>> thanks very much. we will go ahead and began. welcome to the afl-cio. thank you for image for coming. my name is the last drake and i work on trade and globalization policy for the afl-cio and are taught by 5 million members. they're excited to introduce today's panel and the really important topics we'll be discussing. talking about policy in washington d.c. can often be extremely frustrating. commentators too often implied the simplistic and frankly incorrect free trade versus protectionist dichotomy and think that they've brilliantly said everything that there is to say on the topic. but they couldn't be more wrong. for instance, intellectual property rules are a critical part of u.s. free trade agreement in trade policy, but they represent a clear deviation from so-called free trade. advocates like the afl-cio are

often labeled as protectionist, even though we support duty-free treatment for most goods for most developing nations and that is a distinctly free trade position. that's one really interesting thing about this administration and its recent actions on terrorists. his decision to protect national security by imposing so-called 232 tariffs on global import of aluminum and steel in his decision to address china's intellectual property by imposing what is known as section 301 tariffs on a variety of chinese imports. they represent outside the box thinking, even though they are actually the imposition of the most traditional trade enforcement tool for and that is the terrace. if such willingness to promote this kind of tariffs isolationist? is it the start of the trade work? is it going to hurt american working families? we've all heard these allegations and worse on talk shows and read them online.

but what is the truth? are these terrorist that just because they are opposed by this president or the long overdue? will they help create good paying jobs for u.s. workers? those are the questions we will investigate in today's panel. joining me are for really terrific panel last. i'll introduce them briefly in alphabetical order and then we'll get down to discussion. first, we are joined by respected world trade organization litigator elizabeth bolton. elizabeth currently a consulting counsel, former assistant counsel and associate general counsel for the united dates trade representative and trade counsel for the ways and means committee of the head takes house of representatives. next on my far right, elizabeth drake is a partner at shakur and associates. she has experience in a broad array of international trade law matters including section three

or one institutions in china specific safeguards. she has represented clients in proceedings before the u.s. international trade commission and previously worked for the afl-cio. third, we have robert scott of my far left can a senior economist and director of trade and manufacturing policy at the economic policy institute. he has published widely in academic terminals and in the popular press, including the international review by economics, the stanford law policy review in "the los angeles times." finally on my nearby, we are pleased to be joined by camilla thompson, president of the united steelworkers local that represents employees. started working at the plant 11 years ago, making a lot of armor for soldiers in iraq and afghanistan. he seen the impact of global overcapacity in the steel industry first-hand. so we will begin with some

discussion amongst the panelists and then we will open up for questions from the audience. for anyone interested in tweeting about today's panel, you can use hashtag #truth and trade. so i am going to start with a question for everyone. let's say that we just stepped into an elevator and it will take us about one minute to get to the floor we are going to do. i ask you to come your thoughts on the steel and aluminum tariffs. what is your one minute answer? rob, do you want to start in line? >> the steel and aluminum tariffs are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address a critical problem that's been building up for at least the last two decades. the problem is massive amounts of overcapacity steel and aluminum centered in china and a handful of other countries. russia, vietnam and korea.

these are important opportunity to build a wall if you will around the unfairly traded metals distorting global trade and it's costing us tens of thousands of jobs. >> i would start from the premise that aluminum and steel are vital to our national security. national security is much broader than national defense. it includes infrastructure, bridges, security. these are industries we need to have in the united states and the question is how to ensure that these businesses being driven out of business through import are sustained for the long-term so that we actually can sustain our national security. eggs. >> i will say that it's for national security. my plan makes the amount for the dod job creation as a triple down the fact and this is put that one or two u.s. jobs can

create other jobs in the industry. that is a fact. so it is a part of our national security. it's part of job creation. >> i would say that these terrorists are long overdue when china joins the wto in 2001, everyone predicted they would slowly become a market economy and play by the rules and the opposite is happening. the steel capacity has quadrupled driven by non-market economy policies that completely destroyed not only china's own market, but global markets given the scope and scale of the problem. we've tried everything else. dialogue, traditional trade remedy tools. and the problem gets worse and worse so it makes the noble solution for the sake of our own security and national security and will hope to them to address the problem before it gets even worse. >> thinks. there's some pretty unanimous thoughts on this particular

panel that steel and aluminum terrace are good. but let's get into it a little bit more. we heard about china achieving the wto. we heard about jobs having, you know, downstream effect on the steel industry and a little bit of security, but we know that we've also heard tariffs generally are bad. they are like a dirty word and referred a lot of fear mongering about what can be the unintended negative consequences on our economy that these tariffs. i would like to open it to anybody on the panel to say what do you think the impact of these tariffs are going to be on our economy? is it a bigger or smaller impact and is it going to be more positive for more negative and could you explain why for someone who is not familiar with the idea of tariffs but has heard a lot now but it's essentially a dirty word.

>> i think the steel tariffs could be beneficial to domestic economy. i write i mean in a way that encourages other countries around the world to court made as was suggested in targeting countries like china, russia and vietnam that are generating the excess capacity in distorting world markets and costing us jobs. we need to encourage those countries to eliminate the excess capacity in order to rebalance trade. if we don't, it's not just a question of the jobs at stake in the steel and aluminum industry. these are critical for the production of hundred of thousands of other products, downstream products ranging from auto part 2 windmills, two aircraft parts. all of those are at risk and we continued to go out at least china and russia and these other countries. to produce this model that's

deeply subsidized prices. that is part of what is at risk. >> does anyone want to add to that? >> us for a regular consumer who i deal with on a regular basis, we don't go out and buy steel. you know, to say it is going to go up, steel is going to go up because you are getting a better made product instead of a product that is made overseas by bringing capacity as key to whether the facts to create other jobs. you need to support the data to say what is going to go up because if it went out, that means it may go out. since i would say since 2008, and it still is down in the car prices should rebound. it still fluctuates up, so fluctuates down. car prices still say the same.

you are not going to get a discount price on the car. so you have say what's going to go up and what's not going to go out because the regular consumer is not going up. >> you made a really important point. just because the price that the manufacturers are paying for their input goes down, consumers don't see that in the price of the good. similarly if they go up, it depends on a lot of things in the particular manufacturer, in the shape of the demand curve in the economic stuff that folks don't need to know about, that they do need to know that just because the price of an input goes that doesn't necessarily translate into widespread inflation. >> q-quebec cannot do that, the price of aluminum dropped between 2001 and 2016 by 30%. that was not because the fundamentals are there with excess capacity.

american producers subject to foreign producers are not subject to the discussion they glibly say american producers are competitive. that's not the case. we are required to be profitable. let's put the places in context. it's unnaturally deflated for many years in the tariffs are one-way to get the price back to where it was before the financial crisis. >> i completely agree. the question is what are you binding? you are buying the viability of the domestic aluminum and is three. if you want prices to be at a rational level to allow producers to generate a return to be sustainable, the whole impetus for the different level shows they can recommend it by anonymous deal industry to return to 80% utilization, which is what they need to be sustainable. that is sort of the trade off.

that's what you're buying what the trade-offs and if you don't do that, if you are unable to reach those utilization levels, you are in a downward viral. tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs, so it's really trying to return to sustainable operating model for an industry that is key to national and economic security. >> really good point. we started out the answers to that question talking about the importance of these particular tariffs being promoted in a coordinated way, strategic way that you could get that writer get them wrong. one of the things we keep hearing to forget keep hearing to forget them wrong on it is going to be the start of a trade war. i know president trump to the afl-cio has said to call the imposition of these tariffs the trade were and it's a scare tactic to get the average american to oppose these

tariffs. i would like to hear from the panelists. do you think that we are already in a trade war? and if so, who started it and who's winning and who's losing? a >> i'll jump in. i agree the rhetoric is completely overblown. there've been 26 investigations. the whole world didn't fall apart. there have been restraint agreements reached over the years including steel and that's kind of what we are seeing with korea. everyone just needs to calm down and take a deep breath and just realized that this can be a very important tool getting to a more sustainable, rational road for the steel industry and the aluminum industry. to the fact our sources and complex, that guarded with china's own dive at any cost without any rational demand to

support the amount they were building. they have more excess capacity that are total capacity. it is just completely irrational and for years and years at the highest level they said were going to do something about it and you see the capacity go up and up and up. unless something dramatic is done, i don't know how you can expect they'll get different results doing the same thing over and over again. >> i was a we are at war. we are at war and american jobs. just to think that china can produce more steel in one month in the u.s. can in one year is phenomenal. it is something that is unheard of. so yeah, we are at war, but it not a trade war. that is sent and that we have to take care of here with these tariffs that's been put in place. >> thanks. great point. and now, the microphone in front of you are live, so please keep

any clicking a rustling of papers to a minimum and that will help with better sound quality. i want to go back to your comments about national security. we've heard a little bit about some people questioning whether the steel and aluminum tariffs are actually legitimately related to national security and focus and this is just a front for protectionism. can you tell us a little bit more about why steal it particularly aluminum related to national security and the little hiss to read about what a section to 32 characters anyway? >> why do we start with what section 232 does. it was enacted in 1955. we say to the statute 1962. it's important to remember that congress did this eight years after we signed the gap. congress was clearly aware that signing on to the obligations will have some to protect our national security.

the general agreement on tariffs and trade agreement signed in 1947 that was a precursor to the world trade organization that we have today. so that's a little bit of the history section 232. it is important to recognize that they play a role in all of this and after 9/11 congress is extremely worried that we did not have a way of planning for the protection of our critical infrastructure. so that was included in the patriot act which distinguishes between national security and national defense. i say all this because of general mattis memo was released but it only needs a certain percentage of aluminum and steel in order to support his name. that was taken as a proxy for the fact that not a national security issue. national defense is a subset of national security. cbt, customs and border protection has been charged with developing framework or critical infrastructure and identifying

critical fact errors that are elements of our critical infrastructure and did designate as critical components for being able to sustain our amber structure. >> thanks very much. just to continue on the theme of 232 tariffs, we hear a lot that they are controversial. they are rarely used. can you talk about that a little bit? >> they have been used in the past as i said. i honestly think a lot of the controversy around these tariffs doesn't have as much to do at the tariffs as with the atmospheric and the personalities that are associated with them. i think the more calm discussion that actually look at the merits and understood the background of the reasoning can be a lot more room for agreement that something like this was needed to address the problem that has been basically an addressable up until now. i completely agree with us on the importance of national

security broadly, but what you need for roads, bridges, communication, energy, et cetera. there was a court challenge to the 232 bit this was for economic security and the judge rightly said i've got limited ability to review this. 232 bit southside it is a part of national security and so, this claim has the bases and there's plenty of finding that it is essential for national security. it was interesting to see a judge on a court kind of reached the same conclusion as others have looked at it more closely. >> absolutely. i'm glad you brought that up. it seems to be a particular problem in steel and aluminum, but you've also mentioned russia and vietnam. why are the steel and aluminum tariffs not just on those three countries? why are they versioning other

trading partners. >> first, if we put tariffs on those countries, it would be far too easy for china and russia in vietnam to ask for it there goes to third countries such as japan, korea or canada and simply ship them from those countries directly to the united states. we want to block off that action. i think there is a second and even more reason, which is that we want to provide incentives for other countries to join us in circling the wagon, building the wall around the unfairly traded metal. this is the only way in which we are going to icing the able to remove the excess capacity from the world market if we make it impossible for these countries to export their run fairly priced model to the rest of the world. i am very concerned about the

ability of say china to ask for it feel to korea with an enormous amount into korean cars and are now the third-largest source of imports of motor vehicles in the united states. much of those vehicles are made. we are not allowed to impose duties on most cars because of their use of subsidized steel. even though korea in the case has agreed to a terrifying export -- excuse me, a quota of reducing export of his own steel to 30%, we said nothing in that agreement about korea's ability to subsidized steel from china and these other countries i mentioned. i think the agreement is a good place to start. we could have achieved with it.

>> that's an important point. before opening up questions to the audience, i'd like to go to the audience for the decision. i want to come back here and make this a little more concrete and a little less abstract. we know that there were layoffs announced last fall before the announcement of the tariffs that your plan. can you talk about what they really does to the members and what you're experiencing and how maybe things are different course though the same at your plant given the recent tariff announcements? >> read outside of philadelphia, we were one of the main producers of alloys military steel. back in 2005, we had around 425 al qaeda members,, but employees at the plant. today we have nearly 200.

in august we will be going down to 71. so this is what not having tariffs in place do. we had a bridge that was adjacent dedicated to brick steel. that is closed in the last two years because that industry and those orders are not due to having tariffs in place. it's what happens when you don't have tariffs in place. you're losing jobs now. if you want to talk about national security, one of the main producers for the military steel. back in 2005 to around 2009, we were the only plant that made any money for the company based on the military that we had coming through to the plant. we charged on a dime to actually

support the military and the military vehicles in our mrap program. this program is based on sending steel and aluminum to afghanistan to reinforce the vehicles because the vehicles they had were getting destroyed from bombs and guns that was going on. we lost a lot of our smaller customers. those customers would be the ones that keep us afloat. but our dedication to the country and to the military took that away. not having tariffs in place really destroyed my plant in particular. we are the poster child of not having tariffs in place. they really just a what we had in the plant and just took it down to basically nothing. you know come you go from 400 to

71 people enacting it even lower base don their plan to just make us a huge facility. right now there's not another plan out there that can produce the way we can in the military and make it distract weekend. not a lot can compete with the plans because this is what our bread and butter was for so many years. >> thanks for that. >> to the point mentioned then you just mentioned about the bridge building unit. this is a key issue raised in 232 hearing. the managers at the bridge building association mentioned that one of the things they are challenged with his departments that are being imported from mexico made out of chinese steel. so again, this is another

illustration of the way these unfairly traded products are filtering through congress and has a very negative impact on a wide range of projects in the u.s. >> this is another point that is going down to 71 and possibly could be closed in the next year or two. who will we rely on for the u.s. military? i have the facts to say we produced over the last three years. those are facts, not something i was throwing out. the question is, national security will be affected if we don't have this in particular to make steel. if we had to rely in another country, we may be in trouble. >> that's a really good point. that gets back to the question

of 232 is a really important section and it's not just a front to address other things that's actually really important to all of us. at this point i would like to open it up to questions from the audience. raise your hand if you have a question. i'll call on you. [inaudible] has that not had an affect on your plan? >> it is a more open market. why write is another market. aluminum is another market. we are the specialty market and there's not a lot of specialty customers out there besides the biggest one is the dod. until there is some type of military spending plan and some type of other planned to bring down the cost, but ultimately overcapacity has to come down.

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interests are fighting over particular steel and aluminum products and real beneficiaries of those might not be mr. thompson but be interested in washington law firms and associations were fighting over these various resources. >> on the first question, that's a good question and i think rob had mentioned ideally this results in coordinated action by all major markets to eliminate that excess capacity. we see the eu, for example, being temporarily has an exclusion at the same time they announced that now starting an investigation. that could be one element of a solution, but canadians part of their exclusion as developed by the canadian steel border team or something of the nature industry and government officials are trying to make sure they don't become just a conduit or subsidize or

overcapacity point into the u.s. in return for them getting an exclusion. that is an element of what they're trying to build into these countries specific exclusions is that they also need take some action to grant some or coordinated global approach to basically squeeze out opportunities for this overcapacity to disrupt other markets around the world. and on the exemptions process, it's just started. there has been something like 1000 requests filed and only a handful have been released. they are very, very specific in terms of specific widths and lengths and chemical content and what have you, but part of it is they do need to identify whether or not there's any domestic source, and then there's an option for domestic producers for others to object to any request that's me. it's too early to say how that's going to shake out. i've been talking to people who are part of the process during

the 201 safeguard back in 2001 and they defined those exceptions pretty narrowly and really based on is there domestic about or not. i think that is a legitimate basis to try and fine-tune things and shouldn't be a way to get some shenanigans or to weaken the overall relief because the relief is based on helping the domestic industry. >> did you want to follow up on that at all? >> colleges say one quick thing. we are being very vigilant about a number of exemptions and exclusions that are granted. you would have to take some imports out of the u.s. market in order to get these smelters to restart at long-term viability. we want to make sure it's not just open season on imports because that will defeat the purpose of having it done in first place. >> thanks. >> senator shared brown at the

national press club make points ready to steal trade very so much what all of you have said. he can also said but i really wish president trump would use these words trade war when he talks about this. to what extent is the administration stepping on itself or undermining its own effort through some of the rhetoric the president uses in relation to that? >> i think the administrator, it really prefers to make headlines and think they prefer bombast of actual strategy and that's part of the problem. they seem to be shooting themselves, in fact, each other as a make policy. one day we're making good policy on steel, the next day they announced they going to suddenly reenter into the negotiations which the president proposed in this part of the reason he was elected because he opposed that equipment. then on friday they announced

the treasury announced in the semi annual foreign exchange report they were not finding any countries guilty of currency manipulation. something we haven't even talked about. that is the most important determinant of whether or not the u.s. has an approving trade balance, come with net we have inappropriately found exchange rate. china and other countries have been manipulating their currencies for years. this is the single most important reason why we have a large trade deficit. answer this administration has no trade strategy for dealing with those issues. they engage in what i call trade policy by press release. >> one of the benefits i suppose other with the president is talking about this issue is that it is focusing on the second that laissez-faire country would be to our long one benefit, and

these tariffs and their discussion about overcapacity pastor defocus people and what exactly state capitalism is, what it means, and when you link it to the made in china in 2025 strategy, even people like senator cornyn are saying actually we may be in a trade war and i'm not sure we're fighting back. that's what he said at senate finance last year. even if you wouldn't frame it -- last week. even if you wouldn't frame that we i still think it's maybe not unhealthy to whether we are to a trade war. >> everyone can other criticisms about how the things are rolled out or advertise or described, but i think if you look at the work that was done, if you look at commerce is report on the 232, if you look at ustr is new report on china complied with the deputy obligations there's a lot of substance there. they are very, very good. they are also rejecting sort of the laissez-faire conventional

wisdom has been would have been saying in this town in both parties for about 20 years and say no, this isn't working working, the system is not working and we need to do something about it. i get frustrated sometimes that people don't look at the substance because it's easy to say that the rhetoric is silly or two bombastic and then just tar everything that's done rather than understanding that there's some really good work being done here, and it's about time to challenge the way things were done previously. so that's kind of my hesitation i have all the time. >> okay. [inaudible] >> mr. scott, you said the quota on korean steel -- [inaudible] on the origins of the steel. can you elaborate a bit more on this? for all of you, could you perhaps describe i think the administration should administer

-- [inaudible] >> yes, thank you. as i understand it the quota is simply a limit on total korean exports to the united states but without regard to the origin of that steel. korea is the single largest importer of chinese deal, according to statistics from the u.n. i've used that data and tractor this and it's in some of the reports i've done. as i've said, and i wrote this in a number of commentaries, while the tariffs were being debated, i think that they should of been used to encourage other countries not only to restrain exports to the u.s. but to restrain imports from these unfairly traded products. the ideal way would be to impose tariffs for say korea to impose

tariffs on imports from china to raise the price of those imports to its fairly traded value so they could remove them from world markets, lease from the korean market. i think if you look at, and i published one op-ed on this in the newspaper early in april, quoted leo gerard who said something i think fairly similar in response to the initial announcement of the quarters, that he wanted canada exempted but only if they agree to participate from restraints or and fairly traded products. yet the same thing in mind spirit does anybody else want to add to that? >> i would just add, you know, what we are seeing about a lot of these tariffs is really showing one of the weaknesses of the world trade organization. it's not really structure to

address issues of overcapacity. it's not really structured to get these issues of how do we get countries that are similarly being harmed by overcapacity and steel aluminum to work together to address those issues in coordination for we're seeing some that coordination happening now is elizabeth was talking about with the eu to its safeguards investigation, but it really is showing that we need, as rob was saying, a comprehensive approach to trade strategy. we start with some good tactics with these particular tariffs that we're talking about today but what we need is comprehensive trade reform and that means some form of the debbie keough, some reform in nafta, and a lot of our other trade policies, and our overall, what's our domestic economic policy and how does that help achieve the goals we want of good jobs and good wages?

and how does it work together with the trade strategy to do that and not just be a source for outsourcing of jobs and exploitation and abuse of workers overseas. >> mark, did you have a question? >> yes. here's my question for mr. thompson. you've been talking about the practical effects, but before we get to that come you said the competitors of your specialty, the over staffing use more than the general overcapacity. do you know how much more? >> i don't know what i do know we're still trying to get that overcapacity out before they can even start ordering from us. >> okay. now, let's get back to what's happened to your members. you used to 450, now you have 200, you may have 71 but august. i'm sure you've been talking to the men and women who have been laid off since then. what's it been like for them?

>> it's kind of heartbreaking,, but because most of our members are veterans, you've got members, my members, that a been there for 25 years as the way to lose their job. that's 25 years of not being in the workforce. i'm setting up all types of programs for them to be we acclimated to finding a job, what's out there as far as computer classes, knowing how to conduct an interview. this is what i'm dealing with because you guys in their 50s that's not ready to retire but are kind of older, and at older ages to it or not familiar with the new way of how to go online to put an application rather than just walk up and get a paper application. it's been very hard.

it's just been trying to get some politicians to understand what's going on. i have been in good support with brendan boyle who's in my district, so he's been very helpful and his team is been very helpful trying to give assistance to the veterans who are going to be affected in my plant. going to unemployment, we have a program that i filed for that is for trade cases and the plants that are being affected with trade, so that's been very helpful trying to get our members acclimated back into a trade to help with schooling, those type of situations that there is as far as financially. the usw has been very helpful in all that they can do reaching out.

it's not been a good feel, not been a good situation, especially now since it's going to be more of her older members that's going to be affected that are younger members. in a worse way because our younger members will be affected as well but they're more so acclimated to the workforce a little come being out of work on a couple years instead of 25 25 years. it's a difference. >> thanks. for folks who are watching who are not aware, taa is a trade assistant program. it's a program that helps workers who lost their jobs if they a contingent that the lost their jobs due to trade policies. are there more questions from the audience at this point? >> what's behind chinese overcapacity? is it a concerted effort? how did you do it?

>> so overcapacity is a problem in the steel industry around the world because every country wants to have its own steel industry and promote good jobs, you've got a way to gain access to technology, yet something important to national security. so it's not unusual that the steel industry over overhears s through cycles of overcapacity and that's having to reduce capacity. what's different about china is the scale is completely off the charts of what we've seen before. a lot of that has to do not just with central government policies in terms of subsidies, loans and state-owned banks at below market rates, electricity and labor, , land and other inputs t below market rates but also at the provincial and local level. every province, every region wants its own steel plant. some of it is coordinated and some of it is a failure of coordination. so that's why you have this

irrational situation where every single province or region is creating its own steel industry, even though they are far, far above any capacity they could possibly justify. so there's a lot of complicated history to it. there's a lot of the central government in china could do. they come out with announcements every year of what they're going to do and we just haven't seen execution on the ground because these are jobs. when you're in the chinese communist party you don't want to create a big wave of unemployment, right? what they do is to export that excess capacity and an opponent of the countries where we work on more of the market basis, and that's the challenge that we are facing. >> just to add a couple points. china consciously set out to build the largest industry in the world. in 2000, the year year before it entered the video they were producing about 109 tons of steel again. so was the united states. they now the capacity to produce about 16 times that amount,

about 1.6 million tons of steel. china is now the largest exporter of steel in the world, and yet very few of those exports come directly to the united states because our trade bar has been very effective at taking unfairly treated steel out of our market but that's part of his wife it showing up in places like korea and japan. they are willing to import that subsidizes steel, turn into downstream product and ship it down to us. it has a pernicious effect on trade. it is not just about trade and steel and aluminum. the other point that it would make about this is that our consciously attempting, this was a result of a five-year plan. they have two five-year plans every five years. china has a very effective state

capitalist system here it is run in beijing. yes, there are provincial problems as they govern problems. if china went to reduce its excess capacity they could do tomorrow. this is what they do. they could threaten to shoot people who don't close their plans. it's very effective. they have done it. i'm sorry to be blunt but that is the nature of the system. if china wants to do this, the last point i would make is even if china is a huge exporter, consumes 866% of the steeler produces, so most of what they produce is turned into downstream products. as i said windmills, washing machines, auto parts, aircraft parts. these are the things they are exporting to the rest of the world again with subsidized stupor they understand it. its strategic. it's what they use to conquer world markets not just in these products but all kinds of high-value added and national commodities. that's why it's important to cut this out of the root of the

problem. >> if folks are living in a community where maybe over the past ten, 15 years they've seen job losses in washing machine parts and aerospace and some of these other things are talking about, that is potentially related to chinese overcapacity in steel even though they might not know that's one of the sources of the problem, is that right? >> absolutely. china is the largest export of manufactured products in the world and a source of half of our trade deficit in manufactured goods. and many of the parts to export go to other countries in the form of imported cars from korea and japan. so china is a very big impact on world come distorted world trade. >> thanks. i would add to that question just this question about you asked about chinese workers, and part of the free trade mix that sometimes expanded upon around washington, d.c., if we just trade a lot we will get rich,

and if we just get rich workers will be better off because somehow workers will automatically share in whatever gains go to the whole economy. what we found out is that it doesn't really work that way. there are a lot of us in the labor movement say that all along, that this is an automatic. workers sharing in the gains of the economy has to be a deliberate policy. labor unions are a key part of the policy here we play really important role but it really does get at this question of linking and making sure that we are coordinating trade policy with domestic economic policy because of the u.s. does see growth in our economy every year. the workers are not getting a fair share of that growth and that's not just here. that's in china, that's in mexico, that's in europe, in all these countries we trade with. it's one of the problems we willing to get at. are there more questions from the audience?

i have just a couple more questions for the panelists before we let you go. i wanted to get at, we were talking before the panel this question that we keep hearing that farmers in the u.s. are going to be the hardest hit by potential retaliatory tariffs by china and others. i was wondering if folks have thoughts about, how would you respond to that? do we expect to see a major downside in use aquaculture industry? hack we work to make sure that is not just a couple particular states that are harmed in the u.s. actually doesn't effectively follow through on trade policy? >> i would step back a little bit. i think there's been to our trade policy attention created between the agricultural sector and the manufacturing sector.

i think that has been created by our trade policy. i was a will of origin lawyer at ustr for all the goodness between 2003-2009. if you look at nine. if you look at the agricultural rules of origin, they are very strict. it's not a big surprise our farmers benefit from trade agreements because we designed the rules to make sure they benefited. if you compare them to the manufacturing rules of origin we allow allow that stuff to be offshore to. it's not a surprise been that we see we try to shore up our manufacturing sector that it's the farmers who are being heard because our trade policy has been so beneficial for them. our way out of this, i'm not sure the answer to that but at least in terms of why we are where we are where our trading partners feel comfortable, threatening our farmers to retaliate against her manufacturing, our manufacturers can i think that's how we ended up there. >> thanks very much. >> just two points. whether or not farmers are usually a policy choice. we export about $12 billion worth of of soybeans adieu to

china. the use of programs that could by $12 billion with the soybeans and put them in warehouses, release them when their later needed. this is a manageable problem. >> thanks very much. that reminds me a little bit of again things which seen in the press where folks on wall street, their hair is really on fire about these tariffs. it's terrible, the worst thing in the world, it's going to start this trait for. to me part of what they are saying is we've had a lot of been is some use trade policy, and of the people have been hurt, and we kind of like it that way. we want to keep getting the benefits that we get and the people had been getting her keep getting hurt. it really doesn't seem to be a very thoughtful policy about how do we say well, if trade does benefit everybody, how do we write the rules so trade really does benefit us? that's not a talking point but it's a reality. it means right to change the rules and the status quo has to

change. but i like to go back to one of the themes we visited already about this idea of tariffs being a tactic and not a complete strategy and this idea of coordination in coordinating, comprehensive trade reform with others but also how are we making sure our trade and domestic policy work together? i like to ask you in on the panel, what else would you like to see this administration do? we've heard you agree with the steel at aluminum tariffs. what else does he need to do that's perhaps part of a more comprehensive trade strategy or individual tactic? whatever you want to talk about, that needs to happen next. that needs to happen to make sure we're moving in the right direction. and anybody can start. >> a couple things i would mention first of all would-be coordination. the steps that eu and canada are taking about imports into the own touches are good sign. i hope the tariffs are just the beginning, kind of the little

match the lights the fire that it's all of these countries to wake up and realize okay, we've had enough coverts is about this, of papers, let's do something to fix this problem. in terms of domestic policy it would be wonderful to see an actual infrastructure program with spending to upgrade or infrastructure. that would also the domestic industries and help workers action on currency as robin mentioned is something that would be great. if, as you were saying, a broader revisit of our trade agreement and policies both bilaterally, regionally, globally, and/or changes needed. you see some inklings of that i gets the wall street people he met and they say hey, we were supposed to dictate what the terms of this was. you can't have all these of the people at the table. it's too early to say whether it might end up but it think that needs to be a piece of it as well. >> thanks. >> just add to that. i think some type as straight

people we forget that trade is just a subset of our larger economic policy. i have see much discussion of the fact that the international trade commission when did it retrospective of all our bilateral and regional trade agreements found, this does not include the devotee of what other agreement only contribute .2% each year to gdp. we get so consume with nafta and tpp that we forget we have this giant economy and only really thinking about how we intend to serve our own economy? what a we doing for workers? why do we have a competitive business policy? we haven't had one since 1998. pete peterson that we needed at tripartite commission. he said this in the '70s, a business, labor and the government to have an economic strategy for the country. i would like to see that. i don't think competitiveness is about tax cuts that gets turned into share buybacks. that's not going to get us back to producing what we need to be

producing. >> try to keep a like 45 seconds. >> i would would just make one quick point, which is that trade deals have negotiated for basic of the an interest and transferred commends amounts of income from working people to investors. i think we need to stop negotiating trade deals until we get our trade outcomes right and we get rebalance trade and more jobs in manufacturing with all of us have discussed. we ought to focus on things that helped level playing field like labor standards and environmental standards, create the path for financial transactions tax to slow down the financial casino. these are the kinds of things that would improve the welfare of the economy for everybody. >> thanks. kameen, you get the last word. >> administrative wise, , i just think it should be a does you made on administration. i think it should be a trigger. we have exemptions for a reason, meaning that china knows they're

doing something wrong so they're sending the steel to other countries to get its route to the u.s. so i just think it shouldn't be and administration to put out these investigations. it should be a trigger, someone or some type of department or whatever that they come up with to monitor the tariffs and know when there's too much and when there's not too much and with the should back off or bring it in. >> we get more automatic -- that helps in the perspective of working people because we know when bertine to if i can when wall street is lobbying for one thing, working people are lobbying for the opposite, we know which side has more money and more political influence. that's a great recommendation. i want to thank all the panelists for being here, rob scott, elizabeth elizabeth baltzan, , elizabeth drake. i've learned a lot. i hope you have. thank you very much for coming. let's give our panel --

[applause] [inaudible conversations] >> the white house says it is postponing a decision on opposing tariffs on u.s. imports of steel and aluminum the european union, canada and mexico for 30 days. the trump administration says its reach an agreement with south korea on steel imports after discussions on revise trade agreement pickett says it's also reached agreements in principle with argentina, australia and brazil on steel and aluminum. >> live coverage here on c-span2 continues this afternoon with a look at the future of college sports at the potential implications of paying athletes. speakers include former college basketball coaches and players, ncaa officials and sports law

experts. we will take you there live at 12:30 p.m. eastern time. we will have today's white house briefing with press secretary sarah sanders. first briefing since the white house correspondents' dinner. and on c-span deputy attorney general rod rosenstein will give remarks on the rule of law, the first amendment and the mission of the justice department. you can watch that live today at 2 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> monday on landmark cases a case on capital punishment greg versus georgia tech in 1976 troy lee on craig a armed robbery and murder challenged his death sentence. his case and four of the capital punishment cases were considered by the court. the supreme court ruled against him but establish stricter guidelines for states wishing to impose the death penalty. our guests to discuss this case,

terrell steiger when nations top capital punishment legal scholars and a professor at harvard law school. she's argued against the death penalty in a number of cases before the court. she was a former clerk of supreme court justice are good martial. and a legal director of the criminal justice legal foundation advocating in favor of capital punishment anymore swift moving criminal justice system. he has written numerous briefs in death penalty cases for the supreme court. watch landmark cases monday at nine eastern on c-span, and join the conversation. we have resources on a website for background on each case, the landmark cases companion book, , link to the national constitution center's interactive constitution and the landmark case of podcast at c-span.org/landmarkcases. >> next a look at health care and innovations with the dean of

johns hopkins university school of medicine, the ceo of children's national health system, and the head the memorial sloan-kettering cancer center. they discussed hospital capacity, the opioid crisis and obesity in the u.s. david rubenstein is a cofounder of the carlyle group and the current president of the economic club. he moderated the hour-long discussion. [inaudible conversations] >> can have your attention, please. can everybody you meet your attention, please. thank you. thank you. everybody, please continue eating eat very, very quietly. this is being televised on c-span and so we do want any extraneous noise, so thank you very much. two announcement i should abate earlier. one o