we worry about ideas. one side uses the other side's ideas that are dangerous or immoral, or otherwise worthy of suppression. that in a free society it's better to treat the mere expression of an idea as something to be debated rather than suppressed because it's worth to give the government the power to pick and choose what ideas are allowed to be expressed or not. but if the expression of -- if the use of speech-- >> all of this discussion available on-line c-span.org. and we'll take you live to the

national press club for a discussion on u.s. steel and aluminum tariffs. hosted by the global business dialog and hear from european and china, you'll here about european and china retaliation for u.s. tariffs. they're just getting started ott c-span2. >> wto and related matters. >> you may be among those who feel that the u.s. trade policy and growing deficits and off shore has reached a critical stage or you may feel alternatively that the dramatic action taken by the administration has self-precipitated the crisis. in other words, we have something of a crisis and it's one i'm glad we're going to talk about this morning.

in the 90 minute period our trading partners have strong views and they don't have a representative here, but we have about the best panel for this discussion. i'm grateful to each of them. and especially for the ambassador who is under the weather and who may be here anyway. and a word of thanks to the sponsor the program. trade data monitor. nobody knows trade data better than don brashear who created the company and a small diversion, some of you may know i worked in the '90s for a company and the founder of that which made connectors, is fond of saying, we take the end of a wire and we engineer the hell out of it. well, that's what trade data monitor does with trade data.

if you're know the familiar. i suggest you take a look at their website, a fabulous organization. in terms of tax filing, we're organized as a volunteer organization and i wanted to mention two volunteers in particular. joanne thornton, our volunteer vice-president has done something for this program which i'll mention and well, right now, as a matter of fact. she spent the last day or so at the library of congress trying to figure out, well where did section 232 come from? and the fruits of that labor are in your -- this little hand you handout. was myself struck by in 1968

version, in this section the director shall recognize the close welfare to our national security. there's something of a history and i thank joanne for pulling it out for us. the other volunteer, what i think of as one of the best trade analysts around and that's john magnus of tra tradewinds and among other things, are the vice-chairman of our advisory board, but this morning, he's your moderator. he's the conductor for this railroad to understanding and i'm going to turn it over to him and thank all of you and look forward to the discussion. >> thank you, good morning, everybody. >> once again judge has done it and assembled just the right group and just the right topic at just the right moment.

the time of great ferment in the world of trade, the tariffs that the united states imposed in the name of national security and the responsive actions of other governments are probably the biggest source of concern and uncertainty. now, i say that at a moment when the nafta is opened up on the operating table, when the wto disputes settlement system is visibly swooning, when some number of hundreds of billions of dollars of trade are currently in harm's way in relation to the 301 china case and when according to this morning's trade clips our president desperately wants out of the wto. to say this is the biggest source of concern and worry is saying a lot, but i think it holds up under scrutiny. there are provisions in the gaps, recognizing the retained right of each member it take

any action which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interest, dot, dot, dot, in time of war, emergency or relations. and tariffs imports under section 232 are not those relying on sections for legal cover. there are a number of things that the u.s. department of the might do, but section 232 tariffs are the measure du jour and they are presently on track to give rise to what would be the really substantive consideration in wto dispute settlement of what article 21 of it does and doesn't protect and whether it or is not self-judging. meanwhile, prior to any such litigation restrictions are begetting restrictions, that sounds biblical. it is sort of biblical.

and trade targeted for extra tariff, lumme, motorcycles, blue jeans, alcohol, aluminum and set to spread to automotive trade and when the responses to that kick in, heaven knows what else. it's a fine mess and we are all lucky to have this group of panelists to address what's going on and what may happen going forward. he think i have the order of speakers right. if not, then please excuse me. rufus is president of the national trade council, previously to the highest of the u.s. government. deputy ustr more than once and governments of different flavors and deputy general for what i believe was a regard-breaking 11 year stint

in that capacity. there's a line in his bio, he has experience as a trade negotiators and international official and achievements underlying that summary would take a long time to describe and his fingerprints are everywhere, if i've done the math right they're not on the 1962 act. but during the time he was serving in u.s. government positions during the '80s and '90s, the statutory part of the regime got scrubbing and these provisions were there state through and the weren't left in place of inadd vertance. and the international economic law, along the way to this past, she's held the other interesting trade jobs a person can hold. a stint as a general counsel,

chief tax negotiator. itc commissioner and a term as the member of the wto appellate body. i've also been able to see her work in private practice from close range and i can attest that her skills extend way beyond public service. and next is the vice-president at the pork producer's council. beyond the pork industry, he has, as you know perfectly well, attained the status of one of the elite business advocates on taken a leadership role and working for progressive passage and implementation of a series of trade coalitions and scott paul. president for the alliance of manufacturing, an advocacy group established by company and labor interest in the manufacturing sector. part of the white house manufacturing jobs initiative and he hosts a podcast, if you

are not already listeners. a stellar group and an important topic and rufus, i believe you're up first. >> good morning, everyone and thanks, john. thanks to judge and global dialog business, judge, i've enjoyed all of your work over the years. certainly no better time to be active in this field than now. may you always live in interesting times. we're certainly learning the wisdom of that-- of that expression and john, thank you for all the work you've been doing. my colleagues on the panel. yeah, there's a lot to talk about. i don't know really where to begin. let me start this way. as you know, i'm now head of the national foreign trade

counsel, an association of 200 some companies that really covers the whole u.s. economy from energy to the internet and everything in between. but i've also in connection with the 232 actions, my vice-president and i put together and helped to run something the alliance for competitive steel and aluminum trade. about 45 different trade associations in washington representing really hundreds and hundreds of producers, both large and small of products that are consumers of steel, aluminum, that are very concerned about the impact of this and i'll talk about it in a little bit. just to step back a little bit and look back at what's happening. i think we have to recognize that this is a fundamental, now a very fundamental decision point the country's going to be reaching over the next six to

18 months about where u.s. trade policy goes and you know, it's now becoming much, much sharper focus. i'm not going to talk too much about rumors today on withdrawal from the wto, but coming into very sharp focus that really the administration believes that a more merchantile trade policy that's based on the u.s. of instruments like tariffs is going to get us better results bilaterally, country by country, than the basic frame work that's evolved over the last 70 years. you know, i heard one member of my board describe it this way, you know, they fundamentally believe that you can fix the problems of 21st century economy and 21st century industries by using at best,

19th century policy instruments like tariffs and a 17th century philosophy like merchantilism. and you know, to us, that's not going to work in the long run. there are a lot of reasons why, so let's start with what the impact of taking tariffs up on a sector like steel and aluminum has done for u.s. manufacturing. already we're seeing price increases in that sector. it's driven, obviously, by a genuine concern about a real problem in the trading system, china. and chinese government policies and practice that have created great overcapacity. but the solution here, rather than try to work together with all of our allies and build a much stronger international and

global alliance, that relies on existing instruments like the bilateral trade agreements we have with those companies, the free trade arrangements and the wto itself to push china towards better behavior. you think what would have happened if we had joined tpp, if we had a tpp agreement, if we were leading in the wto system and if we could work with partners using things that came from those agreements to push the chinese in the right direction. we also, by the way, have a lot of instruments like our unfair trade laws which have been used to deal with china, versus where we are today. where we are today, not simply raising tariffs around the world, including on all our allies, imposing big costs on american manufacturing, both large and small, and i'll get to that in a minute. and really, not putting that much pressure on the chinese to

change their system. so the question becomes do we want to continue down this path and what happens if we saw expand it even further into sectors where china is not really the problem today? they may be a problem ten years from now, like the auto sector? so, here is a sector that's 40 to 50 times the size, i'm sorry, not the auto sector. ten times the size, if you like all the manufacturing that depends on steel and aluminum, you're talking something 40 to 50 times the size of steel and aluminum sector. and if you start building restraints into the tariffs into the system in an industry like that, you're really expanding this conflict ten-fold and you're basing it on a concept and i'm sure jennifer and others will talk about this, a concept that it's essential to your national security to protect all of your

important industries. of course, other industries pay the price for that and those industries themselves don't in the long run prosper. i was out at an auto plant this week in indiana, happened to be a toyota plant. toyota is a member of mine producing about 410,000 autos a year and almost 20% of their product is exported. i watched them come off the line due for the australian market. it's consuming, 600 metric tons of deal a day and truckins comig into the plant. over 80% what they do is from domestic or north american content and relies heavily on the nafta, obviously, and we can talk about that later. but, hundreds and hundreds of

both large and small suppliers for that company and that's a reflection of the u.s. auto industry today. 2 million exports last year, 17 million unit production in an industry that's experiencing tremendous resurgence all over the country, by the way, it's not, no longer just centered in the industrial midwest or upper midwest, but in places like texas and alabama and south carolina. we're exporting mercedes benz from alabama to china, at least we were. we'll have to see what happens once retaliation hits. that gets me back to my major point. if we really think that we're-- that the president doing this in order to put us in a better position to negotiate with people, i hope we're going to begin to see what are the terms of those agreements and how

quickly can they be resolved because from business's point of view what we're experiencing now is tremendous uncertainty. are we going to be getting new agreements to open world markets and thereby help this supposed tremendous resurgence of american manufacturing or are we actually going to start to face world where tariffs go up everywhere, particularly against u.s. exports and we begin to see higher costs and higher prices and the consequences of protectionism in our own economy? and that gets me back to my main point today. where does all of this bring us in the long run. if you look at what our trading partners are actually doing.

so, we know the tpp 11 countries have gone forward with their free trade deal without the united states, and that includes, obviously, our two closest makes and second and third largest trading partners, mexico and canada. we know that the europeans have finished a free trade agreement with the canadians. they've upped their deal with mexico, and american sur-countries and have agreements with a number of asian markets. meanwhile, here is the u.s. still the risk that we decide to withdraw from nafta, obviously, our most important bilateral trade agreement. we did not go forward with the tpp and we're talking about revisiting other agreements, the t-tip fell apart.

and you see the free trade zone developing that involves the rest of the world and most of our major trading partners, meanwhile, here is the u.s. developing these exotic theories about protecting your national security by closing all your biggest markets and really now even potentially withdrawing from the larger multilateral frame work. in other words, creating circumstances in which the rest of the world may just pass us by as we close. you know, there aren't many examples of history of that happening, particularly in an economy that's doing so well. i mean, i asked the auto people what's your biggest problem right now, and by far, the biggest problem is the unfilled jobs, is finding the scheduled workers in this one, one factory that i visited this

week, a thousand unfilled jobs that they have to figure out how to fill over the next six months. finding skilled workers, the growth of our manufacturing sector, you know, people look at the decline in jobs in the manufacturing sector and draw the conclusion, first of all, that that's due to trade and trade agreements. but secondly, draw the conclusion that that means manufacturing output is declining. 80% of americans think that our manufacturing output is declining. actually, it's increasing quite dramatically and has been increasing consistently since the downturn in 2008. but, of course, we're producing the same number of autos we produced in the 1990's, but with about a quarter of the workers and if you go through a

factory today, you understand why the productivity increases and that's-- that's a phenomena happening in manufacturing, just like it happened in agriculture 100 years before. our economy's got to adapt to it and our government policies have to be better to allow american workers to adapt to it and identify the kinds of skills that workers are going to need in the future. you know. we spend one-seventh of what germany and japan spend on apprenticeship and work force preparation. we need to be concentrating a tremendous amount there. we need to be doing a lot more with our infrastructure. the administration and the congress want to do something good to help our trade, we need an infrastructure strategy that is credible and that's going to promote our greater global

competitiveness. the path we're on now, not just with where we've come so far, you know, people are accustomed to these battles on steel and aluminum and tend to break out every ten, 15 years. and my career, actually i just hit my 41st year and i saw repeatedly throughout that and i know you and i lived through a lot of them, can give you lots of example of the steel fights, but if we start expanding this to a more general strategy, that this is the way to fix our economy. first of all, what exactly are we fixing? you know, one of the most dynamic and globally competitive economies in the world can't find the workers for our most scheduled and important jobs in 0 your -- our economy and meanwhile, a lot of americans are struggling because they aren't making good incomes and they don't have good jobs and you say something's wrong there, but the solution is not the one

that's been identified by this administration and that's the concern i have. so, i look forward to the discussion. i'm sure there will be some chances for q & a's afterwards and thank you very much for inviting me today. [applaus [applause]. >> i did in fact get the speaking order wrong and our next presentation will be from scott paul. >> thank you, john and thank you to the global business dialog for the opportunity to have a conversation about the national security based tariffs. as i think the ambassador demonstrated it's a complex set here. the national press club, that giving the shootings in annapolis and the murder and senseless slaughter that is worth pointing out that

journalism is not an easy business under the optimal circumstances and that journalists all over the world and including the united states deserve our unwavering support for their work and freedom of the press and they deserve a president who feels the same way as well. i'm from indiana. i grew up with hog producers jasper county, indiana members of the national pork producers council and around the corner from auto production and in sight of the steel mills. indiana is the largest steel producing country in the country and has been since the 1970's. so this is an issue that i take very personally. i'm glad that judge set up the conversation by looking back at the legislative history because it does make sense to look at the 1962 act that was the foundational document for section 232. it was hailed as probably the trade expansion act of '62 was

hailed as probably the biggest legislative achievement of that congress. and included three fundamental things. it gave the president broad authority to negotiate trade expansion and to reduce u.s. barriers, particularly with cold war partners developing nations as well, designed to further economic ties with them. it included kind of the first iteration of trade adjustment assistance. and we know every 50-some years, the ups and downs of that program and how it's become a political football. and viewed as an afterthought and a way to pass trade agreements rather than as a pathway for workers to readjust if they've been laid off. and the third element was trade enforce and that's where section 232 comes in. and it's important for this reason. when president kennedy signed this bill, he actually made a

point of thanking the president of the afl-cio for supporting this trade legislation. think of the last time a president has thanked a labor leader for passing a piece of trade legislation. you have to go back a long, long way to do that and part of it, because this was supposed to be the foundation for america's trade policy, we do the enforcement, we do the adjustment, we do the expansion. we've done the expansion, i think, reasonably well. there's been some demonstrated-- some demonstration of that. our enforcement tools, frankly, are weak and they're reactive and they're -- the burden is placed on businesses and workers. they're incredibly expensive and they are not sharp tools. and i mentioned the adjustment and so, in a sense, the '62 act and what's happened to these three prongs of trade policy

provide kind of a foundation for understanding where we are today. now, to this particular case, steel and aluminum are essential to our national security and that may sound very 20th century and world war ii and arsenal democracy. if you look around us and you think about what protects us in this country, it's aircraft carriers that are nuclear powered, but are involved with tens of thousands of sophisticated armor plate, and aluminum. it's f-35's that are made of an aluminum that was just invented within the last ten or 15 years. it's a resilient electrical grid that depends on electrical steel of which we have one remaining producer in the united states. it's the virginia class submarines that provide part of our nuclear triad that will be part of our nuclear submarine fleet for at least 50 years and contain an amazing amount of metal.

so, if you don't think that the potential conflicts in the future don't involve steel and aluminum, you've been reading way too much fiction because they did and i think our military establishment understands that. you know, is a-- are we facing a challenge in the steel industry, in particular? and the answer to that is unequivocally yes. we have faced waves of bankruptcies in the steel industry. we lost 30 to 40 steel companies in the early 2000's, in part because the clinton administration refused to take action during the asian financial cries and the bush administration then did very briefly. we've face add situation with china coming on-line on the global economy where you now have five of the ten largest steel companies in the world are essentially owned by the chinese government by don't respond to market conditions. you have a nation, china, that

produces half the world's steel now and consumption varies widely depending what the domestic program. it does not stop making the steel. so that excess of steel creates bad behaviors. not only among chinese producers, but also as department of thes around the world look to hang onto their steel industries otherwise are efficient, productive and competitive were it not for this glut of steel that's coming from china. so, the steel industry has searched for solutions for this challenge for many years. and if the wto was a solution to it, believe me, we would have done it by now. the wto is not well equipped to deal with the massive amount of state capitalism coming from china. the massive amount of evercapacity that its steel industry produces and the impact that that has on the global market. there were other mechanisms

that were set up and dialog for steel producers that is plodding along at an exceptionally slow pace. and they faced a crisis when the west of our economy was humming along and it was in a technical recession. the only reason it was in a recession was because of this chinese excess capacity. so all of these companies that are complaining about steel prices right now, they received an exceptional discount in 2014, 2015, 2016 for the types of steel and aluminum they produced and i don't know about you, but i didn't see car prices come down, the price of a can of beer, that didn't come down. all of those, they held onto those savings. and so, it's a little disingenuous to then say, we're facing this price shock now. when we look at relations -- because some people say, well,

the military aspects of steel only account for about 3% of their production, so how is this a national security issue? and it's as simple as this. we don't have nationalized steel mills. we don't have subsidies for our steel industry. our steel mills compete in a highly competitive market. and the u.s. has the lowest based tariffs for steel around the world. and it's correct to say that we do have dumping orders in place on some-- on some steel, but we are the dumping ground for steel around the united states and a lot of these other countries put up safeguards faster than we do or they're able to keep steel out of their market and it ends up coming up to the united states. so the solution that's proposed by this administration and i encourage you, if you haven't read it yet. read the 232 report that the commerce department established because it lays out in very great detail what the goals of

relief are and why it's necessary. and i'll state it as follows. the goals of the relief are to get the steel industry back up to 80% of capacity utilitization and that's rate that financial analysts satisfy steel makers can operate on a margin and reinvest in workers and capital to become even more competitive as we head further in the 21st century. we're about at 75% of operating capacity right now. since 2009 we've seen import penetration coming in to the steel market, increase by 50% in the united states. we've seen six or seven blast furnaces placed out of

operation over the last decade and a half and during the recent crisis saw 16,000 steel workers lose their jobs in an otherwise healthy economy. there are -- some people will say, well, why this broad effort? why not just focus on china? it's a fair question. mere is the answer. we do have dumping orders in place against chinese steel. they have been effective enough that china has dropped in terms much its volume in the united states down to 11th among all of our trade partners, but that steel has found another way in the united states, it's been modestly transformed and shipped via product that aren't subject to dumping orders and shipped to vietnam and indonesia and korea and caused other governments to engage in all sorts of bad behaviors as well.

and so, the -- if there weren't a global solution for this, it wouldn't be effective. others may ask, why are there quotas on some countries and tariffs at all on our allies and how does it look so different? i think there's an answer for that, although i think it's trickier, quite candidly for canada and mexico than for some of the other countries. part of it's volume. the largest part combined into the united states are from the eu, canada and mexico. and i will say that i don't think that the dumping is the most serious problem, that we face, from mexico, canada and the eu when it comes to steel, but they also need to be part of the solution. and the relief that was designed, i believe, was designed to get the eu, canada

and mexico to engage with us, to find a solution to quarantine this chinese excess capacity. there's about 500 or 600 million metric tons of steel that needs to come out of the global market right now. the united states doesn't even produce 100 million metric tons of steel. so, you see the scope of this challenge. when we look to see if this impact -- if this relief has had a positive impact so far, i think that there are signals that are encouraging. first, we're seeing steel mills come back on-line. in fact, in gran night city, illinois, a place i've visited, granite city, blast furnaces have been closed for a couple of years and you see 13, 14 steel and aluminum facilities either increase their production, add on workers or

reopen after long closures and some of them are attracting foreign direct investment as well. you've seen the manufacturing job numbers continue to be very sound offense the last couple of months as tariffs are implemented and there's reason to believe that that will continue because we're in a particularly strong economy right now that has lots of fundamentals and you also have to consider that steel and aluminum, if the tariffs are fully implemented that's about 16 billion dollars in a 19 trillion dollar economy imposed on a corporate sector that received a $1.5 trillion tax benefit from this administration. so, the idea that this very limited range of steel and aluminum tariffs is going to go out of control and smoot holly comparison, it's not the same.

we're in a strong economy and this is a limited set of products and in relation to the size of our economy, it's minuscule. now, finally, and i'll close with this thought, is it legal for us to do this? and i would submit that the countries that are retaliating are the ones who are violating the wto right now, as ambassador has submitted. the article 21 of the gat says it's self-judgment when you're applying a national security rationale and even stated when the swedes said we need to put a quota in for our footwear for our military. when you say it's national security. you have to assume that steel and aluminum fit that bill. and so, people are saying, well, there's a reasonable chance that the united states is going to lose a case at the wto on this.

i wouldn't be so sure about that. we'll see what happens there. but i would encourage all of you to take a look at the ambassador's submission to the wto on these retaliatory tariffs. this is not a safeguard action, this is a national security action as well. finally, i just want to say that i don't disagree with the ambassador, i think that we need to invest in infrastructure and work-based learning and there's a lot that we can do domestically, but i would submit that all that is less effective if we don't have a level playing field on trade and if we don't have a defense industrial base that's capable of supplying us both in times of peace and expert more strength. thanks, and i look forward to the conversation to come. [applaus [applause] >> next up, the honorable jennifer hillman.

>> thank you to judge and i want to thank joanne thornton for the work she did to put this legislative history together because i think it would help answer the question that scott raised, is what the united states has done in this case legal? and the answer is no way. let me walk through a bit of it. and let me back up on section 232. if you think about it in its context, it hasn't been used to actually imply-- to apply import restraints for over 30 years. i think there's some good reason to that. and if you look at the actual past decisions that were based on this 1962 statute, the fundamental question that was sort of answered in those decisions is, is the united states overly reliant for critical materials on imports and if so, are those imports coming from countries that we don't want to rely on in a time of war? so, if that's really what the

gist of this was, if you think about it, in the context of steel. again, the answer is going to be flat no. imports are at best 20% of the u.s. market in most of the flat rolled products so we're not overly reliant on imports to serve critical needs, and where do those imports come from? number one source canada. number two the eu, number three mexico, number four japan, number five brazil. those are our strongest allies and can we count on them in a time of war? yes. no case in the normal ways in which 232 have been read to apply these duties to steel. hence the reason why the administration has gone to the one phrase, the one sentence in 232 that's the part that's highlighted in joanne's legislative history of it that completely erases the notion of a distinction between national security and economic security, and is basically saying anything that we deem to be in

our economic security must be in our national security and vice versa and there comes the legal problem because that may well be the definition under section 232 under u.s. law, it is know the definition under international law and not the definition under wto law. what's happened since these 232 tariffs have been brought? first of all, there have been challenges at the wto immediately by china, i mean, within days by china, followed by a case brought by india, challenging the united states. >> another by the european union, by canada, by mexico, filed at the wto and japan and others will similarly follow suit and bring a challenge and what's the gist of the challenge? if you look at eu's complaint, for example, it raises, first of all, a challenge under article 1 of the gat so go to beginnings of the beginnings. challenges most favored nation,

to the extent that you ever apply tariffs, you have to apply them on msn basis, equally. but here we're not applying to australia, korea, brazil. so we're violating in the application of the tariffs pt count two in the european union's complaint. article two. we are going back to basics. article 2, you may not charge tariffs in excess of your bindings. you have your bound tariffs. you're not allowed to at above the binding. what's our bound tariff on steel, zero. anything above zero is a clear violation of article two. unequivocal, no question about it. what are our bound tariffs and aluminum, they range depending on the product, between zero and 5.6%, so 10% is unequivocal violation of the bindings. article 10-3, administering

your trade laws in a fair, open and transparent way. again, unequivocal violation by the united states. you cannot put duties on goods already on the water before they got to you and slap tariffs on them the minute they get there and say that you've applied your rules in anything resembling fair due process, due notice, et cetera. unequivocal violation and a violation of article 11, it says you may not impose quotas. all right we've imposed quotas on korean, brazil and argentina and imposed them in the most draconian way we could have possibly suggested. we told the koreans we were going to give them a quota. it was the equivalent of 70% of trade in steel the last two years, 2.68 million tons. then you heard nothing about exactly how was this quota going to be administered. nobody knew at 9:00 at night on the evening at which the quotas

would go into effect at midnight. what did the u.s. administration do, divided up to 54 specific limits and quarterly on top of those. 216 specific limits of the quota and no flexibility. no ability to move quota from one category to another, no ability to borrow quota from next year to this year and so you don't embargo. and no to the quota to next year's. for those of us in the quota world, flexibility is part of that sing in the the 1980's. in this instance zero flexibility. so if you look how that pans out. to give awe example one of the quotas on korean steel, the total amount in the photoa for the quarter. 15 kilograms. you're allowed to put in your suitcase 30 kilograms for those who travel. the notion you're able to

import 15 kilograms of steel is a joke. a huge portion of the korean quota is effectively not available. it's not a 70% cut in trade, it's t more like-- and that's a challenge. under article 19. safeguards agreement and a series of challenges under the safeguard agreement. so to me the question, are these countries that are challenging these 232 tariffs likely to win? 100% they're going to win on the merits. there's no doubt, absolutely none, that these quotas violate obligations. then the question, what's the united states response and here it is a clear question of real first instance for the wto. arguably a very dramatic and important one because what the united states is going to say is that these are justified. that they have a defense to them. not an affirmative right, there

is no affirmative right to impose a national securitariff, does not exist in the wto. if you wish to apply tariffs above your bindings, there are four ways. if you negotiate a change in your bindings. those are the residential ways you can impose tariffs, this is outside of those. the question is, do you have an excuse for doing that, a defense? and where the united states is clearly going to go is to article 21 of the gat, the security exceptions and here the emphasis i would put is what john referred to as the dot, dot, dot. i would contend they're not just dot, dot, dot, they're a clear limitation when can you use article 21. there's no comma, no semi colon.

it can put in what it deems a security interest. self-judging, but it must, must relate to fissonable materials. they're not nuclear. and implements of war, not fitting into these, these are not directly implements of war or taken in a time of war or international emergency. none of those. can the united states actually prevail on a climb of article 21? no, unless the united states gets away with what they're doing right now in geneva. for the first time ever article 21 is the subject of a challenge. from the existence from 1995 onward, nobody want today challenge under article 21. no one wanted to raise this defense. it was sort of considered the third rail, if you will, of trade law and the concern was we really don't want panels of the wto deciding what is or isn't essential security or

putting a lot of definitions around them. this has come up clearly and is pending in a panel in a dispute between russia and the ukraine as a result of the in essence time of war between russia and ukraine. russia did a number of things, equally a violation of the wto as what the united states has done here, russia banned transit of goods between the ukraine and kazakhstan and going further east bayou -- by ukrainian goods. you can't if you're landlocked be precluded from transiting from the where else, otherwise all landlocked countries would have no rights. you can't bar through the country. and russia is banning goods trying to go east that must go over land over pieces of russia. so, again, clear violation and

ukraine has challenged russia. russia has said article 21 defense, all right? because this is an issue of first impression, the panel went out and said, we want everybody's view. how should we interpret article 21, is it dishable? how do we readed phrase for its security interest, what's happening in that dispute right now, the united states and russia and no one else have made the claim that this is totally-- as soon as anyone says article 21 out loud. the panel has to stop and go home. it can't rule on anything, nothing at all. as soon as you say those words, article 21, the case is over, all right? that's the u.s.'s position with russia, so, they're right there together. everyone else in the wto has taken a different position, ranging, i would say the canadian's view, for example, is at least a panel has to decide, is it fissonable

material, tracking in arms or time of war. you have to decide which of the three pillars you're under. if you're asserting any one of those, you have to have some evidence that the materials were actually nuclear materials or there actually was a time of war. you have to have some evidence to support what you're doing. sort of over on the far end of the range would be the european union that is basically contending that article 21 should be interpreted exactly like article 20 where you did a necessity test. does it contract to a national security goal. so you have a range of views and a lot of this depends on how the u.s. challenges to the u.s. 232 are going to come out are going to depend to some agree what happens in this russia ukraine case. and this case is before a panel right now and the panel is chaired by very, very prominent member of the appellate body.

my understanding, they're expecting to make a ruling by the end of 2018 on the whole russia-ukraine case, including this issue. am i done or do i have two minutes to address the second legal issue? all right. >> by acclimation, two minutes. >> sorry. the first instance for wto. we have a first instance how do we think of article 21 and et cetera. the other major of first instance has been the response by all of these other countries to impose their own tariffs on the united states. all right, so, again, huge numbers of countries put on their own duties as we've heard about. china, the eu, mexico, pending are now duties by canada, russia, turkey, india and possibly japan. everybody else says you're putting unilateral duties on me, i'll put unilateral duties on you. modest irony. mexico and canada started with

tariffs on steel and aluminum. if we thought this was to benefit the u.s. steel industry. u.s. export steel. where does 50% of the steel exports go? canada. where does 40% of steel exports go? mexico. >> and 90% of u.s. exports now subject to the same duties applied to them. not clear how much this is ultimately going to help on the steel side, but if we then go to what's the challenge that the united states is now contending against retaliation duties. so everybody that has put them on has said we are going to deem them to be safeguards. they look like a safeguard, they function like a safeguard. they act like a safeguard. some rhetoric, why we're

applying this, the volume of imports into the united states and it's a global solution so in every other way, the argument is, they look and sound like a safeguard. so, the question is, do they have the right to do that? and do they have a right then under the safeguards agreement to retaliate? so, on the second issue, do they have the right to retaliate on safeguards and they clearly says that if you put a safeguard on you're required to compensate and that's clear under the wto rules and you're allowed to do that under the 90 day provision and wait 90 days from when the measure went into effect and the 90th day is the 21st and we're presumably beyond that time frame. you're free to suspend your compensation. blah, blah, blah, so assuming those have been made, the safe guards agreement says, yes, you can seek to rebalance. if the u.s. does not agree to it, you can do it unilaterally.

however, the safeguards agreement goes on to say you don't necessarily have that right for three years unless the safeguard measure has been taken not as a result of an absolute increase in imports, which in a number of steel products was the case. and secondly, you can do this if the measure does not conform to the safeguards agreement. and obviously, that's the contention everybody's making it doesn't conform to the safeguards agreement and it doesn't because the u.s. never considered it to be a safeguards agreement so there is no conformity with the safeguards agreement. so then the big question is, do these countries have a unilateral right to make that decision that they can deem it to be. that they can deem this to be effectively a safeguard and that, i think is a much harder question for the wto to answer. in theory you're supposed to go to the wto first and ask them to adjudicate a case before you go ahead and take unilateral

action and on the other hand the concern is this is such a direct and blatant violation by the united states of its commitments, that the question is, you know, is it appropriate to ask countries to wait for an adjudication before they're allowed to do anything given that the safeguards agreement, at least, allows this relatively immediate form of retaliation, is it right that the united states can deprive everybody of their ability to take this by the virtue they didn't call it a safeguard and how much are we going to depend on what somebody calls a measure versus what the effect of a measure is going to be. so, if the wto says the form really matters that you use those words "safeguard" then i think the retaliatory action. then if on the other hand, the wto says it's the substance, if they function like a safeguard you're entitled to do that, two major cases of impression that the wto settlement system will have to deal with assuming it's

still functioning by then, given that as of september we're going to maybe be down to three members, one of whom has to be recused on a lot of cases so we may be having a noneffective appellate body as of september something, so we'll see. anyway, thank you. [applaus [applause]. >> last, but not least, from the pork producer's council. >> thank you, judge and the global business dialog or inviting me to be here on behalf of america's 60,000 pork producers and it's an honor to be on this panel with these esteemed panelists. pork producers association is comprised of 42 state pork producer organizations and we serve as the global voice of the u.s. pork industry.

in 2017 we marketed over 120 million hogs. those hogs generated total cash receipts of more than 20 billion and supported 550,000 u.s. jobs. you may not know this, so i'm going to tell you, pork -- not chicken, not beef -- pork is the number one meat protein consumed in the world and the past ten years the united states on average has been the top global exporter of pork in any given year we ship pork to over 100 nations. typically we're the low cost pork producer in the world, so, when you couple affordability with safety in quality that are

second to none, you can see why consumers worldwide value our product. exports add significantly to the bottom line of each and every producer, all 60,000 of them, regardless of their size, regardless of where they're located and there's production in all 50 states. exports, pork and pork products in 2017 totalled 5.4 billion pounds. that's a lot of pork, that's a regard. valued at nearly 6.5 billion dollars. ...

. >> for market hog in 2017 was $147. so you can see exports are very important. they support approximately 110,000 jobs in the pork and allied industries. because u.s. pork is an export jugger not, it's an attractive candidate for trade retaliation. so our industry has a dubious distinction of being on three retaliation lists. china and mexico 232 and china 301. those are very important export markets for us. mexico is our largest volume market and our number two -- our number two value market taking almost 802,000 metric tons of pork worth more than 1.5 billion

in 2017. china was our number two volume market at more than 495,000 metric tons. and our number three value market at 1.1 billion last year. there's never a good time to have the problem in an industry. and for an industry like ours that's dependent on exports, there's never a good time for an export disruption. but the timing here is particularly bad. the u.s. pork industry is in the middle of an export-driven expansion with production projected to grow by about 5% in 2018. as the world's most competitive producer of pork, the u.s. pork industry was anticipating increases in access to japan and vietnam and others through the transpacific partnership and was counting on shipping more pork

under u.s. -- prior u.s. trade agreements. obviously things have changed. ambassador greg dowd, the chief agricultural negotiator with the office of the u.s. trade representative summed it up recently by telling our producers, "the lead chip of the spear in all of this right now is your pork". and, boy, did he get that right. a january 2018 iowa state university analysis had forecast monitored profits for our producers this year. but now those retaliatory tariffs are expected to result in producer losses for the year of over $17 per pig, meaning industry losses in excess of 2 billion. while our producers are feeling financial pain, they also

recognize that the administration is trying to make global trade more reciprocal and advantageous to the united states. right? so the focus of this panel is really 323 and legality. but i think a broader question being asked by the people of the united states is does the post world war ii trading system that the u.s. was the primary architect of, does it still serve our national interest. and that's a big question. and if you're an industry that was built on the current tragd rules -- trading rules and you export, it's tough. change is tough. so i've got to say the administration has been very helpful in opening new markets.

argentina was working with us to open several markets such as brazil, india and thailand. our producers understand that the administration is balancing many interests in trying to realign u.s. trade policy. and, again, we think that's what's going on here. right. which is a broader question than what's being looked at today. it's a transition. i'm not saying it's good. i'm not saying it's bad. if you're an export-dependent industry like ours that was, you know, built on one set of rules, it's a challenge. you know, but the question really here is, you know, putting trade and economic security at the center of national security and foreign policy. right? i mean, i know a lot of times -- i've been with the pork industry since 1995. i'm a lawyer by training. i did dump in counterville

cases. and so on. and lots of times in my career i said things like economic security, commercial interests are being subja gaited -- subjugated to national policy. so having said that we're in a really painful position. we see this as a transition. maybe i'm wrong. but whether or not we're in a transition or not, it's a difficult spot. but we're clearly defining the trade relationship with china. obviously modernizing the nafta. these are complex matters. our producers get it. they also know the president is committed to strengthening american agriculture and the rural economy, and they acknowledge that the tax and

regulatory reforms they have implemented have set a course -- and approved by the congress have set a course for significantly improved economic growth. now, the president and secretary perdue and other administration officials have made it clear that they have the back of the american farmer. the administration has told us point blank that it's going to -- it's going to take steps to mitigate pork producer's paying. i want to be clear, we are not asking for payments to producers. all right. we're not. the best outcome for us is a restoration of lost trade and the opportunity to increase exports. so it should come as no surprise that we are very eager to see a completed nafta deal that, among other things, will exclude mexico and canada from 232 tariffs. and, of course, we're also very eager to see a deal with china to resolve the problems at issue

in that trade relationship. moreover, we are absolutely clammering for fta negotiations with japan. japan is our top value export market, and we are very concerned about the impact of the eu japan fta and the cp-tpp on our exports. so today here on fire issue is mexico and canada to huge markets for us. we're also concerned down the pike about our shipments to japan. in sum, pig farmers are on the front lines of what we see as a realignment in u.s. trade policy. i think our producers are showing tremendous fortitude and patience. but make no mistake, it is a

very, very painful place to be. we had a financial collapse in our industry 20 years ago. it was horrible to see people that you know lose everything that they work for. i'll never forget it. thank goodness we're not at that point. but the longer that this retaliation continues, this transition, the more difficult it's going to become -- not just for pork producers, but other sectors that are caught up in this. i always have to have an ask, right? [ laughing ] >> so i ask all of you as potential consumers to think about our pig farmers as you make your food choices this 4th of july and throughout the summer. [ laughing ] >> whether you are republican or democrats, pro-trade or

anti-trade, our pig farmers are hurting. please show them some love and eat a lot of pork. thank you. [ laughing ] [ applause ] >> we have a less than ideally long window here for q&a. there is a microphone that will be passed around. i think even more than usual, we're going to have to be careful to stick with questions, not speeches. introduce yourself, please. and, remember, you're on tv. eri eric. >> eric, national association of foreign trade. it's a very interesting discussion. i guess my question is if we are abandoning the current set of rules that are being established that have worked over the past

70 years, what set of rules will they be replaced with? the administration's interpretation of its powers under 232 is setting a precedent where the president can impose tariffs at any level against any country at any time for an indefinite period of time unre vubl by the wto, the u.s. courts or the congress. so what are -- is it just the law of the jungle, or what are we looking at that we might be transitioning to? >> i'll only comment really quickly that for what it's worth, you may know that a lawsuit was filed, i believe -- i'm sorry. i've been traveling. i'm not sure i'll get the day right. but in the last two days by the international iron and steel institute that is basically raising that precise question. so this is a challenge effectively suggesting that the

delegation of power to the president under the 1962 act was unconstitutionally vague because it did not put the exact kind of restraints that your question implies on the president in terms of his exercise of this authority. and that as a result, this broad delegation with this very broad definition of national security with this very, again, open window in terms of timing, is in and of itself unconstitutional. so it may be that this lawsuit would bring at least a little bit of an answer to part of your question. >> it is the right question to be asking now, because, you know, i said we're looking at administration that really does have a more mercantilist model. and the classic feature of mercantilism is you got power. you got what you wanted out of partners. if you were weaker, you didn't.

and the accumulation of that power ultimately led to much, much greater conflict between nations. but there weren't any real rules. there wasn't a rule of law that governed that system. i do have to say just quickly. you know, if i did -- if i was a government with a wto case, i would certainly want jennifer for my lawyer. [ laughing ] >> although apparently -- i'm glad nick is here. because apparently jennifer is not aware that there never was a peace treatise settling the pig war with canada. for those of you that don't know the pig war, that's when that soldier in colonial san juan island shot a u.s. pig. and it never did get a peace treatise. so i think the president may be arguing that we're still at war with canada. i don't know. [ laughing ] >> but i think the real issue is if we start to throw out all of the rules. and i think that's really what's happening. the rule book is being thrown out. so jennifer gave us a brilliant

legal treatise on article 21. i tend to agree with her that, you know, ultimately what's the purpose of having the whole rest of the wto system, including a very sophisticated safeguard agreement that tells you when you can and can't protect your domestic industry for economic purposes. if every country can do whatever it wants by simply invoking national security. and, in fact, if those other countries were to lose on their retaliation against the u.s. because their retaliation wasn't justified, they can just turn around and do it on national security grounds. so we're living now in a world where this retaliation is going to be a fact of life upwards of 70 billion of u.s. exports now already identified either already retaliation in place or retaliation to come if the u.s. goes forward with all of its actions. you accumulate that when you get

into sectors like autos, which are huge. you know, the global trade in autos are huge. so what's happening to u.s. industry as all this is going on? first of all, tremendous uncertainty. do we end up with a new system of rules? how long will it take for that to evolve, and what will they be? or do we end up with everyone for themselves, an era of mercantilism, tariff retaliation, tariff wars, the escalation of those tariffs, which is what we're seeing today as more and more industries face those challenges. you observational saw the harley-davidson stories. there's going to be lots more stories like that. and the question becomes is this all really worth it? is this going to give us a better economy than we already have. or is there a better way to build on this system that evolves over 70 years. and, you know, right now what

american industry is facing, big producers, small producers. i've got lots and lots of very small companies in this alliance. one of them was on a call with us yesterday. small companies in the industrial in our industry. those are the people that make the nuts, bolts and screws that go into all kinds of machinery equipment. it says upwards of half of their members are going to be out of business if this retaliation continues. and yet the cost increases in the u.s. economy continues. so that's really the challenge that industry faces is a double wham whammy. your costs are going up because you're protecting your economy more and more. meanwhile, you're getting hit by retaliation and all your export markets. and your competitor's costs are actually going down. because you've taken and created a very high cost structure for the basic input product of all manufacturing. steel. and the world price is 40% lower

than the price you're paying here at home. then when you go to export your products, you're getting hit with tariffs abroad. so what are the rules that are going to replace that? that's what the administration is going to have to answer. if they have a secret plan to make all of this work brillia brilliantly and if this is going to be some magnificent, brilliant coup that gets better agreements, that's what we want to see. because 95% of the world's consumers live outside of the u.s. as our industries get more and more productive, we lose those export markets. american industry is dead in the water. >> anything else in response to eric's question? [ inaudible conversations ] >> just really a quick question. [ inaudible conversations ].

>> auto dealers are starting to advertise. and while the quality is good. and my only question to you, are you hearing that? when you had your tour in the midwest, are you seeing evidence there's a pre-buy. a lot of us remember cash for clunkers which caused a huge e pre-buy. just try to think in terms of demand, consumer activity, that sort. just wondering if that's just a one off or two or three dealers being particularly creative or whether that's starting to take hold? >> so that's a good question. it's a two-part answer. first is that -- and i've seen some of these two where aluminum gutter installers say, come on, get it now. get a deal before the tariffs go into affect. so you have to take a little bit of that with a grain of salt. they're in sales. they want to make sales as well. i think the larger question is

that the -- a bigger factor honestly is i think what's speeding up the end of the business cycle inadvertently are the capital investments that companies are making now rather than to defer. that's mostly due to the tax law and not due to the tariffs at all. from a supply point of view, there's already been games played. while this whole 232 process played out over the last year and a half, we've seen imports surge into the united states of steel and aluminum. in fact, steel imports were up 15% last year. steel imports went up an extraordinary amount in february and march in advance of this. and so the game is being played both ways. and i will say i'm sensitive to price manipulation as well. and i think secretary ross pointed out, if dealers, brokers, warehouses are playing price games, they ought to be stopped on this. and that the price of steel and aluminum will eventually settle

down. keep in mind that it's very -- it's very cyclical. it's very commodity-based. and you see wide swings in steel aluminum prices. and just a couple of years ago they were at -- in fact, you could buy steel than less at the bottom of the great recession two years ago. so you're going to see price swings before it adjusts in light of all of this. >> get ready for these kinds of -- these kinds of speculative and pressure tactics out there all over the place and the uncertainty that creates for consumers. i don't know how many of you saw the pretty remarkable comment by secretary ross in his hearing in the finance committee and speculators taking advantage of the situation kind of reminded me of claude rain when he said i'm shocked to hear gambling is going on in this establishment.

[ laughing ] >> i mean, that's exactly what is going to start happening across the board. and the more sectors you begin to apply this uncertainty to, the more that's going to happen. >> i think we have one over here. >> thank you. hello. i'm from the embassy of malaysia. i was attracted to what they were presenting just now. i heard malaysia being mentioned. on the record i wanted to inform that under the census bureau our exports of steel and aluminum to the u.s. has been quite low, consistently low for the last three years. for example, in 2017, our export of steel to the u.s. actually only 0.82% of u.s. imports of steel. and this actually amounts to about 42,300 metric tons. it's not even a million.

so, therefore, i think at this point i would like to ask mr. scott paul, how do you think if over capacity is to be addressed and if shipment is perceived as the problem coming from the smaller economy like ours, how do you think the u.s. administration should actually be dlib rating -- deliberating or discussing with us on the ways forward to solve this problem? thank you. >> thank you very much for the question. again, i refer back to the 232 report where you can detect changes in trade flow from china with respect to volumes of steel. and seeing those exporters being diverted to other markets. and then seeing a slight uptick from those -- those countries coming into the united states. with respect to vietnam, there's been an established trade case

on this for trans-shipment. i think that some -- that obviously the ustr is willing to consider alternate arrangements that don't undermine the impact of the measures that have been deployed mostly through tariffs but also through quotas. and so if the government of malaysia wishes to pursue something, i think engaging with ustr on that and an alternate arrangement would be the right way to proceed. thank you. >> one over here on the right wing. [ laughing ] >> stage right. >> hi. mar marilee, international trade. i have the question for scott paul. one is on the aluminum and

national security given that we don't mine any box site, how can limiting the imports of the finished product really protect our national security? and then the other question is a very simple one. do you think that we should be putting 20% tariffs on auto and auto parts? >> wow. okay. the -- so with respect to aluminum and box site, i'm less familiar with the fundamentals of that case. and i will say that it does raise other questions about strategic materials by including, you know, either materials that aren't found or mined in the united states or rarer. and i know the department of commerce is exploring that right now. with respect to the lines of aluminum that are subject to the relief, you know, again, i point back to the fact that the united

states in terms of smelting capacity, it's been greatly diminished over the last -- over the last couple of years. i don't think there should be aluminum tariffs placed on -- or tariffs placed annion canadian alumin aluminum. i think that's an over12step. and i'm going to shift back to steel for a second. my hope is that nafta negotiations can get started, again, after the mexican election. and that they're quickly completed and that there is a resolution of the steel issue there as well. because it is a very integrated market. now, to your autos and auto parts question, i'm going to defer on that. i think it's too early to tell what the intent of the commerce department are. it's a highly integrated industry in the united states. it raises a lot of questions. you know, the -- you know, ha

harkenning back, and if you need to mobilize the defense industry, you have to do that. it's a lot easier to do that with auto plants. but i'm going to defer until you see what the commerce department is thinking about on that. >> next up, and i have a hunch this is going to be our last one, professor landy. raise the microphone, please. >> thank you. i came late. i had another meeting. if you covered this already, jennifer, we can take it privately. two quick and then i have to take question off a compromise with nick. real quick, we negotiated doing away with vras, korea's voluntarily -- i'm not sure

voluntarily. the great negotiator president trump negotiates all of these deals. if somebody with draws the case because of the deal or doesn't bring a deal, how does the wot deal with it? i would love to help you. [ laughing ] >> we are joined by probably many, many more muslims who do not eat pork. but if pork is used in manufactured products, like if you use cows for leather, please let us know what those products are and i'll buy them on july 4th. thank you very much. [ laughing ] >> jennifer. >> let me start with the second one first. can you withdraw a wto case. i mean, normally what happens is you simply either don't actually seek the placement of panelist individually, or you can reach a mutually-agreed settlement. so if the case is started before a panel, you can, again, stop the panel proceedings in order to reach a mutually agreeable

settleme settlement. that would be easy and it has happened in many, many cases. on the vre cases, i think this is where the rules changed with respect to what you can and cannot do with quotas. and by and large the answer with quotas is sort of no. and that's part of the point of doing that is to say you're not based on this old power-based rules where one party has a lot of power and exerts it by effectively demanding an agreement to ""voluntary restraints". i'm not sure the koreans would agree they're agreeing to these seal exports when it was done sort of in the context of if you don't agree to this, we're going to take away the korean free trade agreement. and if you don't agree with this, we're going to charge 25% tariffs anyway. how voluntary was that. again, i think we could have a big debate about it. but the clear point is that you are not supposed to be going down the road of using your

power to impose on countries quotas. i mean, that's sort of not, again, permitted under these rules. >> i'm going to squeeze in a moderator question here since we have like another -- a very short additional amount of time. this is, i guess, for the whole pan panel. but particularly for rufus and jennifer who have been posted in geneva on the systemic implications of what we're seeing. and in particular not the systemic implications of what the united states is doing, but the systemic implications of what everyone else is doing. sort of shoot first and litigate later ploy with, you know, the -- which is based on sort of reframing the thing as the safeguard action. do you have concerns about whether that's going to have systemic effects and

implications additional to what we're already looking at because of what the united states is doing? >> go ahead. >> well, again, part of me steps back from it and says that, you know, the huge tragedy for me of this whole approach is that i think everybody could agree with the united states subs stan cifelli that a -- substantively and that the lack of competitive laws, et cetera, et cetera. and huge, again, agreements with a lot of what was section 301 report with respect to china. so you have arguably the whole world to some significant degree agreeing on the substantive problems with china and the wto and other systems to deal with china. and 100% disagreement across the world with the united states's tactics. because however you describe the tactics, they're fundamentally

unilateral, and unilateral fundamentally drive away all of your potential allies. . . . fundamentally went to the heart of what the real problem is in china, and give the devotee out at its rules the chance to show they can deal with a big broad case with a nullification case and impairment case and as series of challenges of specific ways in which china has violated the wto and its commitments. that's what should have happened. i think had that happened and it may be that could still happen, then i think the system could at

least potentially, through with a long-term fix to what is a real fundamental disconnect between what's going on in china and the need for rule-based trading system. it would be my hope we could get that systemic case going pick the problem is right now everybody spending all of their time and all other energy and resources dealing with these unilateral actions by the united states and their response to them. is it a systemic issue for the wto? absolute yes. it's a systemic issue many ways. if on the national security front you side with the united states, this is not -- every country can't impose measures on anything at anytime and alleged that just as much in their essential security interest as our steel and aluminum entrance to our system. if on the other hand, the wto says to the eu and anybody else you're free to recharacterize measures anytime you want at

anything you want and then to say you didn't comply with the provisions of whatever agreement you are now saying they are under, that again raises huge issues everybody is now walking away from a binding rules system and taking unilateral action. either way you cut it unilateralism is the threat to a rule-based trading system, and to save the united states started it all and the united states is the worst aggressor, i'm not sure how far that gets you is and what else is doing me, too. >> i mean obviously i totally agree with jenna first assessment. if you cut up all the trees and a forced to go after your in the knee, what do you hide behind when people come after you? clearly, there are systemic issues, but those are going, we'll see more and more of countries saying the rules don't work because of the way this has

unfolded, led by u.s. actions. this is after we spent decades talking lots and lots of countries observing a much more rules-based system. i take the point there's lots and lots of cases where enforcement has been weak and i agree with scott that you obviously have to do a lot more to make sure that these rules work and that they are being enforced. but throwing up the rulebook isn't the way to do that. and the second thing is what jennifer said, really the big systemic problem we have is china's emergence as a major economy and the way their system operates that is not as easy to deal with under wto rules because a lot of things, because a lack of transparency, because the degree of government intervention. and all the opportunities we have had now to build that

effective global coalition really puts the pressure on china. if you look at agreement like tpp which may made quantum leaps in crating discipline on state-owned enterprises, on the digital economy and other things that are going to be the future challenges from china and the technological sphere, and then to build an effective alliance with europe, , japan, our nearet neighbors, how do you get back to having that kind of collective will and collective pressure collective sense of direction, , the mr. casey jennifer just talked about that actually is a global case and could gain lots and lots of broad international support if the administration were to focus on the systemic challenge of china to the wto system instead of creating certain senses were now the issue is the systemic challenges that the u.s. is presenting to the global system.

>> please, everybody, give the fantastic panelists the appreciation they deserve. [applause] >> based on judges, we are adjourned. thank you very much. enjoy the day. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> sunday night on "after words," physician details for efforts to prove that children in flint, michigan, were being exposed to lead poisoning in her book what the ice don't see, story of crisis, resistance and hope in an american city. she's any good michigan senator gary peters. >> let's talk about your actions. you heard that might be led in the water. when did that happen and what were some of the first actions you took? >> point i realized it was late in the water wasn't until the end of august of 2015 and it wasn't from seeing patients. happen to be at my house over a glass of wine with a high school girlfriend who happen to be a water expert, formerly with the

epa, , formerly with the epa in washington, d.c. when d.c. went through a similar crisis. she's like an heard about the water? it's okay, it's fine. she said no, everything is not fine. it's not being treated properly because it's not being treated properly that would be led in the water. that was the moment i i realizi needed to take action. i tried to get children's blood levels because that something the state and county has a various programs for. they track this just like we track the flu and other epidemics, something we try. i couldn't get the government data so did my own research at our public hospital to see what was happening to her children blood lead level. looking at the change in children's blood lead levels and we saw was alarming. >> watch "after words" sunday night at 9 p.m. eastern on c-span2's booktv.