korea, and iran. on north korea, bolton said a third summit meeting between president trump and kim jong-un is entirely possible. [ applause ] >> thanks for joining us. >> glad to be here. >> we have a g20 meeting coming up in a few days in osaka, japan. china is going to be a big topic. we're in a trade spat, some would say a trade war, at the moment with china. we have concerns about their militarization in asia, south china seas particularly. what do we hope to accomplish regarding china at the g20? >> i think the first thing is not to have excessive expectations about anything that happens at g20 meetings. they are a forum for people to have probably the more important bilateral meetings. in that sense, it's not too different from the opening of the u.n. general assembly. it's not that people are going for the thrill of the u.n.

it's because you can speed date with other foreign leaders and put a lot of meetings together. but with respect to some of the meetings that we expect the president to have with xi jinping, with vladimir putin, these are opportunities to meet on some critical issues that have potentially very important time. with xi jinping, i don't have any doubt that the overall trade issue will be the dominant topic, but there are a lot of other issues to discuss as well. you know, we'll see how it develops as we pin the meetings down, figure out how much time we have, talk to the representatives of the other countries, see what their priorities are, and work it together. >> yeah. the chinese model of stealing technology, subsidizing their homegrown enterprises, then fielding those enterprises to the world as kind of world beaters, as well as their

militarization in south china seas and other parts of asia seems to be working. why would they necessarily want to change that model? >> well, it's working to an extent. although, i think a lot of chinese economic statistics are overstated, and i think a lot of the issues within the economy are still hidden. i don't think there's a lot of transparency. so successful, of course, when you abandon marxism to a certain extent, you're going to have a lot of progress over a period of time. i don't think every economic statistic they claim to have is necessarily accurate. i do think the central insight that we're operating under that president trump has emphasized is that the ability to project strategic force in asia or around the world for them depends critically on their economy. with an economy that's been based over the years on theft of intellectual property, forced

technology transfer, discrimination against foreign investors, these trade talks that we've been in are not what i'll call kind of classic wto trade talks. i'll lower tariffs by 10% on good "x" if you lower tariffs by 15% on good "y." those are the subissues being discussed. the real issues are the structural issues. will china establish a legal enforceable system that protects intellectual property for foreign businesses and entities? can we count on them to enforce that? and what will be the mechanism to bring back into effect if they don't? that's why these talks are so complicated. >> those are great goals, and those have been goals for three decades of negotiating with china, as you well know. but it's not the china model. they rely upon the theft of that intellectual property and

forcing companies to transfer their -- >> but that's why this is such a critical point and why we in the west as a whole have to reassess many of the assumptions that we've operated under, at least since china joined the wto. i remember vividly 20 years ago the experts saying if you let china into the wto, the pressure to comply with international norms will change their system, will change their model. >> we were wrong about that. >> and they'll do all these things. wrong. they looked at the wto. they mastered its complexities. they've dominated it. they've abused it, and they've grown far wealthier without changing their basic model, number one. and number two, and this was a mantra that went on well before joining the wto. it went on since the '80s and '90s. if china's economic advancement and modernization proceeds,

there will be an inevitable democratization of chinese society. i remember -- i can hear people telling me this year after year. you know, they're really highly competitive elections in china, and it will grow from the village level to the province level, and then the national level. that will all come when borch wau capitalism dominates china. you now have an authoritarian leader in xi jinping, who's widely acknowledged to be the most powerful chinese leader since mao. so two critical elements that underlay western economic policy with respect to china have been shown to be fundamentally wrong. >> yeah, but are the tariffs -- i mean, i think there's bipartisan support for something being done about china and the tariffs are maybe a step in that direction. but are they having any effect on what, again, has been a very successful model for china? and you have to ask yourself, if you're xi jinping and running

the communist party, do you want to mess with that because it's working? it's a huge patronage system for him. why change that model just because the united states has put some tariffs on me? >> because i think it's had an enormous economic impact inside china. i think the prospect of more tariffs or continued tariffs has had a significant element on the thinking of foreign corporations and others who have put elements of their supply chain inside china. and i think the chinese leadership was shocked that president trump put these tariffs in effect. i remember -- i'm an old arms control negotiator. there's a "far side" cartoon. of course, they don't have those anymore. but it was a picture of cavalry fort in the old west, you know, wooden stockade, cavalry soldiers looking at the indians circling the fort, firing arrows that are fire arrows so the fort is starting to burn. one soldier turns to the other and says, hey, the indians are

firing fire arrows at us. are they allowed to do that? so the chinese said, hey, they've put tariffs on us. how did that happen? that is the kind of attention getter that i think we can say in hindsight here was absolutely necessary to get the attention of the chinese leadership, and it has their attention. >> yeah, so if one global power sees another global power on the rise, inwe have thevitably this conflict. athens, sparta. >> i think this is absolute nonsense. the idea that what happened in ancient greece is suddenly dictating what happens to us now, it's just -- there is no trap. there is the rise of china that has to be dealt with. >> so xi jinping ultimately does what? how does this play out? what does xi jinping do to satisfy u.s. demands?

>> well, i think they're still absorbing the fact that we're not accepting that they get to play by different rules. i mean, you cannot say that we're living in a free trade world when one of the major economic powers is pursuing unabashedly m unabashedly mercantilist policies. you can't say that somehow donald trump is violating principles of free trade when he's trying to deal with an economic power that couldn't care less about free trade. now l the chinese change that? i don't know. but are we going to live with it forever? you know, is the argument, well, my goodness, you can't do this, you can't do that because china holds all this u.s. debt. that sort of formulation, which we've heard for years, is a path to surrender. i just think that's been a mistake, and i think president trump has reversed that. so as you play that out, it's

really now for the chinese to say, geez, they found out about us. and now what are we going to do? >> yeah, or the chinese do what they've done, which is play rope-a-dope, wait it out, another election, another president, another round of negotiations. >> good luck with that. let's put it this way. if president trump wins, which we're certainly planning on, do they think they're going to get better terms in the second term? i wouldn't count on that. >> let's turn to russia. russia meddled in our election. you brought up the notion that this was an act justifying war, a serious act on the part -- >> i said as a private citizen, it was an attack on the constitution. >> yes, you did. they continue to meddle. they meddle not just here but in europe and other parts of the world. have we done enough as far as russia's concerned? have we been tough enough with them to stop this? evidently the meddling continues. >> well, i think we're doing a

number of things, and i think we had to act against the history of passivity and inaction on the part of the previous administration. so one of the things that we did that i can't talk too much about because it's all classified, but we issued a new national security presidential memorandum number 13 that fundamentally changed the way the united states government makes decisions about offensive cyber operations to free up our capabilities across the board to engage in more offensive cyber activities. the purpose of which is to say to russia or anybody else that's engaged in cyber operations against us, you will pay a price if we find that you're doing this. and we will impose costs on you until you get the point that

it's not worth your while to use cyber against us. so this is, in the cyberspace sense, creating structures of deterrence. one way you avoid conflict is to convince your potential adversary that they'll lose a lot more than they stand to gain. i think we did that, frankly, pretty successfully in the context of the 2018 election. and i think we're out now looki beyond the electoral context to a whole range of other activities to prevent this kind of cyber interference in election campaigns where it's certainly a very high priority but in the economic space as well. >> but the cyber interference continues from russia, does it not? >> sure. we have not in six or eight months fully established the conditions of deterrence we want. and it's not a game that ever ends either. >> yeah. >> so the activities continue. and i would say it's not just russia that's engaged in these activities. china, if you recall the vice

president's speech about six or seven months ago about chinese influence operations in our country, very important speech. i'd urge everybody to read it if you haven't. that has continued, and we continue our responses to that as well. >> yeah, this was an issue, the cyber offensive initiative was notable. you can't get into the details of it, as you say -- >> i'd love to, by the way. >> but give us a rough idea of what this means. what do you mean when you say take a more offensive -- >> i'll just speak hypothetically. so let's say there's an entity out there that's trying to interfere in american elections. an offensive campaign means preventing them from doing that. destroying their capabilities, doing something else. and it doesn't have to be completely symmetrical. in other words, to respond to efforts in cyberspace to disrupt elections, our response doesn't have to be only in cyberspace. so we're looking at really the full range of things we can do.

>> this is a -- russia is a delicate issue for the president. there's been criticism of him that he's underplayed the russian interference in the u.s. election because he's concerned that acknowledging it might delegitimize his electoral victory. is that a factor playing into what we're doing with russia? is that holding us back from being tougher? >> i don't think it has, and i think the mueller report has now demonstrated there was no russia collusion. fing y i think if you look at the range of sanctions the administration has imposed on russia in a variety of areas, it's been very tough. we have stood up against russian violations of the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty. we've withdrawn from it because the way it was for years, particularly under the last administration, the u.s. and russia were the only two countries banned by the inf treaty if the whole world. china was never banned. iran, north korea never banned. two countries banned. russia was violating it. that means under that treaty,

one country, one country was limited by the inf treaty. we're living in it. so we got out of it. that was quite a blow, i think, to russia's strategic framework as well. >> let's move to iran for a minute. the iaea says that iran is increasing production of enriched uranium. what's the line for the -- i don't want to use the word red line, but let's use the word red line. what's the line of limitation that the u.s. feels iran simply cannot cross before some else c -- escalated action by the united states is needed? >> well, i think iran has already crossed a lot of lines in terms of violations of the iran nuclear deal. i think the iaea has another report that's just come out that talks about their violation of the limitations on the use of more advanced, more sophisticated centrifuges, the mechanisms used to enrich uranium. we see them preparing by july

the 8th, according to iran, blowing past a number of the limits you mentioned on storage of reactor-grade enriched uranium, heavy water, and on the limit, one of the most important limits, that they would not enrich beyond reactor grade, moving toward weapons grade. i think they've demonstrated that they still -- they certainly have not made a strategic decision to give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons. i think the president's decision to withdraw from the treaty, from the deal, and to impose economic sanctions has had a devastating effect on the iranian economy. and i think we're going to continue to pursue that. >> so what's the end game? how does this -- >> iran gives up the pursuit of nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, terrorist activities, and other malign activities in the region. >> and why would they give up nuclear weapons if they see it as an empowering tool for their own self-survival? >> among other reasons, they agreed to it and lied about it.

so we have now imposed costs upon them that even our friends in europe said unilateral sanctions won't have an effect. they've had a devastating effect on iran. >> north korea, similarly, how does that end? >> north korea gives up nuclear weapons. >> but kim sees that as, again, as the ultimate empowerment of his regime. he wants to remain the leader of north korea. the one way you do that is have nukes as a deterrence against the united states. >> the president in defiance of a lot of the conventional wisdom has held two summit meetings with kim jong-un. he's given him a vision of what north korea could look like, the economic future it could have. he's talked about what a great location north korea has, all that seacoast, all those resort possibilities, great economic future. he's held the door open. all they have to do is give up the pursuit of nuclear weapons. >> are they abiding by the agreement reached in singapore?

>> well, what they've said was that they're not going to test ballistic missiles, intercontinental range ballistic missiles, or nuclear -- have nuclear tests. that's continued. they're doing a lot of other things that still indicate they have not made a strategic decision to give up the pursuit of deliverable nuclear weapons, whichs why we continue the maximum pressure campaign. >> yeah, another summit? >> sure, i think it's entirely possible. i mean, really, kim jong-un holds the key. >> is that in the cards? is there a discussion of another summit? >> well, we're ready when they are. so it's any time they want to schedule it. >> so your boss, the president, has dialed back some of the comments that you've made on north korea and iran, notably where they recently had some missile tests. you said it was in violation of their agreements. >> it was in violation of u.n. security council sanctions, which i know because i wrote the first one in 2006. >> right.

so this has a long history. the president said, well, i don't know, maybe they shot off a couple lesser weapons. when that kind of disagreement happens, does that signal to our rivals disco rivals discome bobulation in foreign policymaking in the united states and to our allies? >> i don't think it's really disagreement. he was talking about the pledge he thought he had from kim jong-un not to test icbms, which is true. they haven't tested it yet. but you know, we have -- it's not surprising, we have substantial reason to believe that north korea, iran, venezuela, russia and china have made a decision to -- and you can see it publicly, to try to sow disinformation about the administration and so say that the president, his advisers are divided and things like that. we've got the foreign minister of iran talking about the "b"

team, which i'm happy to be included in with bb netanyahu -- >> but this is the wall street and "the new york times." >> that's my point. the stenographers of these regimes and the american press immediately pick it up. >> that's not fair. >> no, it's not, actually. i'll give you an example. i was in japan recently when the president met the emperor and prime minister abe. i had a cold. so i didn't go to this formal dinner. that was duly noted in "the new york times" like sort of kremlinology. bolton's absence at the dinner was noted. well, noted by "the new york times" and cnn. i was asleep trying to shake my cold, but they didn't bother to ask about that. >> but the president has a different take on foreign policy than you do at times. and there are disagreements, and it's in public. does that shake up our allies and adversaries, or is that just part of the game? >> here's a hidden truth.

there are disagreements within allied governments on foreign policy too. that's how it works. the president, in our system, makes the final decisions. i like to say, and it's completely act rat on the national security adviser. i'm not the national security decision maker. and i think everybody understands how that works. so there's no discome boblation at all. >> i want to go to questions in a second, but before i do, venezuela. our efforts, the u.s. efforts to have a regime change there with maduro haven't come to pass yet. how does that get resolved? >> well, i remain very confident that the opposition in venezuela reflects the overwhelming views of the venezuelan people. i think the chavez/maduro regime has driven venezuela into the ground economically. it's a great tragedy for the people of venezuela. i think within the regime itself, the leadership is

fractured. i think it's like a bunch of scorpions in a bottle. they each look at each other, they don't trust each other. so the present situation is unsustainable. in the meantime, we'll continue the economic pressure. over 50 governments around the world have recognized the maduro regime as illegitimate, recognized juan guaido as the legitimate interim president, and i think ultimately the popular will in venezuela is going to prevail. >> but the scorpions also realize that best to support each other and -- >> i don't think the scorpions are in charge. i think the cubans are in charge. i think if the 25,000 cubans in venezuela disappeared, if we could wave a magic wand, maduro would be gone by midnight. >> let's go to our poll question, if we could, before we get to questions and answers. compared to previous years, i believe the u.s. is now, a, more security internationally, b,

less secure, c, no change. so while we're waiting for the results from that, i'm happy to also take questions from the audience for ambassador bolton. questions about china, russia. >> you asked all the questions. >> let me ask you, while we're waiting for the last of the results to come in, on mexico, is this going to be sufficient, in your mind, another 6,000 troops on the southern border trying to keep the migrants from coming across from central america through mexico up to the u.s. border? this is something the mexicans no doubt have been doing in the past. they've had escalations in the past. is this going to be sufficient to stop that migration pattern? >> i don't think you can say for certain. i think it's going to be monitored over time. i think what people have to

understand is that if the ultimate result of coming to the united states and trying to get in illegally will fail that the number of people who do it will drop precipitously. that's really what this is about. the argument about people coming across the southern border is really about people who are coming from central and south america. under the international refugee conventions and others, if you cross -- if you're a citizen of guatemala and you cross into mexico and seek asylum, mexico is the country of first asylum. they've got the responsibility to make a decision. it's not the united states. you don't get to walk to the country you want to go to to claim asylum. there's a whole cluster of things that need to be changed in our immigration policy, some of it by statute, some is being done by regulation. really, it's also mexico in this case meeting their international

responsibilities. and that's what these talks were about. i'm sure there are going to be more talks that follow. >> here's your report card. more secure internationally, 63%. did i see there was a question back here? yes, please. >> sir, i'd be interested in -- excuse me. is there anything more you can share with us on sieber? your comments about cyber, i assume, were aimed at state supported. is it also on the commercial side, anything you can share with our cfos on the commercial side? >> yeah, well, a lot of the activity that we're focused on is state-related activity from the usual suspects. china, russia, iran, and north korea. and their activity has been directed not only against u.s. government activities but against many, many private firms as well. the hacking of sony pictures and that sort of thing. so what we're trying to do now is catch up from a position of

very, very passive levels of activity over a sustained period of time, which passivity, i think, has only encouraged the internal authorities to allow our cyber-capable entities to go forward and developing the strategy as we go. we thought the response in cyberspace against electoral meddling was the highest priority last year, so that's what we focused on, but we're now opening the appeerture of broadening the areas we're respected to open in. >> any others? yes, right here. >> i'd like to go back to

venezuela and alaska and strategically what must we be prepared to do, looking at that area of the world, since it's on our doorstep? and colombia, which appears to be more stable. >> the refugees in venezuela puts more of a burden on colombia. a gave a speech in early november last year where i talk about the troika of those that are lenkinked together. i think if maduro falls in venezuela, that will put a real strain on cuba and nicaragua as well. that's important because i think there are external powers that want to have a role in venezuela and our hemisphere. that's why talking about the monroe doctrine again is appropriate.

venezuela has the largest reserves of uranium in the world, maybe second to canada depending on your estimate. it makes it a prime target which is operating in venezuela today. russia and china have enormous debts owed to them by venezuela as the company has collapsed economically. they've taken advantage of it. there are russian and china military forces still in venezuela today and their debt gives them more power. the one way to return venezuela to the people of venezuela rather than these external forces is to pay attention to venezuela as well. i tell you, unlike years past, the other governments in the hemisphere by and large, some exceptions, by and large are

very supportive of what we're doing. in brazil, argentinargentina, c colombia, central america, they see the threat posed by what's happening in venezuela and they've been very supportive of the opposition. they are on their own, and we have worked together with the lima group, with the organization of american states, i think, to put together a very effective coalition to try and resolve the situation. >> other questions? if not i have one more. so the president just completed a state visit to britain. i was struck by the queen's toast at the dinner with president trump. you may disagree with this, but i think she was trying to kind of lecture the president a bit on history. and here's what the queen had to say. it's up on the screen. after the shared sacrifices of the second world war, britain and the united states worked with other allies to build an

assembly of international institutions to ensure that the horrors of conflict would never be repeated. while the world has changed, we are forever mindful of the original purpose of these structures. nations working together to safeguard a hard-won piece. that was an interesting comment to me. it kind of felt like she was giving a nudge to the president who has been critical of allies at various times, has denigrated the eu, the native alliance, he's pulled out of the discord, nato and the tpp. in your opinion, does the president recognize alliances and institutions in safeguarding a hard-won international piece? >> of course he does. maybe the queen was talking about brexit. the british people just voted 52% to get out of the european union. maybe she was being critical of that. on tpp, this topic comes up all

the time. everybody here remembers in the campaign, i'm sure, that hillary clinton also said she was going to get out of tpp, right? don't we think she would have kept to her word? doesn't she always do that? so in the 2016 election, it was baked in the cake we were going to get out of tpp. it's hardly a criticism. let's take nato. barack obama called other nato members who weren't lifving up o their commitments to spend 2% of gdp on defense. he called them freeloaders. was barack obama berated by the american media for dissing our allies and undervaluing our alliances? the answer to that is no. in comes donald trump and says, hey, in 2014 in cardiff, wales, unanimously every nato member said we will commit by 2024 to spend 2.0%, at least, of our gdp on defense. and he said, hey, we all agreed

to this voluntarily. why don't you meet that commitment? oh, my god, what shock to say they have to do what they've already agreed to voluntarily. it's just outrageous. the man doesn't care about our alliances. right now because of what the president has done on that point, nato's secretary general stoltenburg estimates that total nato spending above where we were when the president came in has increased over $100 billion, real money spent for real defense. isn't that the standard proof that they believe the alliance is important? >> thank you very much. >> thank you. the house oversight committee is currently on a lunch break, but members are expected to return shortly. their meeting today over a citizenship question. the administration is adding to the 2020 national census.

at 4:00 p.m. eastern members plan to vote on holding attorney general william barr and commerce secretary wilbur ross in contempt of congress for ignoring committee subpoenas for documents on how the question came about. so until this hearing gets underway, we'll take you back to the "wall street journal" cfo conference to hear remarks from education secretary betsy devos. >> secretary, thank you for being with us here today. >> thank you, lauren. it's a pleasure. >> i took a lot of heads of companies, hrs and executives and they all talk about the skills shortage. it's not just about low employment. this came up six years ago when employment was around 9%. they tell us they can't find the people they need for the work that needs to get