department of intelligence a cabinet department. i think it would be a mistake for this country just because there are lots of reasons but not the least of which the privacy concerns and fears that such a juggernaut intelligence agency would create. for our values may be as awkward as it might be as long as he of a champion for keeping it integrated. >> watch "after words", sunny night and i p.m. eastern on c-span2's book tv. >> before we take you to that second forum on venezuela, live at 11:00 a.m. eastern a portion of today's washington journal and look at the latest on us, china trade talks. >> host: at the table is jenny leonard, bloomberg reporter to

talk about the us china trade talks. miss leonard, bring us up to date. we seen the news and we seen the cards coming in and out of buildings and tell us where we are and bring us up on the china trade talks. >> we've had two rounds of talks, if you will, the third one is happening the week after next with the secretary going over to china and we've had the white house and the chinese announce a deal in the framework of a deal that president trump then later this week earlier this week walked back from and said actually a new structure and we need to think about maybe this is not working out so well so the talks right now a lot of things with the north korea summit also are compensating the upcoming visits for the commerce secretary so i think a lot remains to be seen and changing

by the hour. >> host: is blamed for us what issues are on the table with these talks and educators for a few minutes. then where are the major sticking points? >> guest: on the table, in the framework announcement the white house, where act products and lng products and the chinese agreed to buy from the us and there wasn't any announcement on the trade deficit of how large that number would be. we know the president talked about 200 billion in his economic advisor talks about at least 200 million and we didn't see that in the announcement and on the sticking point side the chinese companies was banned from buying us [inaudible] and that's one of the sticking points of the administration is trying to navigate right nowur

because the chinese have made it a condition for any agreement that would include buying out products or lng products or anything to go forward if the issue is resolved. >> host: why is that such a problem area right now? >> guest: is the problem area because it intersects between trade and national security and if you go to capitol hill there is bipartisan opposition to walking back the sanctions that the commerce secretary had announced. and so, with the chinese pressure to say you need to use the sanctions and capitol hill is a no, we're not supporting you, the administration is stuck a little bit right now. >> host: jenny leonard is with bloomberg and a reporter and were talking trade talks. the phone number is on the bottom of the screen. wet look forward to talking to you and getting your questions on the table, as well. here is a little bit from president trump from earlier this week talking about the status of the trade talks. >> look at what were doing on trade. china will be much different

with a lot of reporting doesn't have it right because of not talking about the deal with trying to make we don't want to do that. we are working very well and very hard with china as you know and i don't blame china for this. china has been taking advantage of the united states economically and in other ways for many decades. it was like missing in action, our representatives. they were missing in action.ft they wouldn't do anything. we had a trade deficit last year with china of at least $375 million and i believe that number was probably over $500 billion. we had massive theft of intellectual property to the tune of perhaps hard to value, $300 billion a year and that ish all ending. our relationship with china is a very good one and i told president xi, i don't blame china, but i blame the united

states for allowing this to happen because people in my position and people in these positions should have never, ever allow that to happen but we are changing that. >> host: jenny leonard, what did you hear there in his remarks? >> guest: we heard that we aren't making a deal. we go back to his tweets from last week he referred to a deal and he pouted that this will be amazing for america's farmers and now he's working it back. he's talking with the trade deficit in the announcement and he didn't see any reference that. we didn't see a number. then he also talks about ip theft and that was ending. the administration has finalized the investigation into chinese ip software terrorists were threatened but we have not seen these terrorists and secretary mission is said these are all hold not doing a trade war right now and the trade representatives says it differently on the terrorist and he put out an approach saying

all options must remain on the table and we need to get the structural issues and it's not enough for the chinese to buy our products and of course the president never talks about without saying he has a good relationship with the chinese president so that was also -- >> host: you also cited about structure and here's a tweet from earlier this week. he said our trade deal with china is moving along nicely but in the end we will have to use a different structure and this will be too hard to get done and verify results for completion. what is aiming by structure? >> guest: i think we are all trying to figure that out. not just you and me but members on capitol hill have been sending letters of both parties with bipartisan this week to ask what is your end goal with china. where are we going and is dd

part of it and if it's not who is leaving the talks and we hear the treasure secretary mnuchin and trade representative who have oversight over in the tree communities and there's a lot of? 's spiritless get our first call. aaron is calling from indiana. democratic line. hello there aaron. >> caller: hello. i watch c-span but not frequently but here and there and i can not help but see the blatant ignorance among people generally just as part of the what trump is doing for the country. i'm not saying that i'm completely against trump whatsoever but, i mean, all the racial stuff that he's made that as part of his base is either gone back on or not follow-through is completely.

i feel like this country while is in good economic state right now banking regulations and or the lack of regulation is going to create more or less what we see in 2008 with housing bubble in the economy class. i think right now were on an ultimate high and everyone should brace for impact because i don't know. >> host: aaron, what about trade itself with china and these talks for lack of better term being stalled for a bit. what you make of that issue? >> caller: well, where is that going. initially we were going to have $150 billion of tariffs and 15% on steel and aluminum and that ever happened obviously. i feel like mr. trump has

realized over the last few days he's back itself into a corner with the talks of the nobel prize and everyone popping him up as far as that goes in regards to the deal with china and north korea and getting all these things wrapped into one to forward party talks against them in that matter. >> host: thank you, aaron, for calling in.ng jenny leonard, what would you like to say? >> guest: i think it was interesting he mentioned the base. if you look at twitter just basically after the sunday shows one cherry secretary mnuchin declared the trade war on hold you saw steve bannon come out an old campaign advisers come out and you saw fox news and the targeting the president and getting the messaging through i

think people know how to do that. you saw his bases and ally saying mr. president, you are abandoning a fundamental campaign promise and you told us you would be tough on china and you need to follow through for your base. we saw that ramping up a lot last week. >> host: here is a headline to one of your pieces. >> guest: right, pressure was in and outside the administration there were reports that there was inside between his more hawkish advisors and the ones like treasury secretary minasian and larry who came out and moved the issue a little bit and addressed the markets to make sure that nothing is going on balance. we will see this inside and outside the and ministration.

>> host: centreville, virginia, hello. >> caller: good morning. i want to make a quick comment. i think everybody needs to get out of their bunker. this is about national security. there's a difference between trade and national security and of course everybody knows. the dte situation is all about national security and there's reason why there's bipartisan support on republican and democratic side to ensure that this does not go through. i understand the president is talking about the 75000 people in china that lose their jobs but we are going to lose our country. let me rewind. i'm a cyber security analyst. i understand what dte has been doing. they have essentially been using our phones to route their way into our companies to steal the information or steel government private companies secret so this idea that we should go along to get along with china

for 75000 jobs is ludicrous and thank you, c-span, for hearing me out and i pray that somebody gets in the president's ear and explains to him that this is a national security issue. thank you. >> host: thank you. anything you want to add? i >> guest: financial security angle is really what capitol hill is stressing over and over again. they keep saying this is not something you can trade away but it's a law-enforcement issue and he went through the section and now can't make a u-turn and we saw legislation going through and it's in the pipeline basically to stop the administration for walking back on dte because the members of congress feel so strongly about the initial security influence. >> host: i would ask you where the power lies in how much power

does congress actually have to stop something that the president might want to do? >> guest: it depends on if they were to do something on the trade front and this lies in the us trade representative's hands but the congress has oversight over this and here i think it's a little bit, get it because it is the intersection between national security and trade and so they can write letters and they are trying to stop him but in the end it seems as if the president has authority that he is making use of in the congress is maybe reconsidering giving him that much power to the president. >> host: from bloomberg, steve daines, republican ofli montana, it's very important as we engage in the negotiations we can't just see this as a standard

trade dispute with china but keep in mind china's long-term strategic approach in the long-term goal of republica bece world's superpower, economically and publicly. let's hear from gary in michigan, democrat. hello there. >> caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. >> host: you're welcome. >> caller: i was going to put up a steel building and when i was checking in to putting it up that they told me that the price of a steel the past four weeks went up 10% and my other comment was any money that was donated to the trump organization from china but thank you, c-span. >> host: thank you, gary. jenny, can you speak to any of that? >> guest: i don't quite know where the price increase has

come from. it's hard to gauge and i can say that the trump administration went ahead with steel tariffs and it excluded some of the allies but there was a 25% tariff on steel so maybe that is on the cable donations -- i don't -- >> host: remind us of what parts of the country and what industry and businesses are most likely to either benefit or get hurt depending on how these two docs work out? >> guest: this admission is focused on manufacturing so the steelworkers they have asked for action because there's overcapacity and other countries agree that china is most likely the cause of that. that action is the agriculture industry is always in the target line to be hit by retaliation in

the make that clear on the hill and clear lobbying around town and with the president himself in the agriculture sector brings that point home. there's a lot of time, you know agriculture will be hit matter what you do. it's a little bit of everything. >> host: let me remind you of the phone numbers. we are talking here about us china trade in our guest is jenny leonard of bloomberg who writes entrée for bloomberg previously and associate editor at inside us trade, educated at northwestern and educated at duke, as well. she is taking your calls on cade. back to what we thought was in

early june visit now by the commerce secretary and take us deeper into that decision and why the commerce secretary in the lead versus the trade representative. >> guest: also a good question. even capitol hill is asking that from the democrats is saying we need the trade representative because we have oversight over him. you are clearly dealing with trade matters and it's not the right choice and i guess the white house and the framework of the deal has to do with exports and the commerce secretary deals with that so business deals are to be signed and they say it's not clear if it will be the only ongoing and maybe it's unclear if he is actually going the first week of june like depending on how with north korea and capitol hill will play

out but those are the two main arguments from the white house. >> host: give us a sense of how trade talks work. we had around here in washington and there will perhaps be another round in china but how are agendas set and agreed to and where do they meet and what does the meeting look like in terms of size and how it operates. we never sees on tv but we only hear about them. give us flavor. >> guest: these arere untraditional trade talks because this is not a negotiation that will result in a trade to. if they did that and went that route it would be comparable to the nafta negotiations where we had large groups from all agencies with other countries and they met regularly here. this is a little bit of ara

smaller size group and we have the trainees delegation and the vice premier and then we have the us trade representative and we have members from the cabinet heads obviously and those who negotiate in smaller circles and it all happens at the white house so usually the trade negotiations and that being a big trade around and you have a hotel and a large convention center or something like that. yeah, i mean, this is a very unconventional trade negotiation here. >> host: usually when these talks are done there's an incentive to put out some kind of statement to say something. how is that decision made and how are those messages crafted? >> guest: that is made with a lot of negotiation and maybe fighting and there were reports on the site that they talked last thursday and friday and the statement did not come out until saturday and that was because

according to reports the two sides were fighting over what are we actually going to say. you said pushing for a number and us said pushing for trade deficit reduction in the statement in the chinese said pushing back. what they actually said was not a lot of substance. they put out the framework. it's a lot of negotiation and a lot of back-and-forth and can be messy. >> host: back to your calls. aden in virginia, independent color. hello. >> caller: thank you so much for c-span. >> host: you're welcome. >> caller: my question has to relate to trade and allies. in my opinion are how we interact with our allies first trade and tariffs has been very erratic and how is our allies confidence level in our trade moving forward based on what i think is very erratic behavior?

>> guest: yeah, so, to your question the latest announcement that we saw two days ago waski that the president is looking into the auto industry and considering slapping tariffs on auto parts and imports and i think that caught everyone by surprise. no ally was briefed before and capitol hill was not briefed before so there's there's a lot of surprise, i would say, in the trump administration trade policy towards our allies and we are still negotiating with, for example, with the your opinion on whether they will be subject to the steel and aluminum tariffs that go on june 1st were still negotiating with mexico and canada also so there's a lot of confusion, i would say. >> host: patricia from iowa, good morning. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i had a short comment and it was

about it seems this president is more concerned with immediate gratification and not thinking long term from tariffs to tax cuts to syria to iran to korea and he is not considering long-term negative, possible negative consequences, and i just think that our adversaries are thinking long-term not short-term and i think we need to readjust our thinking and think more alon long-term. as far as i know has any besides the steel and aluminum tariffs does any tariffs actually been

implemented? that is my question. >> host: couple of things there, patricia. to the last question, have any tariffs actually been imposed so far in this round of talks? >> guest: on china, no. those are supposedly on hold. according to us trade representative robert light hauser there still an option but the second round we have a list or propose list of 50 billion worth of chinese goods that could be subject to tariffs and there was an additional 100 billion that was never put out and never went to the public. >> host: to the other point from the color making the point that the presidents concerned with instant gratification as she put it. some are arguing opposite that he's pulling out of deals and getting to the table with people to rewrite language means he is interested in the long-term for the us and can you give us

flavor there? >> guest: if you look at it from the china standpoint i think that he has definitely some advisors who are pushing for the long-term vision on china because china has made the 2025 plan with her trying to, you know, cultivate national champions through subsidies and that is something that is concerning to some of the presidents closest advisers on the china trade front. they are looking at long-term and pushing for the long-term vision and that is why the terrorists sometimes might be viewed by some as this is because i need to take me seriously and come and sit down with me and negotiate because i want to get the structural issues so i want to negotiate on ip but you won't negotiate until i threaten you so that's push

and pull a little bit. >> host: want to know a little bit more about the car tariffs with the talks. there's a headline in "the new york times" and as we touched on it you talk of car tariffs where exactly did that part of the story and that decision or thoughts come from? >> guest: if you ask anyone even the autoworkers who -- if you recall this president had a tweet that morning when hekn announced it saying i have big news coming soon it will be great news for the autoworkers, the autoworkers do not know this was coming. there was surprise by, i think, across the board even on capitol hill who also was not briefed until the story broke so they heard from media reports where this came from and some are saying this might be negotiating leverage for the talk with canada and mexico because were trying to wrap up nasa talks and autos is always a sticking point in has been four months and maybe this will help get them to

the table and help them get japan think about a bilateral trade with us. there's lots of rumors where this is headed and the commerce secretary has to initiate this and it hasn't happened and it does not have to be to tariffs. this is the last process under the statute took nine months so this is not something immediate. >> host: last couple calls for our guest. curtis in north carolina, democrat, you're on with jenny leonard. >> caller: how you doing this morning. >> host: doing well. >> caller: yes, the question i have i heard the president talk and he said he's interested in fair trade and to my view he does have a point. how many terrorists are we paying on foreign cars? do repair the same tariffs to

foreign country as they are pain? is it fair both ways? >> host: hang on, curtis. what do you make of his first question? is it fair both ways? >> guest: the president would argue it is not because our tariffs on cars is lower than the europeanea union. we heard the president say a lot of times that for reciprocity is his favorite word and he uses that in the trade context whenever he gets a chance to talk about trade. reciprocity if you look at it we have a lower tariffs of using our tariffs should be higher because the others don't lower there's. >> host: curtis, if you are there, keep going. >> caller: yes, does he not have a point if all of this 30s present should [inaudible] >> host: can you be yourself, curtis?

>> caller: if we offend 30% tariffs wouldn't it be fair for them to pay 30%? >> guest: that is season to whae i said earlier with the president saying it's not fair because the tariff levels are so different and if they don'tve lower there's then we have to increase ours and so that is that is the thinking behind some of the actions that he is taking. >> host: last call from birmingham, alabama, hello, tim, republican line. >> caller: good morning. >> host: good morning, sir. >> caller: my question is it seems to me that i guess the countries that would get the production is tied in a big way to the wage levels in any given country and ultimately i guess the currency exchange or whatever drives those things so wouldn't that at last be a way

to offset the trade deficits to at least level the playing field on wages westmark when you havet a country that is really low wages some kind of way to currency or through maybe a trade tariff to level that wage so you are ultimately measuring the productivity or the quality or wherever it may be of that country's production? i >> host: thank you. let's hear from our guest. >> guest: interestingly in the nafta negotiationsg there is ongoing renowned the us is pushing for a wage component to be a part of it because we've heard the president say a lot of times auto production goes to mexico because of the low wages but he finds it unfair and they're trying to balance it out

by saying high valued components need to be made with high valued labor and that's in us and canada and that is actually moving along and negotiate on right now so i think that is a component that theta administration is considering trying to level the playing field. >> host: we're just about out of time but as the story ms. ford what will we be looking for in the days ahead? >> guest: i will be looking for is the commerce secretary going to china and the other question are they going to get on the same page with capitol hill on dte and i guess, anything with allies trying to sway the president and one way or the other and it will generally be interesting to see how that plays out on twitter and everything the president does next. >> host: jenny leonard is a bloomberg reporter specializing in trade.