international level when data markets are global. these are the problems that we are all facing in government. and i think it's fair to say that the technological reach of machine learning and artificial intelligence has exceeded the grasp of our policy frameworks to contain and shape these new forms of digital power in the public interests. so what i'd like to do is start with setting a base line of where different parts of the world are coming down on these issues, and what the building blocks look like at the regional level. there have been lots of efforts in the u.s. to address these questions. there's been lots of debates in the european union to address these questions. i would say less so in asia, although i'll be interested to hear more from yuet about what's happening in asian markets. but i want to first begin by allowing all of our panelists to speak from their own perspectives about what's happening in their -- in this field in their region. what is the approach to regulating or

establishing a policy framework for these most difficult questions. big data collection and the application of artificial intelligence. maybe i'll begin with you, ben. >> okay. well, i -- first i should start by -- with the disclaimer that i'm not a lawyer. so do not treat me as an authority on u.s. law on this issue. but i can talk about the policy approach that has been taken in the united states. and it is rooted out of the longer term policy approach that the u.s. has taken with respect to privacy. and that involves generally regulation of certain sectors where privacy is particularly salient, whether it involves things like health care, or practices related to credit and employment and so on.

and it also involves a broader consumer protection framework around privacy that is rooted in notions of notice and consent. and so we have a framework for privacy which the u.s. has used and is continuing to use. and that involves both laws and involves also enforcement of those laws. when it comes to the particular issues that are raised by a.i. and machine learning, there are a bunch of things that have been done. and i point to in particular over the last few years, the work that the administration has done on big data, and then more recently on artificial intelligence. on both of those areas, and i think they're tightly intertwined, the administration has engaged in a

series of public outreach activities, and then published reports. the idea being to try to drive a public conversation about these policy challenges, and to try to move -- both to move the base about making rules and making a policy in a fundamentally positive way, but also to heighten the attention to and interest in these issues, and to try to drive a public debate. because i believe strongly that the institutions, the companies that are collecting data and using it in this way almost universally want to use it, collect it, and engage in a.i. activities in a way that is responsible and positive. and sustainable. because i think people recognize that if you push the envelope too much, that the public will not allow that to stand. and so we've really tried to drive public discussion, we've tried to raise the level of dialogue, and that's been fundamentally

one of the areas in which the administration has worked. we also recognize the importance of -- we also recognize the ways in which these issues operate across borders, and the need to work with international partners and to make sure that as data flows across borders, and as citizens everywhere encounter the companies, the institutions of other nations, that we can work together reasonably, and we have an international system for dealing with these things. >> thanks, ed. what is the view from brussels? >> perhaps i should put in another kind of disclaimer in a certain sense in that i think if you look at what is happening in policy development, the engagement with stakeholders, public debates like here, or whether you go in the direction of official public policy or law on regulation, you have to put

it actually against the reality of what is happening around technology and around the use of technology. so i think the examples that andrew gave are really interesting and challenging. for example, the case where, for example, you don't -- machine learning doesn't have access to your personal data, even if it would be good for other people. it's a very interesting case, because you have to look at it, how could you apply today's framework to that. to a degree law is strong in the european union for fundamental rights. and we look at fundamental rights, but also fundamental rights are not absolute. the public health is one of those reasons to start using some of that personal data, individual data. but with the appropriate safeguards. and that may mean that you put a challenge to the technology. can you encrypt sufficiently. can you use new

technology so you can have accountability after the fact, after it has been used. i think it is that dialogue that we very much are looking for in the european set. fundamental rights are very, very important in european setting. if we say privacy, privacy is a fundamental right, as a matter of fact, we even split it into privacy from the perspective of the protection of your private life and the protection of your publication versus personal data. there are differences. the fundamental right is at play there. based upon that, we have laws, but also policy development. it's a very actively moving field. at the moment we are working on a policy initiative around the free flow of data and platforms, and precisely those are being put to the test by machine learning, a.i., the questions that we have on the table. >> how does it look in asia,

yuet? >> i'm not a computer scientist, so i will push this from a different perspective. every one of the challenges about asia is that, you know, it's not even bifurcated, just in terms of the regulations coming out of the region. you talk about asia, what do we really mean? different people have different views about asia as well. but i think when you talk about privacy laws in the asia-pacific, i think the countries that come to mind, at the forefront of regulations would be japan and korea. and to some extent australia new zealand. and countries such as singapore, and hong kong, taiwan, and the philippines. some of them are actually put into place in 2012. singapore is a country where they have changes. they are progressive. but the fact is that they implement the privacy laws for

the first time in 2012. that, again, gives you some idea as to the importance placed on privacy. and then in the last category you've got countries such as indonesia, vietnam, and china. and so these are the countries where we call them privacy laws. they're not really based on privacy. not individual privacy anyway. and i heard today a lot about human rights, how privacy is a human right. for a lot of these countries, and with these laws emanating not just because of a motivation to protect human rights, although a lot of it would be consumer rights, and i think some people would argue that. consumer rights would be to some extent human rights as well. and a lot of these laws that come into play, the last category of country, what is the challenge about them that they don't have a single data privacy regulation. and i tell my

clients, a little facetiously, but it's true to some extent, sometimes the more laws the country has, i mean, i do fpa corruption investigation, for example, and as a result of that, we take a lot of e-mails throughout the region. that's why we have the familiarity with the privacy rules and regulations. i joke with some of my clients, don't look at the transparency index and see how risky a country is when it comes to corruption. look at how many laws they have. the more anti-corruption laws they have, the more problematic corruption tends to be in that country. it is the same for countries such as china, and vietnam, and indonesia. you find little bits

and pieces of information. they refer to how privacy is, you know, it's a right of all citizens. but they don't really tell you how that's going to be enforced. that is a regulation that you see in china. i think some of the challenges in asia is just trying to harmonize the regulations for a lot of companies, a lot of our clients who are trying to operate and transfer data across the borders. you have a lot of oh so japan, for example, has got -- a new law will come into force in about two years, and that's probably the first time where we actually talk about the personalization. in terms of all the other countries, i think the idea of artificial intelligence is not even something that the countries have seriously considered. there are things you

>> how does it look in asia, might see guidelines. used by some of the regulators. but these are just guidelines.>> let me pick out a point which i think is implicit in what you > me pick out a point which i think is implicit in what you said, which is, you've all described the approach of the united states, europe, variety of asian countries to these questions from a commercial data privacy perspective, regulating the market, commercial actors gathering data, applying artificial intelligence to produce particular outcomes. but i think at the core of this question from a regular lar tory, and especially from a political perspective, when you collect a lot of data and begin to produce some of these outcomes, in government access

today, that is inextricably combined with the protection regulations. the recent tensions between the united states and europe has been about commercial data practices. but ultimately it is rooted in u.s. government access to the commercial data that is collected by american companies. so my question is, do you believe that even if we were able to find a harmonization, a standard for commercial data regulations that apply to big data collection and the application of artificial intelligence out of it, it is all undermined at the end of the day by individual interests and their unwillingness to give up any of that data by a government for national security or law enforcement purposes. >> i can actually give a quick example before we go to europe and the u.s. china has got a provision where, you know, there are a few examples of localization. if there is information that relates to the medical information, or health of the citizens, it has to be stored in servers in china.

another example is data privacy provisions. the singapore government and all state entities are excluded from its provision. that's a very good example of where the >> perhaps building on that, i think this whole question about national security and sovereignty, perhaps you also have to generalize a little bit, and all the interests, too, that are certainly governmental interests, or should be addressed for society at a scale. which is safeguarding democracy. so i think one of the concerns, if you look at last week in a speech, they talked about the transparency of the platforms. this is in order to keep consumers properly informed. but it's also, what is the kind of bias that may creep in through the algorithms in terms much the provision of news. that's got everything to do with the way you execute democracy. so there is a debate about avoiding that where democracy gets polarized into echo chambers. and we don't have a real debate anymore. that's also a series of interests. i think where you're talking about the values to what extent are they shared internationally, now, i think you can be optimistic or pessimistic about

that. if we talk about data protection, we have been able to make an agreement between europe and the united states, even if you do not have exactly the same starting point as regards data protection, let alone as regards national security. the privacy shield. i know it's going to be put to the test and that's how it should be. nonetheless, we go a lot further than we have at a time of safe harbor. we started in that area of excess by government, or national security purposes through the data being transferred in the transatlantic context and the safeguards for that. it is possible if you negotiate to make an agreement on certain types of issues, whether you can do that for everything, and across the world i think it's very doubtful. there are many places where norms and values don't work. so if we bring it to the field of cybersecurity, as we clearly see it, withe government about the cybersecurity, which has

everything to do with a.i also. are we getting very far? it's little steps. i think it's not a single type of answer to this question. there is a degree of progress between, let's say, those that have a degree of like-mindedness. but there are many, many areas where we should be be pessimistic. >> there are plenty of areas in which government access to data for purposes of national security or law enforcement is relatively uncontroversial. i think we don't want to forget those. and of course, the international discussions around this issue have been going on longer than the -- than the conversation about a.i. these are not -- these issues are not simple. but i think if you look at privacy shield, for example, it is an example of the way in which it is possible for us to engage internationally, and to get to a point where we can work

together. as to these issues about fairness and nondiscrimination, i think this is another area in which there is a broad alignment of interests internationally, and in which i think there's a lot of progress we can make by working together. >> let me present a more pessimistic vision and get a response for this. to me it stands to reason that as the private sector grows more sophisticated with machine learning technologies, collects more data, applies more powerful a.i. algorithms to that data, it will be irresistible for government to reach into those companies for legitimate reasons, in many cases, but also perhaps for illegitimate ones, to gain access to that power.

the example that you raised of the firefighter buy inging arson kits, i don't know where you buy those or where you have the coupons for them, but the idea that law enforcement may not only tap your phone calls, or your e-mails, but should also look at your purchasing records or your health data and put together a portrait for you and compare you against others and determine you may have committed a crime is where i think the government in legitimate cases would want to use. but what that says to me is that, ultimately every country is going to want to control that data for themselves, in their own sovereign territory. so my question is, number one, are we headed for a global data sovereignty movement where everyone tries to have data rules where a.i. operated by domestic companies is used as a geopolitical asset. second, if it's algorithm icic data, if they say we'll show you how the algorithm works, it reflects the

actual user -- the behaviors of users and reflects back to them the things that they are most likely to click on. do you then regulate that algorithm and tell facebook, you have to change that algorithm? and then how do you hold them accountable? how do you determine whether they have done so in a way that measures up to a particular standard? so i guess two questions, one is are we headed to a hard power regime of localization in your review at the global level, and two is,

even if we're able to use transparency as a tool to push back against excess of a.i., does it even work? >> let me start by taking the second part of that. about the value of transparency. which i think really goes to a desire for governance and accountability. and one way to try to get there, to increase accountability, would be to say, well, open up everything, tell us everything about what your algorithm is, tell us everything about what your data is. but here i think is a place where we can apply technical approaches to try to provide accountability, to pry to provide evidence of fairness or nondiscrimination or certain accountability along certain dimensions without unnecessarily meaning to reveal everything. i think one of the traps we can fall into in thinking about this issue is to think that this is a problem caused by technology, which can be addressed only by laws and regulations. i think it's important to recognize as, i think, the discussion today

has, that technology can be an important part of addressing these problems. that there are technologies of accountability, and that we need to think in a creative way about how to put those things together. we also need to think, i think, about the ways in which forces short of legal prohibition can constrain the behavior of companies and authorities when it comes to the use of data. to the extent that what is happening is known to the public, to the extent that there is an opportunity to provide evidence of fairness, evidence of accountability. that in itself creates a dynamic in which companies and authorities may -- will often voluntarily provide that kind of accountability. we've seen that to some sent in privacy, where

companies would like to be able to make strong promises to consumers, for consumer comfort, but knowing that they will be held to those promises. you get a dynamic in which companies can compete based on privacy. to the same extent, if we have technologies and mechanisms of soft accountability, that that can lead, number one, to a competition to provide a service in a way that's more friendly in order to bring people in, and it can also lead to the kind of accountability that occurs when bad behavior is revealed. so i think there's a lot more opportunities there to do softer forms of governance and try to use technology to get to that issue. >> do you think the regulation is sufficiently collectible for softer forms of -- >> absolutely. well, i think what that says, i find that really challenging. i think indeed, technology needs to be invited to make things work

really well, like the underlying intentions like the data protection of information. if you talk about informed concept, even informed consent about automated processing, that is a real challenge for technology. you can bounce back and say it's impossible because the algorithms we don't even know what's happening inside. but that's not sufficient as an observer. there are other approaches. and i think you're referring to there are other approaches where you can measure things like fairness, things like did you actually understand what is happening, the decision-making. also, i must say, we're getting a little bit away from the monolithic notion. there's a direction you can continue to have and that's where the technology can mediate when you talk about consent, as the use of the data evolves. though i'm kind of optimistic about the reach that the opportunities that are there in technology. when you talk about localization, again, probably a nuanced approach to that is necessary. because there is a real risk, i think you pointed to that, the data localization

happens. it's happening already today. and actually, that you do not necessarily get an internet by country, but perhaps by region. at the same time we have initiatives, you heard earlier through the privacy shields. that's a way to avoid the localization, and we are talking about personal data. we have a free flow of data, actually we can move any restriction to the localization of data. and i think we probably want to differentiate which domains are

we talking about. when we talk about the public health problem, like the rise of the zika virus, i think we have a more globalized approach to that. we have the w.h.o., and the professional collaboration in the field of health that allows us to do big data, a.i. type of analysis on the data we're getting from zika all over the world as a matter of fact. for me, in this debate we need to involve the governance that already exists. almost any kind of government institution we have in the world that works will be exposed to the what are you doing with the data with a.i. make use of those institutions, too. that may be in a more differentiated way, but there are certainly domains it will work. what is the data we have from the self-driving cars? i'm not sure. >> perhaps a necessarily complex, but therefore differentiated sector-by-sector approach -- >> and i think you learn from what you do in one sector to the others. it is not impossible to come up with governance. and coming up with new governance approaches, and not all will work. the realtime threat

of cyber incidents may not be quite compatible with the type of governance that we have set up between people and organizations, which is relatively slow. and so we will also have to review the type of governance that we already have s. >> and i think for asia, this is a little self-serving, but i still think we need regulations. because a lot of the countries still don't have what we take for granted in the rest of the world. for those jurisdictions that have the laws in place, i think the question of how is the enforcement, and the positions, the guidelines issued by the regulators, but there are so many other countries in asia that still don't even have very

big privacy laws. i think at the end of the day you still need those to be in place. i mean, for the framework. and a lot of asia follows the consent principle that is adopted in the rest of the world. i think in terms of the localization, a lot should be done for various reasons, and they're usually not because of privacy. for example, indonesia, i mean, they talked about localizing data. the reason for that was because they thought that this was a misguided belief that that was going to help improve their economy, by localizing data. they didn't realize that would put off a lot of the national corporations from investing in the country. so they held back from that. which brings me to my, you know, last point in terms of, i think what we have seen, with all the international -- multi-national companies that have set up operations in asia, they bring it along with them

regulations that they have to follow, because for example, they are dealing with data from the european union, or the u.s., and because of that, they tend to follow the standard that's set the highest. so when you have consumers in asia who see, hey, this is the way my data should be treated, and this is the way an international corporation would deal with my data, my privacy, then you start expecting that from the institutions within the country. so i think there have been a lot of that where, you know, the cascading of privacy, even though the regulations aren't in place. but you've got the economic pressure. to a large extent. >> i want to put one more provocation to the panel. but before i do that, i want to invite you all to start thinking about questions you may have for the panelists. we'll reserve the last section of this panel for audience questions. so start

thinking about that while i put this question to the panel. which is about all three of you have now raised notice and consent. it is the basis of privacy law across the world at the moment. and yet, even before a. iflt was already under fire. already under attack about whether it would ever be sufficient. for various reasons. there's an argument that notice and consent is a sham, because you're presenting a consumer with a 15-page document for a service they want to buy, and no one ever reads it. they have no idea what they consented to even though they've been noticed. once you click that box and say, i agree, all the rights you had up to that point are gone. not all, but many. second, as we collect more and more data, and companies become diversified horizontally across many product

platforms, it may not know exactly what it is that they're going to do with your data. and they may not know to give you notice at that point. and at what point do you build in multiple notification points. i've recently had occasion to talk to a number of founders of newsilicon valley startups, and also in europe where i spent the last several years in berlin, and data is the new value property. people are building companies based purely on the idea that they're collecting lots and lots of data. what they will do with that data, how they will monetize it, how they will pool that resource with other resources, how they will be acquired, integrated into a larger enterprise, big question mark, but undeniably not a deterrent for venture capital flowing into those companies. once again, draws into the question this basic notion of notice and consent. if we come

into a world where data is pooled intentionally in a fashion to maximize the personalization, it might not even be reasonable to ask a company to predict in advance all the ways in which that data may be used, and they may not be the only ones who gain access to that data and use it for purposes that may benefit or harm the user. so my question to the panel is, if we root the idea of an international standard on privacy policy as it applies to the big data and algorithmic accountability on an old framework of notice and consent, are we setting ourselves up for failure from the beginning? >> i think notice and consent is not bad at all. what we are challenged to do is to make sure that consent is important, meaningful, freely given, that there is a choice, and that's

simply not often implemented. the 40-page contract is not meaningful. how do you translate it into something that is meaningful? it must be said in order to process your personal data, it's not consent that may be a lawful ground, at least in europe, but also there are legitimate grounds for public health. it's one of those. certainly there are issues around public safety, security, et cetera. maybe grounds to process personal data without consent. so there's actually even a legitimate interest for direct marketing direct marketing purposes that may constitute, as the law may assess, my constitute a legitimate ground to process personal data. now, the question is how do you interact? because in all those cases you still will have to interact with the data subject, the one that is providing you data. how do you do that in a meaningful way? i'm

still a little bit puzzled why interaction with the user is a problem. from the company point of view, you would probably say i want to interact more with the user than less, because each pointi interact is another opportunity to engage in the discovery of value, to differentiate. >> let me ask a followup. what if the user is dead? we're soon to a moment in our history where there is terabytes out there about people who are no longer living. yet that data will undoubtedly have value to the company that owns it and the governments that may gain access to that data. how do you deal with that? >> so you will probably be thinking of a case where you would like to invoke public interest, for example public health. and again, certainly the european law says that if it is in the public interest, you can use that as a legitimate ground to start processing data. so there are possibilities. really the big technical difficulties,

or underlying difficulties that have to do with algorithmic accountability which is not resolved, or actually we have a broad debate with the health community in europe, radiologists are saying what do i do with all those data that i have, that i now start to put again under data protection and how do i make sure that folks that want to be forgotten can apply to that? there are serious implementation challenges. they will not always have the most ideal answer. but in a certain sense, we are looking back into a legacy. a legacy that we can improve as the implementation of the law evolves. all of the communities that are involved in personal data, in europe for sure, are also called upon to look at what the technology and the law

makes possible, and provide their interpretation of that, a common interpretation rather than a fragmented one. that's a challenge that needs to happen from public administration to radiologists. >> but in answer to your second question, actually, about -- there are a number of laws in asia where if the subject is dead, the concept of privacy doesn't apply anymore. >> open season on that data >> yes, unfortunately. and i think just in terms of the other question that you raised about notice and consent, so i say this a little facetiously, again, we used to joke, we can draft these consent agreements and put in as much as we like and nobody is going to disagree. everybody will just click "agree." i read this book called "future crimes." i have to say,

after reading that book, i refuse to load apps on my iphone to the extent that i can. it is very difficult to live without apps. but i probably have one of fewest apps in the whole of asia on my phone, after reading that

book. i remember some of the statistics that i saw in that book about how i think the privacy policy for facebook is double the length of the u.s. constitution. and, you know, i think it was either paypal or ebay, i don't remember which company, where the privacy policy is longer than "hamlet." i've given presentations, a lot of presentations in asia about privacy and data security. and i've always asked this question, how many times have you actually said i don't agree, you know, when that privacy policy pops up? and all the presentations that i've given, only one person put up their hand, and that was a lecturer, from one of the universities, just an academic to some extent. but i think most people, they'll just click yes, because they don't have much of a choice, because they don't think it's important. it's not because people don't value privacy, but i think the difficulty is that there aren't many avenues for them to seek redress. and, you know, because we don't have the concept of constant litigation, and it's not a litigious society in general in asia, it's very difficult for individuals or consumers to get together and change the laws and the policies. >> so this is a fundamentally difficult issue, right? the uses

to which some data may be put may be extremely complex. and the implications of those uses for a particular user may be even more complex. so if we were to start with the principle that something should not be collected if its use would not have been acceptable to the user, it's not at all clear how you could put that into effect in practice, right? we know that telling users every last detail of what will happen and every last detail of the implications, asking them to read that before they disclose anything ever, is not practical, and is not the way that people behave. that said, there are a few strange people like academics and privacy lawyers who do read these things, and there are people who have built tools that look for changes and so on and analyze them. so if a company does change its longer-than-"hamlet" privacy policy, there is some chance that will be noticed and trigger some public debate over that. there are methods of accountability other than all the users reading all the things, which we know doesn't happen. still, it's a fundamentally difficult question. if we were to offload that decision to

someone else, they don't make it terribly much easier to figure out what the right answer is as to which uses would be acceptable to the user or which uses are socially beneficial. >> maybe the issue, it's got to be meaningful notice and meaningful consent. and i think one of the things that, you know, just from a policy perspective, because the notion of, you know, these consent agreements is that they shift everything onto the individual consumer, who don't really have the ability to, you know, reject the terms. and so i think, you know, just in terms of the policy, when it comes to ai and all the other provisions, i think it's important for the governments to actually think about shifting a lot of their responsibility back to the corporations for self-assessment and things like that. >> i'm wondering if you also cannot start splitting it up, in the sense that especially with the automated process, you have to explain the significance and the consequences for the user. and the point i think we're making is, first of all it's

very difficult for a user to understand and read all about that, and fundamentally it may be very difficult to say that right at the beginning. still, that raises the question, why would you assume that it is only at the beginning that you ask for consent? why don't you have a repeated approach to interactionwith the user as the system actually also develops and learns, and draw the consequences? at that moment in time that a consequence becomes relevant, you could ask, in a number of situations, i'm not saying all, it may be simpler to understand than a whole long text about what potentially will happen. >> there's an answer to that, my clients say they want all the consent up front. they don't want the obligation to go back to the consumer or the customers. usually when we draft these policy provisions for them or these agreements, they tell us right up front, can we make it as inclusive as possible. so

that is what they do, because there is nothing to prevent us from doing that. i think that's difficult. >> i mean, i think what you're suggesting is thinking of it more as a matter of user interaction design or user experience design rather than perhaps asking for everything up front or trying to get an extremely broad consent or ask for extremely broad consent up front, that you might ask for some consent initially, more later. how and when you do that may be difficult depending on the nature of the product and whether there even is a touch point with the user that comes later. certainly i think thinking of these negotiations of consent in terms of user experience design, user interaction design, can be a fruitful way to get closer to -- to get closer to a strong notion of consent in a way that is less burdensome on the user. >> to go back to that point as well, i think a lot of

consumers, they don't really need to know the algorithm or to understand it. what they want to know is, what is a different way, the purpose it's going to be used, not so much the algorithm. i've heard that excuse before, some companies say, well, there's no point to us explaining the algorithms to the consumers or the customers because they're not going to understand that. that's not the concern they have. it's the change in use. >> a quick followup for you. is it possible to have a discussion in the abstract about the notice and consent regime without looking at the market concentration in many markets for digital products and services? because if you're choosing between two or three mobile phone companies or two or three search engines or two or three social media platforms or mortgage lenders or hospitals, asking someone to opt

out because they disagree with the consent provisions is inviting them to not participate in modern society. so there i think is a relationship between market structure and privacy policy which in many cases is definitive, that you don't really have a real scientific alternative other than the consent. >> it must be said that i thought it was interesting, what was going around in twitter, i don't know who attached a statement there from the fcc having just issued some privacy guidelines for intact access providers, who described the situation as no choice. they say you have to be additionally careful when there actually is no choice, which may be the case there. i think there is a certain sensitivity around the notion of fairness, which includes the notion of choice. >> let me at this point invite all of you to raise your hands. tim, are we passing a microphone around in order to it everyone on the recording? i'll start

over here and work my way across the room. identify your name and affiliation before you give your question. our panelists will know who they're talking to. >> thank you, i'm the dean of the college of energy at carnegie mellon university. i want to come back with this idea of privacy versus personalization. it would seem the last part of this discussion raises the question, why doesn't we apply personalization to privacy? so, you know, the only choice being i have to take one blank consent form, it's either that or nothing, where is if there were some way for me to fill out a privacy profile so that it described what i wanted to share, what i didn't want to share, how i wanted to share my data, could that not then be applied against whatever the

company is saying is their privacy policy, so i don't have to read every one of them, i simply spend the time saying what i'm about, and let the interaction happen, more like a personalization applied to privacy. >> that seems to remind me of the point you brought up about how competition in the private sector can potentially mitigate against abuses of privacy policies. maybe this is a question you can respond to. >> sure. and there are a couple of avenues that i think come to mind here. one is this idea that a user might check some boxes or slide some sliders in a user interface and give some idea of their preferences with respect to privacy, and there would be enforcement of that on the user's behalf or some kind of automated negotiation between the user's technology, their browser or app, and a company's technology, so things would only

happen within the bounds that the user had said were acceptable. and there have been various attempts to build those sorts of technologies. none of them have taken hold for reasons that i think are largely contingent. it could easily have turned out that such a thing became popular, but for reasons to complicated to go into here, i think that has mostly not happened. the other approach is one that is -- takes more of a machine learning kind of approach, where you're trying to ask the user a relatively limited number of questions about -- specific questions about what they want, and then you have a technology that on the user's behalf that tries to infer what decisions they would make in other cases. the idea of a system that operates on the user's behalf is one of the technological vehicles that could develop. and again, you

have sort of contingent questions of technological development that may make that more likely and may make it easier or more likely to be deployable. but certainly that i think is one direction in which users may be able to put technology to work on their behalf to manage this stuff. because the complexity of these choices, if the user has to make every single detailed choice is too much. >> i think it's a very interesting idea. the question is will it hold against all of the four cases. it may not hold against the third case. you can use the personal data back towards society. personalization of data, it merits to be discussed, but would it actually eliminate the risk of things being bad for society? >> we'll take another question.

>> yes. it's jose colon from the state department. i believe you only -- you are focusing on part of the issue of privacy because there are other means of data collection that doesn't involve people clicking on the internet. when you go to a store, there are many cameras following you, you pay with a credit card. they sell information that they are getting from machine learning. they are using those for many purposes. we had the case of samsung with tvs, at least in conversation with people. how would you address those? that's a big an issue as you clicking on something on the intent. >> your responses?

>> i think this gets to the issue of, if you have a model based on notice and consent, how can you talk about consent in a case where collection of data happens in the environment, such as with cameras or with microphones that are out in the world. and the cases that are in a public place are i think some of the most difficult here. if there's a product in your home which has a microphone or camera and that's turned out without your consent, that seems to me not a difficult case from a policy standpoint. but in a public place where there is not an interaction with the user, where consent could naturally be sought, i think this becomes a pretty difficult issue. i don't think we have all the answers to those by any means. >> for us there's also a real part of the debate, because the two parts are fundamental

rights, the confidential offering of communications in your private life, and the data protection part. what you mentioned touches upon both aspects. your confidentiality, when you go where you are not to be tracked, even if that doesn't necessarily and immediately involve personal data, still a right to be protected. so it's really part of the debate in europe. >> yes, right in the back. >> hi, my name is andrew hannah, i'm with politico. you've talked about shifting responsibility back to corporations in terms of privacy agreements and others have talked about softer forms of government and in terms of shaping what data can be used, could you be more concrete and talk about initiatives that are undertaken and the policy tloefl allow for this to happen? >> let me start and we will see

with the large companies and the ways of the data and there's a competitive thing that operates in which companies would on the one hand like to use data, to optimize their business goals, but on the other hand would like to be able to promise to consumers that the use of data is limited to things that consumers would find acceptable. and of course, those promises once made have little force. i think you see this operating already. it's inherent in a model of notice and consent that consumers will -- may either withhold notice or take their business somewhere else, if they don't like what's being done in a particular setting. i think the dynamic that operates already, and it is something that is driven both by the enforcement of law, for example by the ftc, with respect to companies keeping their privacy promises to consumers,

and it's also driven by some of the public dialogue, and driven as well by the public debate and by some of the press coverage of privacy practices. i think all of those things push companies to try to make stronger promises to consumers, which they then have to keep. >> yes, ma'am? >> my name is carrie ann from the organization of states. the gentleman in the back talked about the other forms of data collection. in terms of privacy, there's so much open data that's available in blogs that are private. on facebook, you have the data from all the sources that are

open. how is that protection, if there's actually no obligation by the person who made the development that we don't know about? that's actually collecting it? are we really pushing our data out there that's open to anyone to use? >> great question. >> strictly speaking, if you are able to start reidentifying it becomes personal data. you still fall under the data protection law. you have to look at how far you push the boundary, and using also open data to reidentify and in the case that you mentioned, it's real. so that's where people have to take responsibility. they would be liable. >> my name is al gombass, woi

work for the state department. i'm curious if we were to create a scenario negotiate the privacy restrictions, what might happen then i think might be that companies will incentivize consumers to give more data, to give discounts or something in the event that they want to get more data from the individual. i'm wondering how that might play out, if you think that's a good idea, bad idea, whether we should be a blanket law saying, no, you can't do that, you have to offer the same discounts to everybody regardless of the amount of privacy they regard for the company or not, and how consumers may be taken advantage of. for example, poor consumers may be in a position where they feel they have to give up more data just because they can't afford the service without it. >> i think there was a study that actually showed that consumers are -- you know, they

are giving some information, and then having the ability to consent, if additional information or different news is going to be made off the data. i think the other point of this study showed -- i can't remember the name actually -- consumers are generally willing to give more information if they get something in return. i think, again, we go back to the notion of -- one of the -- you know, the problematic areas that we had is, the consumer or customer doesn't know how the dat is being used, or used in a different way. no notification has been given. and i think the third thing is that companies want to benefit. they've been able to monetize the data for marketing reasons. but the consumer hasn't actually benefited from that different use or additional information. so i think at the end of the day, you go back to consent.

you know, right at the start of a relationship. perhaps as that relationship progresses. >> perhaps if i can add something to that. for me, there are two dimensions in it. one is, do you provide fairness in the perception of the user while the data is being used. and a number of people are saying that's not the case, because you've got disproportionately value out of it and you don't give that value back to me. the other part of the debate is, does the consumer really have a fair choice right in the beginning. so there's the fact of the mono po lis tick situation. and you look back at the statement that we see last week about access to it. you cannot be forced, essentially what they are saying, you cannot be forced to give up your browser data, et cetera. otherwise you don't have access to the service. there's not so much choice in that service.

so somewhere there's that aspect, is there a reasonable balance the moment that there's an essential service being provided versus the personal data. you cannot start excluding people from having access to the service. >> is that different from regulations where you need the government to step in to start the ball rolling where -- you know, if none of the internet providers are actually -- you know, i think it's going to be quite difficult in some sectors to wait for the company, you know, to make the initiative to regulate themselves. i think this is one of those issues where you have to have the government step in. and start the ball rolling. >> yes, ma'am, right here in the front. >> my name is erica basu, i'm a student at american university.

the question is about the notion of democracy in all of this. while we're speaking quite to a room full of people who have a fairly good idea of some of the terms that we're using, like notice and consent and terms of service and data privacy, i'm just wondering what this all means in terms of access to even this information about what these terms are. and is it just a conversation between policy makers and populations who have access to these definitions? or is it really a conversation that you're having with the users who get it? >> great question about literacy. >> i think you see in practice, you see a lot of discussion, a lot of chatter among policy experts. and you see more occasional flare-ups of direct public interests in some of these

issues and some of the practices. and as is often the case in governance, the elites are sweating the details every day, and there is a corrective of the public noticing something that seems quite wrong to them, and speaking up loudly. and i think that is how these things often do operate. the -- certainly -- and we do certainly see those flare-ups of direct public interest from time to time. >> one of the points in the debate, it's also whether machine learning ai should be made more widely available. kind of an open ai type of environment. which actually could be quite an interesting point for international. that's democraticizing the tools themselves. >> yes, sir, the front.

>> thank you. gonga risener from israel. you mentioned a phrase -- you mentioned old framework. one of my questions relates to one of the oldest frameworks we're using, which is the concept of a state, in the framework of the discussion. because we all realize that we've globalized every element of the discussion. the data, in spite of localization, is globalized. companies hold data, the same piece of information between two, three different locations, and the same server, and some of my clients split them up over different continents. so you don't get the same piece of data in any one location anyway. the company holding the data is actually multi-structured in 25

different locations as well. the data is globalized, the players are globalized, and that raises the question what is the role of the state? i'll give you an example which i think is fairly recent. the israeli government decided, called me up one kay and said they wanted -- not the old government, but part of it, and they said to me that they had decided to regulate an international cloud services provider. and i asked them, why do you think you should regulate? i'm not an israeli company. they're not active in israel per se. although you can buy the product online. they said, it's very simple, because they offered the services to the israeli government entity. but i said, the cloud sits somewhere in europe, i think. the company is an american company, et cetera. they said, yes, but the service is offered in israel so it's our job to regulate it. and i pushed back and i said, well, if you want to regulate it for that purpose, 211 other

countries in the world can legitimately make the same argument because it's a global service. i said do you really think it makes sense? they said, we never thought of that. we'll take it under advisement and i haven't heard from them since. but the issue i want to raise is, what do you think we should be doing? governments are still our main tool of policy. but when we all recognize that facebook has more to say about the privacy of its constituent element than any government in the world, are we still having the discussion in the right forum, or should we be thinking of a different mechanism where we actually have engagement with the right players? >> very simple question. [ laughter ] >> you see something similar happening in the debate around cybersecurity, which is considered by some very much a national issue, but global companies are saying i want to buy the best cybersecurity in the world.

i don't care really where it comes from, but i need to have the best because i'm a global company. is that necessarily contradictory? i don't think in all cases. does it mean that you need to go for some form of global governments? well, at least a form of international governments, yes, because you need to have an idea of what is the quality of cybersecurity. so i think that the demand and supply cycle is simplified. it could be quite fruitful in a case like this. what our global companies are asking when they ask about data protection and privacy and machine learning, and how is that different from, let's say, the more nationally determined cultural values around that, i think that's also for the community to make sure that the ethics, that the cultural value of the discussion is really part of the debate around ai. so not only for academics, but also for the institutions that are involved in that. i don't think you can get very

far if you only do this nationally. >> follow-up question, i think his question is really an important one. do you think there are any global institutions that could channel interests at least at a mini lateral level? meaning, the largest number of states that are willing to participate in a single standard? companies? >> i guess it's not really organized or named as such, but i pointed earlier to certain sectors in which you can start talking about the governments of data. so you can build upon some of the existing governments that are there and use that. you do not necessarily have to invent something new. but perhaps we do need to talk about additional institutionalized, let's put it in that frame, institutional forms of government that can tackle this.

there's an important proposal on the table in the uk that talks about creating a machine intelligence commission that would work more on the basis of notions around common law. so you get exposed to the practice. and you bring the experience together. >> other comments on this point? we have about five minutes left. i'm going to try to take a few more questions. yes, sir? >> carl edward from the george washington university privacy and research institute. relying on lawsuits largely to control behavior in privacy. i'm wondering, in that case, people have to identify harms. and i'm concerned about the ability in the context of ai and machine learning -- [ inaudible ] --

>> that's a tough question. it gets to some deep technical issues as you know. the question of why an ai system did a particular thing. and what that system might have done had conditions been a bit different. it can be difficult to answer. but depending on what kind of decision it is that the system made, or assisted in, there are different legal regimes that may operate at least in the u.s. and different burdens may -- different legal burdens may apply to the company that is -- or institution that is making that decision with the help of ai. so i think it's more of a detailed question as to what kind of -- showing what kind of governance is needed. but i also think that to the extent that people are naturally

skeptical of whether complex ai based decisions are being made in a way that is fair and justifiable, i think that to use these technologies in a way that is really sustainable in the longer run, i think will require greater effort at being able to explain why a particular decision was made, or to be able to produce evidence to justify the fairness or efficacy of the decision that's being made. it's not a simple issue, but i do think that it's not -- that in the public in protecting themselves and government in protecting the public against the sorts of harms you talked about are not without either legal or technical capabilities. >> let me ask a question that sums up several that i've heard so far, which is, given the apparent weaknesses of notice

and consent, but recognizing it's the tool that we have, and recognizing the challenges of harm and then identifying harm in those adjudications, is there a combination of tools that might be used that are rooted in transparency? what does the algorithm do or what is it intended to do? in other words, we can get a better sense that it may produce a harm. and that harm should be, or some approximation of that risk should be disclosed in the notice. what is the combination of tools that might best produce a framework for handling these technologies as we move forward? do you want to jump in on that? >> yeah, i think that's a very good question. and ed's comment is just right. but there's something very interesting when you're in aa

building one of these systems. it's sometimes very hard to diagnose why your system did something, but you always have to write down the objective function. for example, if i decided tomorrow to release a program to help people navigate the streets in washington by tracking everyone, all the cabs and all the other vehicles, if i write down my objective is to each user, to get them to their location, their destination as quickly as possible, then even if i'm doing fancy algorithms to accomplish that, i can show that to a lawyer or policy maker, this is why my al go rhythm is pulling data from many people. on the other hand, if i supplement it a little bit because i'm getting paid by coffee company for routing them past their coffee shops, again, that will be sitting there in the code. so when you think about an ai or machine learning algorithm being

written, somebody says it's so complicated we can't explain them, that's not a legitimate answer. because when you write an algorithm you have to write the objective function, what is the thing the system is trying to do. so if the want companies to actually -- or governments to be clear about what their ais are doing, it is legitimate to say, show me the objective function. >> maybe we will leave it there with andrew's optimistic vision about a possible way forward. really appreciate that. please join me in thanking all of our great panelists for this discussion today. [ applause ] coming up later today, democratic senators chris coons and amy klobuchar discuss how they and congress plan to work with the trump administration. that will be live from george washington university starting at 6:00 p.m. eastern.

follow the transition of government on c-span, as donald trump becomes the 45th president of the united states. and republicans maintain control of the u.s. house and senate. we'll take you to key events as they happen, without interruption. watch live on c-span. watch on demand at c-span.org. or listen on our free c-span radio app. >> thank you very much. now republican congressman kevin brady, u.s. trade representative michael froman and a number of economic experts and republican and democratic strategists dus discuss the impact of election on trade policy and the future of current trade agreements. fedex freight president and ceo michael ducker leads the discussion. [ applause ] >> good evening.

hi, everyone. wow. what a great turnout. i think we picked the right topic. i'd like to thank you for joining us here at the museum in washington, d.c. for this important conversation on the election aftermath. and new politics of trade. i would also like to join everyone on the live stream at politico.com. everybody across the country watching on c-span and even those viewers watching on c-pac tv tonight. we're really glad you're all here. if there is one big issue in the election, it was trade. it's hard to think of any policy issue that was more high profile, and people around this country and around the world are watching to see what happens next. so we have convened some top policy experts and political experts to unpack what happened. we'll do this in three parts tonight. first, we're going to ask whether the anti-trade sentiment in this election was merely a

temporary device of political rhetoric, or did we just witness a fundamental and long-term realignment in the u.s. politics. we're going to take to republican and democratic strategists fresh from the campaign trail in battleground states, and we're going to talk to some big picture thinkers as well as industry. then we'll have a conversation about the future of trade policy on capitol hill. and third, our outstanding senior trade reporter doug palmer will have a conversation with the u.s. trade representative, which will be followed by cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. so be sure to stick around. about you before we get started with this jam packed and important program, i'd like to thank our wonderful sponsor fedex for their generous support of this event. now i'd like to welcome to the podium, michael ducker, fedex's freight president and ceo. [ applause ]

>> thank you, luiza. and thanks to politico for hosting this great event. and it's aptly titled aftermath. and i think we just experienced a pretty extraordinary election, would you agree with that? and as with the aftermath of any election, it's going to take some time to sort out all the implications to the u.s. policies and programs like trade. but i hope we can agree that for the united states, trading with the world isn't just an option, it's a necessity. 95% -- and i know this is a well-worn phrase -- but 95% of the consumers are outside of our borders. so we do need to find ways to reduce barriers to u.s. goods and services around the world so we can reach new consumers, grow our domestic economy and

strengthen the bottom line for american families. supporting international trade is something that we at fedex are particularly passionate about. because we live it every day. trade is our business. time and again, we've seen that small and mid-sized customers who export tend to grow even faster and create more jobs than similar businesses that do not trade internationally. recently fedex released a small business index which was a national survey of over 1,000 small business leaders, and results of that survey showed that more than 70% of small businesses are seeing increasing global trade as a way to also help the economy as a whole. interestingly enough, 70% of small business executives said that they were more likely to

support trade if the u.s. provided effective job retraining. now, business has a real role to play in that. government and business have to work together to ensure that displaced workers are retained and can transition to the new jobs and careers that our economy is creating. with the election results behind us, mercifully, it's time that trade politics be replaced with sound trade policy. ripping up trade deals or raising tariffs on imports will not grow our economy. what is needed to build greater support for trade is to adopt a comprehensive pro-growth, pro-competitiveness agenda that will make the u.s. the most competitive economy in the world. domestic policies that build american jobs and energize the economy will go a long way to

build support for future trade initiatives. expanding trade opportunities for americans has been a bipartisan pursuit since this country started. and that's why we at fedex are pleased to sponsor this evening's program and to hear from congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle who are helping to shape the debate, and to forge the path for how our country will address trade, american competitiveness moving forward. thanks, luiza. and i'll leave it to you to get right to it. >> thank you so much. [ applause ] so, before we get started, i want to let everyone know to tweet your questions, our hash tag is #trade politics. our moderators will have a device to track them onstage. without further delay, i want to

introduce glenn thrush, senior political correspondent. you may not know him only from his indispensable coverage on politico, but also for his podcast called off message where he interviews newsmakers, including a certain president obama this year. when we were thinking about drilling down on the politics of trade, i thought about glenn and the events that he hosted with us at both republican and democratic conventions about the future of the republican party and the future of the democratic party. and i really see this conversation as part and parcel of that conversation that he started at the convention. so we look forward to hearing from you. and your wonderful panel. thank you, glenn. [ applause ] >> good evening, everybody. and we'd like to thank fedex for sponsoring this event. first i'd like to introduce the panel. sitting to my immediate right is linda dempsey, vice president

for international economic affairs at the national association of manufacturing. by the way, this is completely out of order. facial recognition software worked to a tee. sitting next to her is my good friend john ashbrook, who is founding partner of cavalry llc. and a very familiar face on capitol hill in all kinds of interesting roles. sitting next to him is jim alper, with a group home to -- i suspect home to many more former folks who work in politics after this cycle. and on the end there is my fellow maryland neighbor john judis, who is author of the pop i list explosion. i will start off briefly by talking about a conversation i had in the white house, right before i went out on the trail.

probably in february of 2016. actually, right before the primaries and the caucuses. it was probably late january. i was sitting with a senior administration official. because that's what we do, we talk to senior administration officials and never quote them on the record. which i am not going to do now. and i said to them, president obama has clearly done very well in the last two years, you know, very well sort of objectively by asserting executive power in the last two years of his administration after a very rocky first two years after being reelected in 2012. give me the one to three, one, two, three, your top priorities as he winds down the administration. and this person turned to me and said, tpp, tpp, and tpp. things turned out a little bit differently. so i want to start off the conversation, starting off with john and kind of working our way

down. sort of a general question here. how big a deal was trade in last tuesday's election? and what in general can you glean going forward? how is this issue going to play out politically over the next couple of years? >> well, thank you for having me. trade was a really big deal. and when you look at polls and it says people were worried about the economy, they don't usually include trade in those kind of -- in those issues. if you look at ohio, right? michigan, wisconsin, i looked at those figures when i was coming over here. it's about, oh, i don't know, 52- 52-30, does trade harm us or help us? if you look at the 52%, it's about 60/30 or something like that trump over clinton. you have to remember, too, that

those are votes that are salient. it's much more likely that somebody's going to vote who's worried about trade hurting their jobs than someone who thinks it's okay. especially in those midwestern states. so it was an enormous issue. of course, trump's advantage was that from the very beginning of this campaign, he made it a major issue. i first saw trump in august 2015 in new hampshire. and i had expected more of a conventional republican, or even tv celebrity, and here was a guy who was railing against nabisco for taking their factory out of chicago and into mexico, ford for taking its assembly plant out of the united states to mexico, leaving workers out in the cold, who used the same metaphors as perot used about trade and the trade treaties.

and a half nafta sucking jobs o united states. so while the most incendiary aspects of trump ended up getting covered a lot in the media, if you actually went to the rallies and listened to him, three-fourths of what trump had to say is about runaway shops, bad trade deals and things like that. i think that was a big part of his appeal. i'm not saying it was all of it, but i think it was important. >> jill? >> yeah, i mean, i totally agree. i'm from michigan. and michigan trade is often a big issue. and they're fighting words, you know, nafta and outsourcing and all the rest of it. many of the recent presidential elections not as much. we had a robust primary, trade was being talked about on both sides. clearly in a general election. and it was a fulcrum, i think, really about anger, about him connecting with people who no longer as their parents did or

grandparents did could expect to have a solid middle class way of life. they're worried about their pensions, they're worried about the cyclical nature of the auto industry, worried about a dollar not buying as much as it used to. i think a lot of folks thought there's a get-along crowd, if you felt okay about where you were, things were getting better, or things were going to pretty much be the same, then you were a hillary clinton voter. if you were angry and worried and in michigan that was about 25% were really hard core worried, 70% voted for donald trump. so it's an emotional issue. and you saw it in the math. you saw higher turnout in rural areas, and lower turnout in blue areas. and you saw the home of the reagan democrat go up as well. and that led to a narrow defeat. in that state for secretary clinton. >> and the final tally in

michigan was, what, 20,000 to 40,000? >> starting today was between 11,000 and 12,000 votes, and they're still counting today and tomorrow. >> i will tell you that the clinton people when i talked to them on election night about why they thought they were losing michigan, it had to do with turnout in detroit. they were not at that point talking about working the excerpts. mr. ashbrook, you just came off of a very successful, congratulations, you had a very good cycle. you worked for rob portman. he obviously was able to finesse this issue in a way that a lot of politicians associated with pc were not. can you talk a little bit about that? >> sure. i could just echo jill said. as an ohio person, i saw very closely this is an emotional issue for a lot of voters out there. and, you know, john had a stat earlier that so many of these voters out there think that -- think of trade as something that sends jobs overseas.

48% of ohio voters, according to the exit polling, think that trade sends jobs overseas. they just do not have a positive association with the topic. but among that same 48%, rob portman won -- got like 75% of that vote. so he beat strickland by 51 points among that sub set of the elector at. and he did it because he talked directly to people on their level about how trade is really -- it's a people issue. i mean, we talk about it as a jobs issue. but really, it's an issue that people think affects their lives in such a powerful way. and what he spent a lot of time talking p is how he was protecting them, defending them against unfair practices from overseas, from china, and from other bad actors out there. and there was an ad with a powerful testimonial from a

local cincinnati steel company that has 90 employees, and portman fought for them, with the itc, and it protected the company. it ran statewide. it was written up, very powerful ad. it demonstrated to people that on the issue of trade, he's somebody that's looking out for them first. >> and tell me a little bit about just in terms of, linda, from your perspective, at n.a.m. obviously you have a political perspective. but what they're talking about is it being a proxy for a sense of sort of a generalized economic anxiety disorder, right? that it is a manifestation of that. about you you are concerned about the specific policy. from your purview, how does all of this kind of affect how you're going to move forward? >> first, i would say that, you know, elections are resets. we have an incoming administration that has -- is talking very differently on trade than we have seen past

incoming administrations coming in. we have lessons learned about all the things my colleagues up here were just talking about, that people are seeing some of the negatives on trade, but not seeing the other side of it. and frankly, a lot of the substantial transformation that we see in manufacturing. manufacturing in the united states, we produce more than ever before. i don't think most of the voters in ohio or michigan understand that, or see that. but we also, at the same time, i think we need to recognize that we do face big challenges overseas, be it china and elsewhere. so as we look at it, and as we look at policies going forward, we certainly agree, we all need to do a better job and work with the administration and congress going forward to address some of these barriers that haven't been addressed. we've got big barriers in china and elsewhere. but we also need to take a step back, i think, and look at the value that trade has had in the

manufacturing sector as well as other business sectors in the united states. 6 million men and women in manufacturing today have their jobs because of exports. we get millions -- billions -- trillions, actually, of dollars of foreign direct investments in manufacturing because people want to see the united states, and they want to be here. so how can we take what's good, and broaden that out, and address some of the challenges that we have. and that's what we're going to be looking to work with a new administration, a new congress on. >> while i've got you on that, to put you on the spot here, when we were in philadelphia, you know, hillary clinton, her biggest flip-flop of the entire campaign was on tpp, which she had, as you know, the gold standard of trade deals and then she read the fine print and then it was fool's gold standard. do you feel you would have gotten a better shake than

hillary clinton than you're going to get from donald trump? >> whoa. look, i think we take -- we're a nonpartisan organization. we take our democracy seriously and we are going to work with either one. i think it's hard to say. when secretary clinton was in the senate, she voted for some trade deals, and she voted against other trade deals. it wasn't a clear record. when she was secretary of state, she strongly supported some of the trade agreements that president bush had negotiated, but president obama made some modifications to and moved across the finish line. and she supported that for a number of reasons. so, you know, it's hard to look backwards. >> let me slice that one other way. and i think this is a larger question in terms of moving this forward. do you feel at this point in time, given that the president-elect has backtracked on a couple of other issues that

he is somebody the organization can really communicate with moving forward? >> absolutely. i think we -- i think what we've seen, look, we've been in contact with the transitions, in contact with both transitions, we know a number of folks who work on these teams. some of our folks at senior levels in our companies certainly know the incoming president. and we're going to sit down and talk about these issues. and try to get to the solutions. because i think at the end of the day, we want to get to the same solutions. and that is to make america the best place to manufacture in the world. to make america globally competitive on manufacturing. if we can agree on that, which i think we do, then we've got to figure out what those policies are that handle it. now, some of the trade competitiveness has to do with other issues. the drag on u.s. competitiveness by regulation, by tax policies. those are issues where i think

people are expecting to see some substantial movement. >> i should just say we're going to take a couple of questions at the end, so those of you who are ready and rearing to go, prepare your questions. john judis, let's look at the historical perspective of this. you can close your eyes early on in this cycle, go to a bernie sanders rally, go to a donald trump rally, they're saying the same thing about trade. what's the difference between those two positions? the left and the right on this issue? >> on that particular issue, there's very little difference i would say. and i think that both of them of, you could see as be iing a sense of revolt against globalization, and two features of it. i guess here is how i would make the difference. that for trump, capital mobility, which is a key feature. again, from the 1970s. corporations could move wherever they want. a lot of the trade deals have as

much to do with making it easy for corporations to move around as they do with exchanging goods. that was a key issue for him. labor mobility, immigrants can go wherever they want. that was also a key issue for trump, but it wasn't an issue for sanders. but both of those have to do with wages. both of those have to do with this kind of split in america between the 30%, more educated, working in high-valued services, and the other 70% skilled, only some college or high school. and, you know, again, if you look at a map of where we've lost manufacturing jobs from 2000 to 2010, i looked at this, the two key states are north carolina and michigan. and again, if you look at that map and you look at where clinton lost and trump won, a lot of -- they're very con dpru ent. it's the same kind of thing. so i think over time we'll have

to figure out what to do about this split of the 30% and 70% and how we can somehow recreate the middle class. i think that's what a lot of donald trump was about. >> jill, the democrats used to own this issue. this was something that was a core democratic issue, and the notion of the mitch mcconnell being at the head of a party in the senate that is now lock stock and barrel against -- largely against free trade is sort of amazing as a turnabout. how do the democrats reclaim this issue? we just had president obama give a press conference saying that democrats have to get out in the places they haven't been before. how do the democrats reclaim it ss an issue? >> i think it has to be almost simplified again to where we are with people in their communities and meeting with them on an emotional level. secretary clinton had a very thoughtful plan about how to deal with the economy, how to

deal with trade, how she looked at things. she gave a speech in mccomb county, putting all the details out. i think people couldn't hear it because they couldn't see democrats feeling their pain. ironically. so we have to get back out and we have to articulate what we're about. and i think that we need to see the people have been hurt and affected, to get the help and support that they need, not just the advocacy that truly people are able to make their way in the new economy. >> the feel your pain part, we know where feel your pain came from, it came from her husband. >> right. >> now she's feeling the pain because she didn't sufficiently feel other people's pain. isn't this just a matter of a politician to empathize? barack obama felt enough pain to win mccomb county, right? >> i think we were talking about this before, a lot of these races the way things play out, are tied to someone's character.

perhaps if more people were aware of donald trump's actions in his personal life, whether it was making ties in china or suits in mexico, or using chinese steel in the buildings that he was building, of course, that was part of the dialogue, but i don't know that that filtered to the ground. i don't know if that was in gross rating points in all of the key states in the midwest. people may have had a real issue with them then. >> would bernie sanders have been in the general election, jill, still on you -- you're not going away -- would bernie sanders have been a better messenger in the general election on that? >> no. >> why? >> because i don't think he was credible in the sense that people did want answers. people did want real world solutions. and that he felt he could channel the anger, but somebody wanted someone to go be the president of the united states. and hillary clinton won on experience. she won on being a pragmatist that gets things done.

so i think that would have been trouble for bernie sanders in a general election. >> john ashbrook, these states are not one size fits all. i remember talking to a trump person after they lost wisconsin and said one of the reasons they lost wisconsin was because the trade issue doesn't cut the same way in wisconsin as it does in a place like ohio. there's a lot of dairy exports, for instance, that are advantaged under that stuff. talk a little bit about, we have 2018 coming up, but talk a little about the microclimate in some of these states and how it differs from state to state and region to region? >> we also consulted on the arizona race, and the talk about trade in arizona is different from the conversation about trade in ohio. we also worked on the indiana senate race. it's very different from the conversation about trade in indiana, just in terms of the intensity. it's just much more on the forefront of every conversation in both of these states. and you mentioned the 2018 map. you know, the campaigning never

stops in this town. already talking about 2018. if you look at the states that are up, democrats are defending 25 seats, 23 plus two independents and republicans defending eight seats. among the 25 seats the democrats are defending, it's ohio, it's indiana, it's michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin, some of these same states where trump did so well, and i think that a lot of these candidates who are looking -- either thinking about challenging one of these democratic incumbents or the democratic incumbents themselves watched very closely the cycle to see how this issue was litigated in a real way in these campaigns, and i think that, you know, for example, senator brown and senator portman have a very good working relationship. i'm confident senator brown was watching very closely at what senator portman did in his campaign. and i wouldn't be shocked if i

see -- i wouldn't be shocked if we see him replicate some of the same tactics. >> linda dempsey, here's the many trillion dollar question here. tpp is dead. trump is talking about opposing some of the european stuff. how do you sell free trade? do you break it into little bite-sized portions? how do you see generally speaking over the next several years how you get back into it? >> you've got to rebuild the discussion, and i think we in business can certainly do a better job. we in manufacturing, what are the positives that we've seen out of trade, and past trade agreements in terms of, you know, what is it that we produce? in a dentist's chair i sat in two hours last week, that was built in the united states. the security devices, going through airports and federali s buildings, they're made in the united states. people don't recognize it as such. we've also got to be more clear-headed at getting at the

foreign trade practices overseas and what are the best ways to do that. there was a lot in tpp that would have gotten at a lot of very bad foreign bad practices, enterprises, property, discriminatory tariffs, localization measures. what are the other tools we can do. this incoming president talked about more bilateral deals than multi-lat cal deals. there are pros and cons to that. we have to take each one as it comes. but we need to focus on getting the big markets where we have the biggest problems. most growth is outside the united states. if manufacturers just sold to ourselves, we wouldn't be able to grow. we certainly wouldn't be able to hire more workers. we've got to have greater access to markets overseas. and we're going to look and we're going to prioritize those markets, and the barriers that we see. and work with this congress, and the incoming administration and

figure out how we can tackle it. >> on that note, do we have any questions out there? anybody? >> way back there. >> i saw a hand way back there. whoever it is, speak now or forever hold your peace. >> yes, hi there. >> one sec. we have someone with a microphone. >> good evening. following up with miss linda dempsey. could you please give us, if you will, a pitch about what we can expect that will really benefit the average person as far as how trade works and why we should be concerned about it? so if you could tell us -- make us feel good about trade since tpp as you pointed out is dead. what else can we do? >> so, the united states has doubled manufacturing output since nafta. we have more than doubled our

exports. we talk to small businesses all the time that have been able to increase their exports, increase work forces here, or increase wages, or keep jobs here. as a result of agreements. we have a small company that sells medical rehabilitation equipment out of maryland. and when the european union completed their deal with korea, before we did, they lost i think it was 40% to 60% share of that market. once we got our deal in place, they were able to grow again and take over and win back sales and increase. we have a lot of really great manufacturing in this country. a lot of high-tech manufacturing. a lot of manufacturing, as i said, that people don't see. and our companies want to get overseas, and we see more trade. and we have, you know, big agreements like the trade facilitation agreement that

nobody wants to talk to, that's going to make it easier for our companies to be able to sell. i'd say the other big thing is ecommerce. for small business owners, being able to get on the internet and put up their storefront, just like in their hometown, they are selling more than ever. they are, you know, using new delivery methods, and express delivery methods and other methods to get their goods to people all around the world. and so we're hoping to see a revival in economic growth. and we're hoping to see more of those exports. >> let's squeeze one more question in. no? this gentleman here. yes. >> i'm jim callahan. i had a question about nafta, if you could talk a little bit about the potentialiality, what the implications, how is it benefiting the united states, what might happen going forward, if you could speculate a little bit, give us some insight on the

time? >> in donald trump's campaign, they've said that canadian-mexican officials have talked about renegotiating nafta based on his kind of tough talking rhetoric. does anybody want to address that? >> i can. there haven't been a lot of specifics out of the incoming administration about what is wrong with nafta. but we know, certainly, as jill was talking about, and john, that there's a view of nafta, and there's certainly been that substantial transformation in some of the rust belt states, in manufacturing sectors. whether that's a result of nafta, automation, china, other factors, i think we all need to figure out what the right diagnosis is of the issue. and we're just going to have to -- you know, we are going to sit down with the new administration and congress, what are they talking about, what do they want to see

changed? there's over 2 million manufacturing jobs in this country that are dependent on our trade relationship with canada and mexico. so as we go forward, we certainly don't want to put those jobs in jeopardy. but are there ways to improve our relationship with scan da and mexico? i think it's the path is a bit uncertain at this point. >> i would like to thank everybody for coming. it was a great discussion. and i'd like to welcome up my colleague adam, a trade reporter for politico, who will lead the next conversation. thanks, guys. [ applause ]

that was an interesting panel. we're thrilled tonight to have on the stage chairman of the ways and means committee, kevin brady, whose committee is in charge of all things trade in congress. and whose party will continue leading the house. so it will be interesting to hear what he says on that. and next to me is jennifer harris, senior fellow at the council of foreign relations. she's an alum of the state department working under secretary hillary clinton. and was -- has been billed as the architect of the secretary's economic state craft agenda. so i guess i'm going to begin, you know, it's -- everyone's kind of trade hopes and dreams have been dashed. we're looking at what's left on

the agenda. and what could still be done. i know everyone's very -- we're all ready to hear what the chairman here has to say on kind of what's going to be happening. so chairman brady, you've been a champion for free trade during your tenure in congress. and as has your party, to a large extent. how do you reconcile that this is kind of a broader question, that position with the policies, the trade policies that president-elect donald trump has announced so far? and as you look at the next congress, finishing up business from this congress, what will your priorities on trade in the next congress be, and, you know, or is this, as a lot of people fear, is an issue that will fade into the background? >> thank you for the upbeat assessment of everything, very encouraging. so, look, i am still champion of free trade. so are republicans.

for a couple of key reasons. one, donald trump was elected to get this economy moving again. and clearly tax reform, balancing regulation is key to it. but finding new customers, for american goods and services are a big part of the economic growth. trade is what provides that opportunity. we have some challenges obviously. but i look at mr. trump, who made a very strong case for enforcement first, in trade policies, which congress has given this president and the new president the strongest enforcement tools ever, period, to pursue that. and i hope he allows us to make the case that, to grow our economy, it's just not enough to buy american. we have to sell american all throughout the world. these trade agreements done right, strictly enforced, level that playing field. turn one-way trade into two-way trade, to allow us to create a

number of jobs here. so i'm not as downbeat as others are on the trade agenda. i think six days into the transition, i think it's early to be sort of assuming where the new administration's going to be. you know, i'm hopeful we get a case, as the president lays out his economic policy, to make the case for keeping what's good about trade, including accessing those new customers around the world, and then improving the areas the public feels needs some addressing. >> so one of the points we've heard from the campaign trail, from donald trump, is that he wants a renegotiation of nafta. that is something he wants to do in very short order when he takes office. your district, the eighth district from texas is probably very connected to nafta in many ways. how do you see that deal being renegotiated? what specific things could be

improved in that deal? you know, what could be reflected in nafta, in the regoshs of nafta that would affect donald trump's trade? >> i haven't spoken to him or his team about exactly where in nafta they would want to improve. i notice as he talks about these issues, he really talks about not so much with withdrawing, but going back to the negotiating table, trying to make it a bigger win for the united states. we have a manufacturing surplus with the nafta countries. these relationships helped us. frankly, move through some worldwide recessions better than other free countries as well. look, i would encourage the president to take a look at parts of nafta, that looked right in the 1990s, that can be modernized today. my advice always, if you're going to renegotiate an

agreement, is make it more free trade, be bolder about reducing tariffs in all directions, give us more economic freedom to sell what we're american, buy products consumers want to buy as well. so if the approach going to take in nafta and tpp is to go bolder, open more of that market to americans goods and services, then i think that would be welcome. >> can you provide a specific in terms of how he would make it bolder, freer, more open? >> he's got to set his priorities in these trade agreements. i know tpp, my advice to him earlier this year, which still stands, is look, that's a critical market for us. that region will hold half the middle class customers. we want to be there. if we abandon that field completely, we lose and china

wins in a major way. so my advice will continue to be to him is not withdraw, but renegotiate. take the areas he's got real challenges with, make it better. make it better for america and let's stay on that trading field in that region. i think it's critically important. >> so on the issue of tpp, i mean, how do you see that being revisited at some point in the future? he's made that a very strong point of his speeches. what would be a way in which he could revive that deal and still appeal to his base and what -- >> so leaving him all that discretion, because this is a new president running on trade, he really needs to set those priorities. but we know within congress today that the outstanding areas currently in tpp from making sure we've got adequate

intellectual property protections from biologics. making sure our financial services are not discriminated against. there are real implementation plans. so we know how countries are going to implement who is key areas we're interested in. there are a number of areas you could begin with immediately. these are the areas the white house continued to work since the agreement was signed because there were member concerns, strong, significant member concerns raised that weren't yet completed. with the election clearly the agreement is on hold until the president-elect can lay out his trade priorities going forward. he could start there, for example. >> this is maybe getting more specific but tpp was meant to tackle some of these 21st century issues. digital trade is a big issue.

that was going to be the platform to get countries to prohibit prohibitions on data flows and requirements for this. would tpp sort of in the purgatory, or maybe even dead at this point, what other forums -- are there other forums the issue can be addressed? is there something you all can do in congress that the republicans in congress will do to push these business priorities forward. >> so, just as at the wto level and bill hall round, if you can't find agreement in larger groups, then you try to find it, the coalition of the willing. sort of the phrase soft countries that want to go further on trade areas especially in the regulatory area and cross flows of data and other areas really critical, because the trade barriers today

aren't just limited to the old here is our tariffs at the border, here are the barriers at the border, it's more sophisticated than that. one of the many things i liked about trans-pacific partnership is that it went beyond the borders and really created a process where in the past countries, sort of like putting an american plug into a european socket, they are designed not to connect. the tpp was the first agreement in a significant way that connected those markets on regulatory side, digital side, a number of areas that allowed our companies to connect with those markets and compete on a level playing field. i'm hoping that continues, tpp. but if that agreement is not to be, then we ought to be looking for other vehicles to tackle the same issues. >> now, jennifer, a lot of focus was placed on hillary clinton's

shifting stance on tpp through the election. but if someone who worked closely with her, i want to focus on the future and whether you see her vision for economic statecraft having a place in this future administration. so how do you see this incoming administration approaching its economic relationship with the asia-pacific, with china? do you think it will be a more transactional-type relationship, or will there be as we had under administration bigger picture look at the geo strategstrategi implications involved in the region. >> donald trump said a lot of things on this campaign. my guess is not as good as many of ours, odds on how much of that will come to pass. so maybe just to speak a bit to what i would hope to see under any administration. that is putting trade in its proper context.

speaking candidly, i think a lot of the problem right now is americans generally and hard truths to my party, democrats in particular have pursued international economic agenda divorced from domestic economic agenda that we're pretty clear on at home, at least, on the left. we support large companies without going after tax havens that keep their profits abroad. we allow ourselves to sort of be on our back feet around investing in new tech like solar without going after the chinese dumping that really puts solar out of business. i think there's a similar story to be told there with how tpp has been constructed and the design choices that reflect the priorities that it was built around. these deals are hard. i've served in the u.s. government long enough to know that. i'm not here to monday morning quarterback tpp, but i do think

the american people are skeptical about whether their interest and interest of middle class families are being put firmly at the center as the litmus terrorist of trade, good or bad. i think even good faith efforts that the obama administration has pursued. these deals have not come to pass in the way we expected by best of itc estimates, partisan or bipartisan estimates. until we really have our arms around how to model trade, how to get a sense of the predictive impacts, certainly better than we saw, of course, which was meant to be the model for tpp, i don't blame anybody. >> so when it comes to china, this administration has, by some accounts, taken a pretty hard stance on trade cases and trying to get china to address some of its issues like subsidies and overcapacity. do you think this relationship

is going to suffer in the next administration, there will be even more acrimony that the cases -- not just cases but what has been promised in terms of tariffs and things like that will really just make the relationship unproductive or do you hope for a real attempt to address overcapacity and things that have really dogged their relationship? >> so i want to be clear. i don't think that ustr in the past eight years has been sitting on cases they could be bringing. by and large the problem is we don't have the tools to fit the abuses that we're seeing today. so point number one should be to invent those tools. that's going to take legislation. i hope we're pushing on an open door and rewriting section 301 to keep up with the sort of shape shifting qualities that a lot of the chinese abuses are taking. i would take away sovereign

immunity, if chinese company can be private one day and next day i'm pretty sure our most nimble trade tools are not going to get ahead of that. it's not just a matter of bringing new cases and using the rules we have, we need new rules. point number one. and you know, i quite suspect that a new trump administration may not be patient enough to allow those tools to be conceived around legislation. in fact, may well be in a situation where tariffs look like the more preferable choice. i'm not sure that i would go down that road, at least in the broad across the board way he's been suggesting. but i do want to remind everyone that as deficit country, united states holds the reins of adjustments. i think we should begin to think a little creatively how we use that leverage. it shouldn't look a whole lot different than japan in the '80s where we did wrestle the japanese to some kind of agreement.

that was at the most basic level about a desire for them to repatriate their surplus in the form of investment and we said, okay, but going to take the form of factories employing americans. that's the way we have to do those plans this way we do today. i don't see those chinese factories. >> so we have any time for one or two questions, but before we get to that, i just wanted to ask one quick question of the chairman. with this focus on enforcement by the president-elect, do you foresee any sort of work with him, with the administration on trade enforcement legislation? any type of new ideas floating around there? >> sure. look, both parties, i think, agree on strong enforcement. mr. trump ran on the strongest enforcement of the two candidates in one, and i think most people agree that was a convincing part of that -- of his support nationwide.