work on immigration policies focusing on border security and deferred action for childhood arrivals. the majority leader mcconnell will introduce a bill which will allow any amendments as long as they receive at least 60 votes. a vote to begin formal debate on the bill is scheduled for today at 5:30 eastern area that'sapproved, debate and votes are expected to continue all week .

the house is back tomorrow for a three day work week before the presidents' day holiday. on their agenda this week a measure to step up investigation and recovery of us personnel that are missing in action. also, sanctions against hamas and a number of financial bills dealing with mortgage lending, market trading and interest rates for consumers. across the house watch the house live one c-span and the senate live on c-span two. earlier today we showed you live coverage of senate democratic leader chuck schumer, in his travels to kentucky and gave remarks at the university of louisville's mcconnell center. he addressed the senate's address agenda and prospects and agreement on immigration policy. we will share that event tonight at the eastern on c-span. and we've got more live programming coming your way today on the c-span network. white house press secretary kera sanders will brief reporters this afternoon. it's expected she will touch on the immigration debate in

the senate as well as the president's budget proposal and infrastructure plan. watch that 3 pm eastern on c-span. and speaking of the presidents budget proposal, if you like to read the document we got a at the top of our homepage at sea ã span.org. the senate budget committee convenes hearing tomorrow to discuss the presidents 2019 budget request with omb director mick mulvaney. watch that live tomorrow at 10 am eastern over on the stand. and we've got more about the presidents budget proposal wednesday. treasury secretary stephen nguyen testifies before the senate finance committee. watch that live wednesday at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span3. >> tonight on the communicators, from the consumer electronics show in las vegas, technologyindustry leaders discuss their latest developments in artificial intelligence . >> you can have artificial intelligence and coming as simple as your music playlist or your next queue, those are all using technologies to

help figure out what movies you love to watch and what music you like to listen to. it can be in your internet email system and filtering out spam. that automated system is not a person there marking things as spam or not but a computer algorithm using technology like deep learning within ai to do that and on the other end you can have artificial intelligence power and self driving cars. the car uses vision and machine learning to help a car navigate streets. >> watch the communicators tonight at eight eastern on c-span2 . >> c-span history series landmark cases returns with a look at 12 new supreme court cases. each week historians and experts join us to discuss the constitutional issues and personal stories behind the significant supreme court decisions.

beginning monday, february 26 live at 8 pm eastern and help you follow all 12 cases we have acompanion guide written by veteran supreme court journalist tony morrow. landmark cases , the book cost eight dollars $.95 plus shipping and handling. to get your copy, go to c-span.org/landmark cases. >> mexico's republican governor susanna martinez delivered her final date of the state address at the state capital in santa fe last month. she outlined her legislative agenda highlighting such issues as education investment, tax reform and the criminal justice system. in addition governor martinez outlined her six-point plan and growing and diversifying the state economy. activists interrupted the start of the event calling for the passage of the dream act, a proposed piece of federal legislation aimed at providing a pathway to citizenship r