view of washington. keep up withtoday's live events with live streams from the u.s. congress , white house events, the courts, campaigns and more in the world of politics all at your fingertips and also stay current with the latest episodes of washington journal and live billing information for c-span tv networks and c-span radio plus podcasts. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. your front proceed to washington anytime, anywhere. >> there are a lot of places to get political information but only at c-span do you get it straight from the source. no matter where you are from world away you standon the issues, c-span is america's network . unfiltered, unbiased, word for word.

if it happens here or here or anywhere that matters. america is watching on c-span . powered by cable. >> we welcome back patrick penfield of syracuse university, professor of supply chain practice to talk about the supply chain in the us and how it impacted by things including russia and ukraine. >> thanks for having me. >> thank you for coming back. let's start with the supply chain and how it was impacted with covid and what do russia or ukraine add to the mix as far as the supply chain is concerned? >> covid change to supply patterns in the us.er they started to remodel so across a lot of issues within the supply chain the other

big thing was the stimulus plan . we saw classic gdp growth in 2021 point the coronavirus did change how we do business so the first two quarters of 2022 we saw we still had to recover somewhat and then the thinking was probably by quarter 3 things would get better and things would go back to normal. >> that's the covid section and factor in what we saw of russia and ukraine as far as what might happen because of conflicts there. >> the analogy i'd like to use is we were stuck with covid and we got it with this geopolitical situation with the russian nation and ukraine that cost more issues in the supply chain we were able to recover from covid and now with this geopolitical issue we're seeing other problems.

some of your viewers may know, some may not but the ukraine and russia make up three percent of most domestic so it's not huge but what they do make really cannot set the supply chain. 30 percent of our global week comes from ukraine, 20 percent of or comes from russia and ukraine, 70 percent of gas. we get all types of metals from russia, a lot of base materials so unfortunately we started to see this change happen and unfortunately the biggest impact is going to be on food so the big concern we have is this food insecurity issue that may happen later on. right now we are fine as far as food goes. the issue is ukraine hasn't planted anything so the harvest in the summer is a big concern so this is where i think we start to see more of these. food insecurity issues. >> ukraine is more or less the breadbasket of europe and

also africa and asia so without them having a summer harvest there's going to be some big issues in the future . >> will show a map from the usda as far as wheat production in ukraine. is the eu most impacted or to what degree is the united states impacted ? >> i don't think the us will be impacted too much. the issue is going to be that our food prices will go up. the continent they have a big concern about his africa. africa is reliant on getting food from ukraine and from russia so if they're unable to get that you'll see some food insecurity issues which could be a concern. >> i want to play a little bit from the white house economic council of economic advisersshe talked about supply chain issues related to russia and ukraine .

i'll get your response to that. >> this as an important moment for democracy and but what we do know is regions invasion of ukraine will have impacts on both energy prices and food prices so he the president has said we can expect that while our sanctions are going to have their focus and most of their impact on the russian economy we can expect it will make a bit of impact in the united states as well. the first is we are seeing is impact on gas prices and oil prices. we can also expect wiser and energy prices to see impact on food. that said the president is focused on doing what he can to ensure those increases are contained and they are doing what they can to keep them for the american people. ellis and our partners to increase an additional 60 million barrels s from the strategic petroleum reserves and he has other options on the table that he will be considering as they,. in terms of food prices we don't expect a shortage here.

because we are net exporters but we are acutely aware of the fact that there are regions in the world that depend heavily on exports of meat in particular and other grains russia and we're working with our partners to ensure to minimize the impacts. >> to that passport mister penfield, you heard them talk about the efforts of the administration . for what they were doing for supply chain what's beenthe result and how much more than they do ? >> they can only do so much. they can influence, they can help but for the most part they really can't do too much of this is the dilemma that we have . it's up to the corporations and supply chain professionals to figure out how we work with any co constraints that we have and that's the dilemma. the longer that the ukraine russian war goes on the worse our situation isgoing to become .

>> 202-748-8000 four democrats, 748-8000 14 republicans. where doing regional lines. 202-748-8000 for those of you in the easternand central time zone . call us at 202-748-8000 one, you can also send us a text if you wish at 202 48 8003. patrick penfield of elsyracuse university, let's talk about specifics. you talk about agriculture, while and gas everybody was concerned for several weeks about gas prices but as far as supply and the chains involved where only ? >> russia is thesecond largest exporter of oil . so unfortunately, we definitely have another situation growing with oil so you saw we taken steps in our partners have taken steps to stop by. that just means there's less

supply because we're not buying from russia anymore and unfortunately prices will go up. i expect in certain states that you might see a gallon of gas up to six dollars probably in the summer. again if the war continues . >> and if that's the starting or if those prices start to rise, how long they stayed at high? >> i think this is really a pretty big issue. until the russian invasion of ukraine ends that's when we start to see some of the price pressures go down with well and gas but until that happens you're going to see stuff go up ,. there's an alternative. there again using renewable energy sources but the time to do that would have been a year or two. so short-term a lot of pain, long-term if we can move over to renewable esenergy we wouldn't have these types of issues. >> a lot of these other pieces impacted by chains,

electronics, microprocessors and the like . onwe heard concerns about this or several months. where are we now? >> it's worse. it's a bad situation so the problem with an electronics is semi-conductors so ukraine produces 70 percent of the neon gas used in the semi conductor process so unfortunately there's not other capacity throughout the world so ukraine was almost all source situation. there odare producers in china but unfortunately there's nobody at this time right now that can fill that hole gap of neon gas that ukraine is supplying. so right now i would say most of the customers probably have anywhere from 4 to 6 months so once that supply dries up that's when we start be seeing more issues. >> there's recording by christian of washington examiner twitter feed he writes this in the us and western allies will squeeze

russians military and economy by targeting its chip supply chain according to the treasury department person. he asked there's already a global chip shortage . can you factor that into the conversation? >> for russia there are very dependent on outside sources for their chips so if they can't getchips they can produce electronics either or other stuff they're producing in russia . that's a smart approach and it will limit what they can do. unfortunately it's still not going to help us. we're going to be in similar straits, not as bad as russia. willhave a limited supply . >> again patrick penfield from syracuse joining us with this conversation, let's hear from brian, he's in tampa florida. you're on our guess, go ahead with your question or comment . >> i have to say that there's this inflation stuff is really not very truthful. and i thought i heard them say that we're in net

exporter of foods and why were our food prices go up, i think that's a big lie. just a comment about used cars, all the used car rental re companies have a net decrease in their inventories so they must have had millions of cars that should have gone market so sed car used car prices should have gone down. and it's really terrible that there is too many people that are being corrupt and want to raise prices just for their own gain. , the world is really going downhill and there's way toomuch corruption . >> asked brian in tampa. >> from the inflation standpoint i understand what

you're saying. i'm very concerned unfortunately and i'm going to tell you this, you're probably going to see double-digit inflation by the end of this year and the problem is we do have enough food in the united states, it's just a question of supply and demand so if you're a farmer you want to try to get the most you can or whatever you harvest. which is right from the capital standpoint. that's probably what's going to happen is that you'll see other countries in the world won't be able to get their supply. right now they're fine, it's six months from ofnow when there's no ukraine harvest. 30 percent of wheat, 20 percent of corn is coming from the area and it's not being harvested. those folks are dependent on how to get someplace else what will probably happen is you'll see this occur during the united states will have enough food up and prices will go up because there's other customers that the farmers potentially could ship to so a time you take supply out of the supply , usually that's what's going to happen. prices will go up on gas is another good example. if you take what russia contributes and europe uses a lot and so do other countries

in africa. then they've got to get someplace else also if they're being told they can't get gas or oil from russia so again is going to happen is you'll see less supply because you will have more demand and prices go up again. >> a point of getting it somewhere else, it was in the president's budget request yesterday addressing federal supply chain issues setting ue aside reports development, 1 billion+ for arbor maintenance, a trust fund there. 125 million for domestic manufacturing , for that money, what can be done as far as improving the flow of things to the united states. >> for the past 34 years we've been negligent and kind of looking at our infrastructure so our infrastructure isn't is in bad shape. our roads, bridges, ports so i think anybody that goes towards that and hopefully goes to improving the

efficiency, making that stuff better for us will be useful that'sgoing to help us immensely . we need those.en i'm a big proponent of not manufacturing in the united states. so the more we can manufacture ourselves the better job we can offer our standard of living goes up so i believe it's a win-win situation when we invest in ourselves and we try to get better infrastructure. >> we saw the president early on in the supply chain's concern saying he would talk with ports and those working at the ports to alleviate the back there what's the been the result as you can see ? >> it really hasn't gone down much. unfortunately the courts are packed, they still made some effort and we alleviated. we got another issue going on and that's that china isnot shipping as much as a half because they got outbreaks . so china is our largest supplier, over $500 billion worth of trade last year. so unfortunately the chinese kind of look at it

differently than we do in the added states. so right now there's all the big courts that are locked down so we're not seeing that stuff coming over. we should what should happen is the courts should be able to clean off any of those ships that are there but unfortunately what will happen is once they do open up we will get another wave of ships. the unfortunate thing is ports have been unable to le catch up with demand and a lot of it is because those ports are not very efficient. there's the least efficient ports in the united states actually in the world. the other dilemma that you have pedro is there's a strike that may happen in july so there's a lot of negotiations going on right now and normally and that starts those negotiations usually you start to get slow down as far as ships being unloaded. that's a concern so fortunately we haven't really seen really what needs to happen there and that's to try to clear out those wship

backlogs. >> you highlight in the new york times today saying that new contractcould affect 22,000 workers employed at 29 points . >> i'm very concerned about that because there is a destruction, it's just going to be 2021 all over again. so we're going to have the same situation we have with holidays, trying to get stuff for the ports. i would say this also a lot of retailers are having issues right now trying to get their summerstock . and that's just because again, a lot of stuff they might comes from china and if they can't get that stuff through the supplychain. so a lot of them right now don't have the summer stock we are accustomed to having on their floors . >> let's hear from bob in maryland, you're on with our guests, go ahead and missouri, i apologize, go ahead. >> professor, i have a

question.i think one of the silliest things we can do when this world is invade countries and one of the countries i'm calling about is zimbabwe which has some of the richest land in the world and theycan't sell their crops . so why can't we just take the sanctions off of them half of zimbabwe and let them start selling to replace what ukraine can't. thank you. >> that's a great point and again i don't know what the sanctions for, usually human rights issues. and i'm a proponent of making sure that again, there are sanctions that violate human rights issues so i assume that might be the problem but i'm notsure . i don't disagree with the caller.

i think if there's a way we can look at the sanctions and still see if they're applicable it may make more sense to waive those again, if there's no violations s. happening . i think one thing i'd like to have his insurance. one of the things the lighted administration may want to look into is we need to connect those carrots with china and china being one of the largest companies we buy from you i don't think the tariffs have done what they were supposed to do so with inflationary pressures that might be one thing that the biden administration and look at his should we stop or suspend tariffs right now because of the situation that's going on here. >> stephen is next, pennsylvania. let me push the button, i apologize, go ahead. >> good morning professor period what i see is what i talked about over a year ago on c-span about the supply chain coming into crisis especially with the farming. now, the ukraine crisis in

the planting season has started. i saw my one friend in the middle ukraine put up his farm and it showed them planting potatoes withthe wheat . now their biggest partner in ukraine at one time was china refused to sell to china because of what's going on with the russian conflicts . and i see that a lot of things that could be rectified really quick would be to reconnect all the presidential mandates that mister trump put in and were taken off the table from day one. that effect affected the united states more than anything with self-sufficiency. although the bread cost me $3.25 and i watched the farm market reports. that bread is going to go up at least $.25-$.75 a loaf, at

least on the market. and all these other contingencies will push the prices up. and i take advice from the older generations in my area from world war ii and the depression and i took all those stories and put them together. and the women that i talked to in the grocery stores, and the baking area, they keep telling me young man , by and bag of flour, extra bag of sugar and learn how to cook because you're going to need them in the future. >> that's stephen in pennsylvania. >> great points in regards to self-sufficiency. i'm a proponent of that. it makes sense if we can but we also need to where we can also to be good citizens of the orworld. i agree with what the callers

saying that it does make sense to be as self-sufficient as you can. and we're less reliant. i also believe in resiliency. have multiple sources and if you can have multiple sources can help your supply chain when you have geopolitical issues i think if we can look at both and look how can we become more self-sufficient , and do our part to help the world especially during the situation i think that will be the right approach. >> we saw the house and senate passed legislation, the america competes act to help competitiveness. from what you've seen, what do you think it would door put improvements have been made to the legislation ? >> i think it's definitely something that should happen so i'm a proponent of that. i guess the one concern i have is government spending. if it spends it on the white stuff that makes sense. the issue is what's going on in the rest of the world. china has made in china 2025 program and they invested

$1.5 trillion in really time to upgrade different sectors specifically semi conductor production and autonomous cars and artificial intelligence. the reason being that the chinese realize that they can become self-sufficient in these types of technologies and they will actually have a leg up on the rest of the world and i think the united states needs to do that also. we have to clear and see what's going on in the rest of the world and investing on sectors working to our future such as semiconductor chip manufacturing, autonomous driving, ev's, electric vehicles. that's something i think they biden administration is doing the right thing is trying to get congress to pass it and i think from the legislation standpoint i wish it was more focused on some other sectors but i think for the most part it's the right move especially when you look at what other countries are doing sectors such as what . >> i would look at again some

of the stuff from the technology sector specifically and again i focused a lot of attention on semi conductor production. i think autonomous vehicles is another thing that we need to invest more. also just looking at renewable energy sources, china needs to get our arms around that not just solar but looking at other stuff such as wind farms and other stuff that can help us get our reliance on oil and gas and if we cando this we wouldn't have toworry about this issue where where having to pay six dollars for gas in the summer . >> this is ralph in augusta georgia . >> i just like to get some clarity, getting those bonds and ships unloaded, safety comes into play. when you move them, a sudden

shift of the wind, a lot of rain could happen and it's safe to say it's going to be backup for a while until we can actually get those loaded and then the others are going to be coming in and it started if i'm not mistaken when we took the tariffs the previous administration on china and other products in here. just quickly i had to take extra money from my callers in the shop because they didn't have the part in, i don't know if it was on the ship but it took me over a week to get my car back in so it's going to be backup for some time. thank you sir. >> i'm a proponent of safety to so safety is paramount and

that's the first thing you should focus on. the problem is i don't think it's safety, i think it's right now we just have to do it efficiency and productivity in the meantime. so as the caller stated it's era dilemma that all of us are facing is that leadtime for parts is getting longer and that's due to supports, is due to some of the lockdowns happening in achina and the geopolitical situation in russia and ukraine so for the most part most reviewers can expect to see more of that in the near-term futurewhere they're going to be waiting . and prices are going to be going up also. >> we saw those pictures of supply ships waiting to come into port, is that a phenomenon that still i happening, what's the status of that? >> it still happening. if you go to the ports a part the ships further down so it's not as bad looking but for the most part it's not as bad as it was. i'd say there's probably 60 to 70 ships waiting to be unloaded versus 100. so i think part of it is just because of what's going on

from china. unfortunately. >> >> do you think so much attention has been paid to the ports, those longshoremen they will be emboldened to hold out for usually what they would've asked for? >> guest: it's possible. i think from a negotiation standpoint the longshoremen have a position of power. for some of your viewers may know but the longshoremen are known as the royalty of unions. they are very strong, very powerful and they got a lot from

a negotiation standpoint. for the most part if i were the port authorities i would try to negotiate something fast so that when weat don't have an issue, ongoing issue especially before the holidays. >> host: this is jeffrey in pennsylvania. go ahead. >> caller: yes. may m i ask professor penfield what his opinion of the administration of the american government, in particular, mumbles biden and his peppermint patty vicede president? >> guest: i think people believe that government can do a lot from aan business standpoin. really, it's tough. they can only do so much. they can regulate. they can help with subsidies. they can tax the for the most part it's up to companies. companies are the ones that have the lobby situation.

i will tell you this we've got some amazing supply chain professionals that have been doing some herculean things just to get stuff the folks in the stores and on the grocery shelves. i'm very thankful that we had some really great supply chain professionals that are making some things happen. again just to let your caller knows government can only do so much. republican or democratic really it's really difficult to have the government alleviate these problems. >> host: when it comes to specific people and the government is this the commerce department taking the lead? is it the secretary taking this issue or other people to watch? >> guest: it's a combination. pete buttigieg is doing some good stuff. commerce department. it's a combination of efforts but again for your viewers they can only do so much. really it's about the corporation and about these companies fixing a lot of situations going on right now. they can help but they can't

solve. >> host: from j. d. in arkansas, go ahead. >> caller: yes. you were talking about the price of gasoline possibly going to six dollars a gallon this summer. i'm kind of curious about the way gas is priced. an example, let's say exxon on the corner down here sells gas for five bucks a gallon. they buy that gas from a refinery, i guess their own refinery, i don't know, and the refinery buys the oil that they use to refine it from individual oil producers, i think your that's what i'm not clear about. how does the c chain actually wk there? who sets the price of six dollars for that gallon of gas? >> guest: that's a great question. throughout the supply chain everybody gets a cutin of the profits, and one of the things

that's happening right now, there's a couple of things ago one especially with refineries and your viewer is right. one of the things that changes prices is when they switch from the winter blend to a summer blink of what happens is the refineries shut down and make changes, juju takes roughly a much between the march and april timeframe and when there's no supply prices go up. another issues when you see price of a barrel of oil go up. that's a much more the refineries have to paypa to brig it into process it and then be able to ship it to the gas stations. that's where the refineries really take a hit is when the barrel of oilba goes up. then you've got the gas stations themselves. they have to be able to make some money. sometimes i'm with the viewer, it almost seems like there's a little pollution going on when you look at the corner gas stations as far as prices in similar. you wouldn't expect that. that's been the way the market has been. the other thing that always gets

under my skin is when you see the price of oil goes down quickly and then you don't see that impact really at the gas station. a lot of people say they have already bought that. but when you see the price of oil go up, you see the gas prices go up incrementally and you like what is going on? this should happen that fast. so i do think there's some someg is going on, some games being played but again this is a capitalistic society servlet is trying to look to see see ah profit you can make and i think that's where government sometimes has to come in and monitor and regulate some of the situations. >> host: from gerard in georgia. hello. >> caller: how youll doing? i was listening to you about the ports and i thought california been outlawed people with three-year-old trucks or more from participating in the shipping. that would cause a blockage and i don't hear anyone talking about that. and then the guy talking about

gasoline, i mean, they cut off all the sources except the tanker cars coming from canada. billionaires that supports the democratic party. they use tankers that the pipeline was going to put them out of business. you know, everybody talking aboutt that. what do you think about that? am i crazy? >> guest: not at all. i don't know the specifics about how things get it from certain entities, right? i'm aware of how things aret supposed to flow. we talk first about the truck situation. to my knowledge, i don't know if that's really the case as far as three-year older trucks. there was something there trying to enact and that was to reduce pollution because you've got a lot of older trucks that pollute a lot of dirty diesel and so you can see wheree that may help. but i believe a kind postponed that based on what was happening with the ports.

there is a big issue though when you're a trucker and you going to report. a lot of times you are waiting and so this for truckers don't get paid until they get the load. that's been one of the big issues is that there's a lot of truckers that are adverse to going into port because you're not getting money and they have to wait in a long line. that's kind of the big issue that's going on his first trucks going into ports. regards to what gets shipped from canada there was a pipeline project they got suspended. so tankers, the rail is probably one of the major ways you would actually get oil or gas here to the united states from canada. so for my knowledge i have heard too many issues there or if there's a monopoly going on right now. i don't think there is but i'm not absolutely sure. >> host: have retailers work around the supply chain issue? >> guest: it's very difficult for retailers. i was talking about that earlier were a lot of retailers are having a difficult time trying tor get their summer stock to t

up on the floor. if you're a big retailer some of these big places like walmart and home depot they are actually leasing their own fleets of cargo ships to come here to the united states to getfa things through faster through the ports. but your smaller retailers are having a very difficult time trying to get t stuff because ty do have the wherewithal, the power and the money to be able to lease a freighter. i think if you are a small retailer, you are struggling as far as trying to get stuff in stock, and that's the problem is again having stuff to sell because you can't sell stuff you won't be in business long. that's the primary issue that's going on right now. >> host: a few more minutes with our guest. we'll hear from stephen anaheim, california, your next up. hello. >> caller: good morning, pedro. so many issues counseled all time. basic on the ports they have started to ban some of the have been putting in there. we do have rail to move stuff --

>> you can see the rest of this "washington journal" segment on our website c-span.org. right now on c-span2 as part of our decades long commitment to live gavel to gavel coverage of congress we take you to the u.s. senate which is considering several a president biden's nominees to serve in his administration. the clerk: cloture, we the under signed senators, we, the undersigned senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination of executive calendar number 791, c.s. eliot kang, to be assistant secretary of state, internati the presiding officer: the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote: