information quickly and rapidly. nering all thepart time. we see that with rant somewhere and if we do not partner we will lose the battle as again -- as opposed to gaining footing. >> you also manage a database that solicits information from the general public. it is our national reporting mechanism. we get tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands within a week and we get that information rapidly, but we do not get enough so cyber reporting is underreported so we are helping to get a better optic into the trends. thank you so much for joining me and now i will be joined by my colleague onstage. thank you so much. [applause]

[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] >> good morning. terroristging from attacks, cyber security, to national disasters like hurricane matthew that is

heading our way now. the president likes to call her doctor doom. prior to going to the white house she spent 15 years at the department of justice and the fbi where she helped to shift focus after 9/11 to preventing terrorist attacks on the united states and she started the cyber prosit -- terrorist prosecutors program. a reminder to the audience to cyber questions here #wp and i will get your questions at the end of our discussion here. lisa, you brief president obama every morning on national security threat. how have they evolved over the past three and a half years? are you seeing more threats in a cyber domain now than terrorism? >> i am certainly seeing a lot more cyber information and cyber threats that are figuring

prominently in the briefing. every morning the president receives something called the president's daily brief which is a briefing delivered from the director of national intelligence giving an overview of what has happened in the world overnight, what are the strategic issues we are concerned about from the intelligence community's perspective and what are the biggest threats and concerns to .ur security at we are facing i anticipate and that meeting along with the national security advisor, the vice president and a few others and so we meet every morning with the president and we go through this set of concerns and we also have an opportunity in that meeting to raise to the president the things that are on our own mind and things i think he needs to know and be concerned about and what i have found in the three and a half years i have been in this position is that cyber a greaterve consumed

and greater portion of the piece of the briefing that i do and the issues i am raising. issues will always be terrorist attacks here's at -- here at home, issues like ebola, hurricanes.cerns, increasingly over time and over the three and a half years i find myself almost on a daily basis talking to him about some cyber threat issue and the fact, what i have noticed is i have been struck by the breadth of facing, thewe are range of actors we are concerned about from nation states like russia, iran, north korea, to tivistse actors like hac and your garden-variety criminal actors and another thing featured prominently in the

briefing has been the range of tactics that we are seeing. gone are the days -- not completely gone, but added to issues like denial of service attacks has been the increasing willingness of aggressive actors to use destructive attacks in the cyber realm like we saw with the north korean attack on sony oftures to something that is great concern to me and others focused on the issue which is, how can we be certain of the integrity of the data that we hold and are responsible for. increasingly i think that will be the near, midterm, and long-term concern. >> integrity of data such as the data flowing through our election machines. is that high on your list right now? >> most certainly. we are focused on and you have heard myself and others talk

about this in the last several weeks. we are always going to be tocerned about cyber threats our systems, critical systems, critical infrastructure and we have seen the efforts at probing state election systems and the state election infrastructure. what people need to know about is that our voting infrastructure, our election infrastructure is really quite resilient. what do i mean by that? it is owned, operated, administered, and managed by states, by localities, down to the county and municipal level. it is not a federal government entity, it is incredibly diffuse and diversified. that is a good thing from a cyber security perspective because there is no single one point of failure. there is a tremendous amount of resilience and checks and

balances in our system, the oversight from the state officials, the media when it comes time to elections, etc. there is great deal of resilience in the election system and people should be quite confident in it. wiredaid, we exist in a world and we know there are actors trying to breach our defenses across the board. so what we have been doing along with the department of homeland security and others in the government has been trying to make available to state officials and to election resources,xpertise, to bolster their defenses for their voting machines, voter rolls, and i was pleased to see that last week we had a bipartisan letter from the congressional leadership in congress from the majority and minority leaders in both chambers of the senate and the house who wrote a letter to the governor's and to state election officials indicating that we

need to be vigilant and that the federal government and department of homeland security can provide assistance. >> have you seen any efforts by any actor in particular, nationstate such as russia to manipulate data going through the voter registration systems are other systems tied to the election? >> director komi has spoken to this and obviously my former colleagues of the fbi are very focused of responding to and assisting states with indexed occasions when they do experience speeches or other inclusions. has said we have seen a lot of probing and efforts to get -- we have not seen indications of manipulation. >> are you looking at, do you think there has been -- is there an effort by another nation state such as russia to try to

cast doubt on the legitimacy of our election process? >> i think we will be concerned when we are talking about cyber threats on critical systems, whether it is our power grid or on our election systems or the saw myal sector, you former colleagues at the justice department not to long ago indicted a number of iranian actors for cyber attacks on the dam in new york as well as our financial sector. we have to be concerned about nonstate actors trying to breach our critical systems whether to generate insight for their use use later or to develop a greater intelligence picture to use in the future or to sow doubt or confidence in our systems and my message is we have to be confident in our election system, our democracy

in the form of its systems and those literal systems that we have in place and in our greater democratic system at large is much stronger than anyone of these actors. >> thank you. your background is in counterterrorism. let's talk about how you have tried to take the lessons learned from that and apply them to the cyberspace which you have done in the last few years. area -- my career largely as a prosecutor at the justice department and in the fbi focusing on national security issues. we learned that as a country and a government after 9/11 that we needed to shift our focus and our imagination and prioritization of the terrorist threat and i think we did that effectively and we needed to reorganize ourselves and

integrate our information and unity of effort around making sure our law enforcement and intelligence services had the same information and had a greater picture of the threat and that we had an ability to respond quickly and actually -- agiley and effectively to terrorist threats. and on it -- and i would argue to the great credit we have done that effectively. we are applying the lessons in the cyber realm. >> how are we doing that? >> by prioritizing and recognizing the threat that malicious cyber activity pros -- proposes. thehe beginning of administration he labeled the cyber threat one of the greatest national security and economic .ecurity threats that we face naming it and prioritizing it for the administration. in terms of integrating our

information we did something about two years ago in applying one of the great lessons we learned in the counterterrorism realm to cyber. after 9/11 we created the national counterterrorism sector, one place where personnel came together under one roof to share information. as policymakers we all had the same picture, the same dots that everyone refers to pre-9/11 to connect all of the threats that we understand -- that we face. everyone that is critical in the president's national security team is seeing the same information every morning about terrorist threats. >> is that helping you to make faster decisions on who is responsible and maybe what to do about it? >> what we did is up until about

two years ago we did not have one place in the government that did the same thing for cyber threats so we created something called the cyber threat intelligence information center and we brought together all of into onests or experts place that could fuse the information we had about cyber threats so policymakers like myself and others have one critical picture and what that says, what do we understand to be the greatest threats and how should we be understanding it? what are the options for policymakers to act to disrupt the threats? and the other lesson we applied in the terrorism realm we apply all tools. what is the best tool at our disposal to disrupt a particular threat? , militaryosecution action, a diplomatic overture? we are doing the same thing in the cyber realm and you have

seen that play out. >> i would like to talk about that because it is almost the end of the administration and clearly this administration has incrediblesome evolution of the cyber threat coming at you every day. there are critics that say the obama administration just doesn't have a coherent determent -- deterrent framework. sony, now, we see russian hacking of the dnc. how do you respond when they say there is no explicit deterrent framework? do you think maybe you are doing it on a case-by-case basis were you have an event such as chinese economic cyber ash -- espionage and maybe you respond with indictments or with sanctions? are you dealing with a defect oh system of red lines and

framework deterrence? >> i disagree with the critic that we do not have a strategy or a deterrent policy. it is this. one, we believe strongly that there needs to be a set of norms around cyber behavior and what you have seen is the president working very hard and very carefully over the last several years to build a set of norms and to build international support for a set of norms, things like countries should not attack another country's critical infrastructure with cyber means. another country should not economic cyber enabled espionage of intellectual property for theft and for commercial gain. so what are the -- countries should not engage in cyber operations for the purpose of

suppressing dissent, that is the set of norms we have worked very hard to put in place. when countries violate those norms there is an isolation of that country, there is an agreement that you can impose sanctions, maybe there is a consideration that there is an act of aggression if those norms are violated. there is a framework for their. in terms of the specific responses to specific activity you talked about a few cases. i would argue we very much put in place a framework and you have seen it in some of the cases he mentioned. we took a whole of government approach to a particular malicious cyber incident. you see it in the case of the north korean attack on sony pictures. what we did is we gather together all of the information we could weather from law enforcement or the intelligence community and combined that and understand it and reach a level of competence that yes it was

the north korean government that did this and then determined what can we say publicly about that activity that is not going to hurt our ability in terms of violating sources and methods are exposing sources and methods so we can use that in the future and if we level of competence -- confidence we can talk about it publicly in a way that does not and tonational security make that after bhushan is in our national interest we will do .o and we will respond we will respond in the time and place and manner of our choosing and we we do so we will consider a full range of tools, economic, diplomatic, criminal law enforcement, military and some of those may be public and some of them may not be. we did the same thing in the chinese case you mentioned. >> explain a little bit by what you mean by some of these responses not being public. >> there is a whole range of

tools one could use and you see it in the kinetic space, in other words in the non-cyber realm as well as in the cyber realm. there could be diplomatic responses that are private messaging, there could be intelligence operations, covertly hacking into north korea or iran or russian systems. imagination.en's >> there is a whole set of things one could do and not have to talk about it or announce. that is true in response to cyber activity, but that is true in response to intelligence operations of another country, military operations of another country, and we apply the same framework and law enforcement is also a tool. >> let me get back to the covert eye. let's see -- say you do

something secretly, but you want to let your adversary know that it is you say you put in some code that maybe disrupts their system just enough so that they know you have capabilities and they know it is you, but if the wider world does not know and other countries do not know, where is the public deterrent effect of that? what is the strategic impact? >> these are the kind of discussions you can imagine policymakers having around a situation room table. what is in our interest to do? is it in our interest to publicly attribute that activity , to name and shame if you will, to isolate that actor on the world stage, to garner international support to say sanctions or impose diplomatic costs. is it in our interest to publicly indict and use our as weal justice ross s did -- process as we did with

the chinese case. when i was the head of the national security division you reference the program we started, the national security cyber specialist program. a set of prosecutors focused on putting cyber prosecutions for national security cases. this is another lesson from the terrorism world. we built on a set of terrorism prosecutors that we established across the country posed 9/11 working -- post-9/11 working with task forces that the fbi has. a same idea in the cyber realm and we brought the case against five members of the pla. the point is you are calling out the activity and identifying it and naming it and showing that you can attribute that, identify of thectors, pictures chinese military members at the notoard and even if you do

physically get your hands on the actors and bring them to court they will not be able to travel because otherwise that warrant will be out for them and you have identified and called out the activity and i would argue it strengthens our hand in the dip -- diplomatic realm. you saw a diplomatic agreement reached with president xi almost exactly a year ago when he and signingington up to a set of agreements we are andtoring quite vigorously so these things speed into a trouble -- into each other. indictmentsap the on the members and you were about to impose economic sanctions. reported -- ebody and it would've in the first use of this new cyber tool created yearesident obama last which you still have not used. are you going to use it? >> i needed to have all of the

true and that our disposal which is some of the reasons we set up the sanctions regime. >> you did the indictments, you are going to do the sanctions, and as you noted xi came to the table and treated this agreement. how effective have these things been? are you seeing any change in behavior? >> i would characterize it this way come we have seen a diminishment in that behavior. however, i think this is something we have to be continually vigilant on and be very clear as we have been with the chinese that we expect adherence to this commitment, that we will continue to be watching for adherence to that commitment, and that we reserve the right to impose costs if we see the commitment is not being honored. >> so you may impose sanctions after all? you seem to have had success with china. what about russia?

russia has been in the news of , maybe a 400 pound person sitting on a bed -- in any case, there is strong evidence they hacked the democratic national committee. the intelligence community is looking into whether or not -- how intent they are on may be and influence operation in the united states around the election. why haven't you taken any public actions so far against russia? >> i will go back to the framework i was laying out which is to say, as you noted, the investigation and the understanding of the activity is ongoing between the fbi and the intelligence community. we are applying the same framework i laid out a few minutes ago with respect to sony and china. gathering the of permission and professionals have to do that and it will not surprise you to

know i will not get ahead of that on stage. gather it, reach a level of understandings, look together and decide -- and the intelligence officials do this, what can be said about that activity that does not compromise sources and methods in our ability to use those resources in the future and then decide is it in our interest to describe that activity. is the broader framework we apply as we did in china and we have done with iran and in other again, response tools on the table and some may be public and some may not be public. >> talk about some of the considerations that must be going through your mines -- i am sure there are diplomatic issues with russia and syria, political concerns, how much of a concern is it that we get closer to the election taking any public attribution could be seen as

politicizing? the seti would say is of concerns i laid out as we apply the framework are going to be the same in terms of general categories, is it in our , we will actct responsibly, proportionally, and do so in a time and place of our choosing. questions about are there other i think what you have seen in the cases that we did -- withn, china, etc. north korea, that the primary guiding and overarching focus in is about whatons is in the national security interest of the united states. that is the north star for those discussions. youast week at the csi mentioned no actor gets a free pass.

a congressman has said if the u.s. does not hold actors accountable in this case russia, it will only embolden them. what is your response? >> i absolutely understand that comment and what i would say and what i think we have been discussing is there is a whole range of tools at our disposal to apply to hold malicious actors to a count. you have seen us demonstrate that using military intelligence , law enforcement, diplomatic, economic sanctions. all of those are on the table and all of those get considered when we are talking about particular responses with respect to malicious actors generally not getting ahead of this particular case. >> i would be remiss if i did not ask a question i am sure is on the minds of many of the reporters here which is we have had chelsea manning in snowden

in 2015 and now comes the news of another arrest of the nsa contractor and this comes after the obama administration has taken steps to tighten controls to prevent the occurrence of -- classified information. what happened here and do you need more and if so, what more? what can you do to tighten controls? >> you are referencing the criminal complaint that was unsealed yesterday with regard to an nsa contractor. i will not comment on the specific case, criminal charges are in the public domain and your readers and the audience can look at those and the investigators and the criminal process will go on and i am sure we will learn more. what i will say is this is the type of activity we take exceptionally seriously.

the protection of national security and classified information. i would also say, because, as you mentioned these cases have been involved governor employees whether contractors or otherwise. the vast majority of the professionals serving in the intelligence community are patriots who have foregone lucrative salaries in other areas to work very hard to protect this country and i think folks should remember that. that said, what this case and others have pointed out is that we cannot completely guarantee that we can eliminate a determined -- the threat of a determined insider who is determined to steal information. that is a very hard challenge. as you notice what the president has been crystal clear about is the need to constantly review and learn from some of these instances true that is why you

saw the establishment of an insider threat task force after the chelsea manning and the wikileaks case and you saw last week the establishment of something called the national background investigations bureau setting up a set of standards and a modernization and strengthening of background checks. we have got to constantly apply a, lessons learned, b, vigorous security measures. we are in a wired world and it will get harder and harder. we are only as wrong as our weakest link and we have to be constantly understanding and applying new technology, are there other steps we can take? leadersidents and other in the administration and security realm take this seriously and are constantly looking at what more we can do. >> this contractor is suspected perhaps of also having stolen suppose it hacking tools used by the nsa to gather intelligence.

this is a potentially significant action. about thened are you potential damage to national security arising from the case? > without getting into the specifics of the case, there's a lot more we need to learn about that. responsible,ho is who said starting out this discussion to talk to the president every day about the threats facing our country, i'm exceptionally concerned about anything and anyone who would do something to jeopardize critical tools that we have and the tools that we use to keep this nation safe. tot is why i think we have cost only be reviewing what we are doing and applying new tools and new technology to it. >> we are four weeks out of the

election and julian assange has said that will be material on wikileaks before the election. what might we see from an october supply -- surprise? [laughter] >> there are several reasons that i won't speculate on that. one of the things irq do -- i do when i occupy my windowless office in the west wing is not get into politics six. i will continue that in this relatively windowless room as well. with that, i'm going to have to wrap it up. thank you for being here. andk you for our audience we will have clips from the program posted later. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

[indiscernible] >> hurricane matthew still packing quite a while as a category three storm, headline hurricane matthew lashes florida with 100 mile an hour wind, one dead and 600,000 lose power. mainly affecting florida and

south carolina. sing behindeeting isn't courageous, but could force others to be courageous for you. from blake farenthold from texas, saying the governor, governor abbott has announced that texans will send a team to florida to help the victims. ,rom the florida congressman kudos to journalists keeping us updated about hurricane matthew before, during, and after. rick scott saying that he won't extend the voting registration deadline in the state, singer not going to extended until the , everyone hasce had a lot of time to register, on top of that, we have a lot of opportunities to vote. early voting, absentee voting, and election day. i don't intend to make any changes. that's from rick scott in florida. president obama spoke about federal relief efforts this morning in the oval office. obviously,bama:

everyone has been tracking the course of hurricane matthew. i just received an update from our fema director as well as the rest of our national security team and i just wanted to make a couple of key points. isst, we are seeing now above southng moved florida. on top of some of the largest population centers working its way north. people wereern that having right now is the effect it could have in areas like jacksonville on through georgia. we have seen some significant damage in portions of south florida. i think the bigger concern at this point is not just hurricane force wind, but storm surge. many of you will remember

hurricane sandy, we're initially, people thought this doesn't look as bad as we thought. and then suddenly, you get massive storm surge and a lot of people were severely affected. i just want to emphasize to everybody that this is still a really dangerous hurricane. that the potential for storm , loss of life, and severe property damage continues to exist. people continue to need to follow the instructions of their local officials over the course of the next 24 to 72 hours. those of you who live in georgia i think should be paying there has beense a lot of ephesus on florida, but this thing is going to keep on moving north through florida to south carolina.

there are large population centers there that could be vulnerable. pay attention to what your local officials are telling you. if they tell you to evacuate, you need to get out of there and go to higher ground. storm surge can move very quickly and people can think they are out of the woods, and then suddenly get hit and not be in a position in which they and their families are safe. pay attention to local officials. in the meantime, i have been in contact with the governor's of all four potentially affected states. i want to thank them for their leadership. there has been strong cooperation between federal and state and local officials. fema has worked diligently to pre-position resources, assets, water, food, commodities and as the hurricane moves north, what craig and his team will be doing

is moving those resources and assets for the north so that any place that happens to get hit badly will be in position to immediately come in and help. i really want to emphasize the governors have been on top of this. state and local officials have been on top of this. they are the ones who are tracking most closely what is happening in your particular community in area. you need to pay attention to them and do what they say. do not be a hold out here because we can always replace property, but we can't replace lives. i want to thank craig and his whole team, as well as the department of homeland security and the national security team for really stay on top of this. we are to monitor this throughout the weekend. our thoughts and prayers are with the folks who have been affected.

even if the damage in south florida wasn't as bad as it could be, there are people who have been affected. and for them, they are going to need help. the last point i would like to make is we are still tracking what happens in areas like katie -- haiti, which were hit directly. haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world and has been consistently hit and battered by a lot of national disasters to compound was already great poverty there. we know that hundreds of people have lost their lives, and there has been severe property damage. they're going to need help rebuilding. to god ask all americans to the american red cross and agencies tothropic make sure that we're doing what we need to do to help the people in need.

we will continue to provide affirmation if you are interested in how you can help the people of haiti and others. you can go to whitehouse.gov and we will provide you direction in terms of where even the smallest contribution can really make a big difference. thank you very much, everybody. fema is a good position right now. ,e had some concerns last year when we were in the midst of budget negotiations. i think that we did a good job making sure that fema was properly funded and not to make them blush, but we are lucky to have craig fugate and his team, they know how to manage their money. and use it effectively. that's not what a be an issue. of course, we always want to because this about making assessments with respect to damage. we are still on the front end of

this hurricane. we are not on the backend. we don't know how bad the damage could end up. we don't know how severe the storm surge could end up being. for 3,not going to know 4, 5 days what the ultimate effect of this is. if we end up having really significant problems and really severe property damage, then the stafford act comes into play and our ability to provide through emergency declarations and other mechanisms more help to local governors. that's always what a question. as you know, we still have flooding in louisiana that has left a lot of people homeless. over 100,000 people lost their homes there. we still have to rebuild. there is a backlog of need from natural disasters around the country. that we would like hopefully

during the lame-duck session to figure out how to fight effectively. the issue is not so much fema's funding for immediate emergency response, the issue is going to inmaking sure that after this case, the hurricane, but in other cases, flooding or wildfires -- other natural disasters. after they have happened, are we in a position to properly help people rebuild? we will make those assessments after the fact. then we will talk to congress about how we can help out. thank you. [indiscernible] president obama: i'm not glad to go to the precinct. i will probably do early voting. i will fill up my form.

don't worry, i will be voting. i'm going to do some campaigning and voting to. thanks, guys. >> happening in washington today, the imf and world bank meetings. we hear from the head of the world trade organization, talking abouto, slowing growth in trade and the potential applications of a prolonged slowdown. he is speaking at the national press club in about 15, 20 minutes or so. we will take you there live at 1:00 eastern here on c-span. head of that, agriculture secretary tom bill sack and national drug control policy director michael botticelli discuss efforts to combat the opioid epidemic. they spoke of the washington ideas festival. mr. allen: well that's an easy act to follow. mr. botticelli: you got all the hard questions.

mr. allen: i want to talk to both of you about drug policy, but also about, more largely, the opioid problem, the abuse of opioids, prescription opioids. i want to start on a personal level. secretary vilsack, if i could ask you, nobody -- i shouldn't say nobody, but most people don't think of the agriculture department necessarily as the place where you would work on drug control policy. can you talk a little bit about why you've invested so much of your final year on that topic? secretary vilsack: i think there are two reasons. one, because this epidemic is ravaging rural areas that i care deeply about and it is most difficult in rural areas, because we have such a lack of treatment capacity in rural areas, so it's the people i care about that are being impacted. and it's personal. the reality is my mom suffered prescription drug addiction and alcoholism, and i understand a

little bit about the pain and agony that those addictions can cause. and i'm deeply concerned about the attitude that we collectively have in this country towards this issue. i will tell you that if there was another illness or disease that cost 28,000 lives, that cost the economy $25 billion of lack of production, that created $25 billion of unnecessary healthcare cost, i would believe that the congress of the united states would be falling all over itself to provide the resources to expand treatment and to deal with this issue. they have not done that and they need to do that. [applause] mr. allen: and this a bipartisan issue. when you're talking about rural america, you're not just talking about a democratic party that's more inclined to spend more on domestic legislation, domestic programs, you're also talking about a republican party with a lot of members who represent rural communities, who are fighting through this and i know chairman rogers of kentucky has dealt with drug use a lot in

terms of his [inaudible]. but we all see the shrinking budgets. how much is the budget a factor in our ability to treat this versus a lot of the other policy and individual challenges? secretary vilsack: that's nonsense. you fund your priorities. if you have 10 million americans who are currently misusing opioids, if you have 2 million americans that are addicted, 28,000 are dying, 44 percent of -- 44% of america knows someone personally that is abusing opioids. it is a massive problem. it needs to be a priority. the president has made it a priority in his budget, he has found the resources in his budget. he said this is a priority, we have to expand treatment capacity, we have to expand personnel, we have to expand prevention. congress has not yet made this a priority. and what's even more irritating is that they've passed [inaudible] the bill that basically authorizes --

essentially what we're doing now, basically says well continue to do what you're doing, but not providing any resource, or any real resource to implement that bill or any aspect of the president's budget. again, 28,000 people -- this is more than die in automobile accidents. what do we spend on highway safety every year? what do we spend on highway safety every year? what do we spend on trying to deal with the situation with gun violence? this is a huge problem that is destroying families, that is crippling our economy in many, many areas, many rural areas, in particular. it's got to be addressed. and, frankly, we've been dealing with -- michael has been dealing with this a lot longer than i have. but it is frustrating to hear politicians talk about this issue, but, you know, it's really time to fund it. mr. botticelli: i mean i would just chime in here and say, you know, not only is it appropriate in terms of the magnitude of the epidemic, but we can't afford not to do it, right. so why is it ok that we incarcerate someone for $50,000 a year, but yet we can't find

the resources to spend, you know, 1/10 of that on treating people? we know that this -- [applause] mr. botticelli: it is -- it's about -- it's about not just that we have the resources, but is this a priority? we know that substance use in general in this epidemic has taken a huge toll on our child welfare systems, on our healthcare systems, certainly on our criminal justice systems. and i do think that there is some level of bipartisan momentum to really look at reframing this issue as a public health issue, and not a criminal justice issue. but we can't -- you know, we can't afford to keep doing things the way that we're doing. secretary vilsack: this is -- i mean, this is a really big point he just made. you don't get to the public health debate and discussion until you recognize what this is and what it isn't. it is a disease. it's not a characteristic flaw, it's not a weakness, it's not something that someone with little will power can overcome. this is a disease and it has to be treated as such. if i came to you and said one of my two sons, we just found out he had cancer, you he would say, oh my, that's so sad, what can we do to help?

we need to be able to have that same attitude when someone comes to us and we need to empower them to come to us by saying i've got a family member who's addicted, or i am addicted, i need help. mr. allen: but were you seeing this from -- and i call you michael, because [inaudible] seems so formal. mr. botticelli: scary. to me, too. mr. allen: you come at this from the perspective of somebody who's battled addiction and you look at -- all the way up to the policy -- the policy level for the entire country. you're talking about somebody who wakes up in the morning, millions of people wake up in the morning with a craving that is stronger than their desire to eat, that is stronger than their desire to take care of their children, to go to work, to secure -- whatever it is, and we're talking about opioids here, but whatever the addiction is, it's that strong, all the way up to the doctors that are prescribing, who aren't making good choices about that, you're

talking about the criminal justice system that is punishing people for their addictions. what are the keys in terms of solutions for the future when we talk about treating this as a public health crisis? i think a lot of people are ready to do that, but what are the keys to trying to solve this problem in a holistic way, all the way up the chain from that person that wakes up struggling with the addiction to the policy maker [inaudible]? mr. botticelli: sure. so, first and foremost, i think we have to look at how do we prevent more -- particularly the opioid epidemic. and one of the main drivers of this epidemic has really been the vast over-prescribing of prescription pain medication in the united states. so -- and a lot of people have roles to play in that, the pharmaceutical industry has a role to play, but physicians have a role to play and, you know, so in 2013, we are prescribing enough pain medication in the united states to get every adult american their own bottle of pain pills. i'm sure many people in the audience and watching have their own experience. so part of our efforts have been to have more training for prescribers around safe and effective opioid prescribing. cdc just a few months ago released very prudent guidelines for prescribers in how to

prescribe these pain medications. but we also have to do a better job at intervening as people's use becomes more chronic. so we have been working diligently to establish state-based prescription drug monitoring programs so that you can identify people who might be going from doctor to doctor to be able to do this. we have been looking at disposal. we know people who start misusing pain medication get them free from family and friends. so we've been taught as good consumers, you know, if we get a prescription and when you don't need it, or only need a few, to just stick them in the medicine cabinet and we know that's often the start of problems. so we've been promoting disposal programs. but i will go back to what the secretary said. the biggest gap that we see, and the administration continues to do everything that we can is, you know, despite the advances of the affordable care act, providing addiction treatment, we know that there are too many people who don't get treatment in the united states. we just released data that show

only 11% of people with a substance use disorder are getting care and treatment for their disorder. 11%, and we know that those other people are over- represented in all the areas that we talked about. and so while we can do more, the president has been adamant about making sure that people who need treatment are able to get it and i, you know, i can't agree more with the secretary. just find it inconceivable that in the height of this epidemic, that congress -- not only did they not fund the bill that they passed, but have really not stepped forward in a meaningful way to make sure that people in all parts of the country have adequate access to treatment. mr. allen: mr. secretary, when you look at rural america, you look at the opioid abuse going on right now, and opioids aren't the only drugs that are being abused. [unknown]: we can't hear you. mr. allen: sorry. as you look at rural america and you look at all the abuse of

drugs going on right now, how much of that is driven by economics -- economic factors and the ability to see doctors, to have solutions in health that aren't necessarily tied to medication, how much of it was -- you know -- how much of it drives economic issues in rural america, where you have people who otherwise might be gainfully employed who are addicted and not? secretary vilsack: well, it is complicated everywhere in this country, but i think it's more complicated in rural areas. in part, the nature of work in rural areas makes it likely that you're going to confront a physical ailment or illness at some point in time, an injury, so you are likely to go to that physician. that physician may not have been adequately trained about proper pain management. other alternatives that may not be available, physical therapy may not be available. there may not be a hospital nearby. the second issue, of course, is that if you actually have a situation where someone needs treatment, there's no place to go. there are over 1,000 behavioral service centers in this country that are located to provide

services for those who have substance use disorder, over 1,000, only 25 of them are located in rural america. that's why the president has said, look, we need resources to be able to expand treatment. it's why he has asked the department of agriculture to be creative about the way we use our resources. you wouldn't think the department of agriculture is in the business of funding mental health clinics, but we have, over 80 of them, nearly a quarter of a billion dollars has been allocated towards that. you wouldn't think that we would use technology to link up remote rural areas for folks who are in need of help with experts who are located in urban centers through telemedicine. we just recently announced millions of dollars of grants in that space. but we need a significant infusion. it's not just one-off -- we need hundreds of these clinics, hundreds of these opportunities in order to get that 11% to a more acceptable rate.

mr. allen: your friend, secretary clinton, has talked about rural drug abuse on the campaign trail. has she made any commitments to you about what she would do as president vis-a-vis what president obama is doing or any other policies that you see forthcoming that might be helpful to her? secretary vilsack: it's hard to answer that question because this is an official event, so i have to be careful, very careful. here's what i will say. you cannot travel in any rural community in this country in any region of this country for any period of time without running into someone who will tell you a heart-breaking story about how their family has been wrecked by addiction. you just can't. and then when you talk to the professionals, if there are any in the community, you will learn how limited the resources are to deal with it. you will also learn how hard it is, particularly in rural areas, for people to acknowledge that they have an addiction. you know, it's a self-reliant, self-independent, real tough, we don't want our neighbors to know all of our problems. it's hard to break through that. so in addition to everything that michael indicated, in addition to budget, we also have to have our faith-based

communities, our community at large -- make it easier, make it acceptable, make it ok to talk about this as a disease, so that it's easier for people to seek help. i know in my mom's situation, she made the decision but, you know what, in that magic moment when she made the decision, she had a whole lot of help. she had a treatment center she could go to. she had multiple aa meetings that were available. she had sponsors that were there just a phone call away. she had a support of family. you don't necessarily find that in rural communities and that's why it's necessary for us to make this more of a priority than it has been. mr. botticelli: i also think that, you know, one of the things that we know is you can have -- you know, as much treatment capacity as you want, but fundamentally if we don't change the way that we perceive people with substance use disorders, we know shame and stigma plays a huge role in people not taking care and delaying care, contributing to really bad public policy and public laws. so that's why i think both of us talk very publicly about our own experience with this, because it

empowers other people to be able to talk openly and honestly about their own struggles. you know, secretary vilsack and i have talked to countless parents who just -- and i've got to give parents a lot of credit for how they step forward in this epidemic and are talking very openly and candidly about their struggles, about solutions to this, because, you know, we have got to create an atmosphere where it's acceptable and it's non-judgmental for people to ask for care in the united states. mr. allen: and michael, quickly, if i could, and secretary vilsack too, because we're running out of time here, are you finding that there is more openness and that there is less stigmatism over time and is that just simply something that's not happened fast enough? and what do you think folks here could do to try to de-stigmatize this disease? mr. botticelli: so, a couple of things, and you know, i -- i probably have a skewed perception of this, but i do think it's changing.

i do think that we're seeing people in recovery and parents being much more open and candid about their own struggles. i was actually just in philadelphia for -- september is recovery month and marching with 26,000 people in the streets of philadelphia. they talked openly and honestly about this issue. we just hosted -- secretary vilsack and i hosted in the roosevelt room, parents who have come together to talk about this issue. i do see it's changing. i think we have a long way to go. i still read too many articles where, you know, people feel like it's ok or question why we're reviving people from an overdose like really -- is that the best way we can spend taxpayer dollars? so we do have ways to go, but i do think that we have turned the corner in reframing this as a disease and not a moral failure. secretary vilsack: i'll just add, for folks in the audience, you need to ask some tough questions of local officials, do you have access to reversal drugs, so you can save lives? to your first responders, are

they equipped, if not, why not? are your schools thinking about ways in which they could create sober schools and sober locations so kids who are struggling with addiction in a high school don't necessarily have to be returned to the environment immediately after they seek treatment, that they are given at least some space to strengthen their ability and capacity to withstand the temptations that occur with any addiction? asking those kinds of difficult questions, asking members of congress, you know, what's up with no money, what's up with no treatment, why aren't we addressing this as aggressively as we've addressed zika, as aggressively as we've addressed ebola, other things that have been in the news? [applause] secretary vilsack: you cannot spend time with a mother or father or grandparent who has lost a son or daughter or grandchild, you cannot spend time with one of those families without being impressed with how much we have to do and how quickly we have to do it. there are lives -- 78 to 80

lives lost a day from this, not to mention the tremendous pain that families are suffering today of kids that they're scared to death -- you know, that they're going to open up that bedroom someday and their child's going to be gone. this -- we have to make this a national priority. we have to redefine this in terms of a disease, not a character flaw, and we have to have resources so that when that magic moment occurs, and it does, when you've got a decision to make, which direction you're going to go, you're in a position to get the help you need to save your life. mr. allen: secretary vilsack, micheal botticelli, thank you very much. secretary vilsack: thank you. mr. botticelli: thank you. [applause] >> the second presidential debate.

at 9:00 p.m., live coverage of the debate followed by viewer reaction with your calls, tweets, and comments. the second presidential debate, watch live on c-span. onnch -- watch live c-span.org. listen to live coverage of the debate on your phone with the free c-span app. here on c-span, was a you live to the national press club. all years green -- on your screen is the current president of the press club, introducing the head of the world trade ,rganization roberto azevedo who is talking about growth in global train -- global trade underweight. >> and wanted to offer congratulations to the winner of the nobel peace prize. he was the guest our club three years ago, where he talked about

ending the half-century civil conflict in his nation for which he won the nobel prize. now it's time to briefly to reduce our head table guest and ask each of you to stand briefly as name is announced. please hold your applause until i finished introducing the entire table. from your right, the foreign policy reporter for cq roll call. where feldman, a partner he is the head of the international trade practice. the embassy liaison for the ronald reagan building and international train center -- trade center. advisor to the director general. the former international bureau chief for the associated press, adjunct professor at george washington university school of media and public affairs and the 107th president of the national press club. tim hanson, chief of staff adviser to the jewish -- to the director general. , the 108th president of the national press club.

skipping over speaker, eric melzer, from the associate press and the press club speakers committee member who arranged today's luncheon. thank you. the spokesperson and director of information and external relations division of the world trade organization. the director of press and public affairs at the afghan embassy in washington. and the director of the china program at the eurasia center and vice president of eurasian business coalition. thank you all. [applause] >> just last week, the world trade organization announced the global trade for the year would be significantly lower than predicted. cutting its forecast to 1.7% down from 2.8% estimated last april. typically, trade grows 1.5 times faster than gdp. azevedo said the slowdown should serve as a wake-up call, particularly because of the lowering --

growing as a globalization sentiments. he did when he to make sure this is not translated and misguided policies that can make the situation much worse. public forum last week, he made his case for the importance of global trade and noted that the benefits don't reach as many people as they should. he said the proper response to that is to make international trade work better, not to tara bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. both presidential candidates in the united states have been critical of some trade deals with hillary clinton saying her views have shifted on the transpacific ownership when the final document did not meet her excitations. donald trump has gone further, saying quote these trade deals are disaster. you know, the world trade organization is a disaster. trump said if he is elected, he will pull the united states out of the w to. -- wto. sixtho azevedo became the

george general of the wto and some timber 2013 for a four-year term. as ambassador for pursuing government, his first posting was to washington in 1988. he will degree in direct -- in eligible engineering. -- electrical engineering. join me in welcoming roberto azevedo to the national press club. [applause] mr. azevedo: ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. i am truly delighted to be with you here today. very happy that we started this deliciouswith a brazilian typical dish. very thoughtful of you. thank you very much. to add my name to

the impressive list of speakers who have addressed the national press club over the years. monarchs,ncludes presidents, prime ministers, but also campaigners, thinkers, celebrities, and radicals. the argument going to make today has been made by many presidents and prime ministers over the years. in the current climate, it is actually beginning to seem radical. i'm here to make the case for trade. in doing so, i must say that i feel much better today than i did about a year ago. back then, it felt pretty lonely to talk about trade and the benefits of it. but now, i think the catchy and form into trade arguments we are hearing have encouraged others to speak up. let me say one thing up front.

i also believe that trade is imperfect. despite the obvious overall gains, he can have negative effects in some parts of the economy. and those effects can have a big impact on some people's lives. my argument today is that we must correct those shortcomings. when must work harder to spread the benefits of trade further and wider, and we must help those who have lost out or who have become marginalized. but we would be betraying those very same people and many more if we just turned against trade and allowed the negative arguments to go unanswered. america will be vital here. it was american leadership that opened the global economy to trade after the second world war. as a means of building a more peaceful and prosperous world. it is american leadership that can move us forward now.

the u.s. is, in large part, the author of the global trading system that we have today. and i believe that this should be a source of pride, because it has had a very positive impact globally. so let's look at the case for trade. accept thatsts trade has proved to be one of the most powerful program of an antipoverty tools in history. in recent decades, it has helped to lift one billion people out of poverty in developing countries. this is an historic achievement. trade has improved people's lives and livelihoods in developed countries as well. founds the world bank that income grew faster. in the u.s., estimate showed that the gains from

globalization have raised the real household income by of to $10,000 annually. fore means more choice consumers, it means lower prices, it means the dollar in your pocket goes further. companies that trade are more jobs payve, export more, between 13% 18% more here in the u.s.. at the same time, talking about the benefits of trade is of little comfort to someone who has lost their job here in the u.s., for example. it is important also to knowledge that trade can cause dislocation and can create uncertainties in some sectors and communities. there is a, perception that trade only serves big companies. and that smaller companies and those that can't compete are simply left behind. while i would dispute much of

this, it is certainly the case that the benefits of trade don't reach as many people as they could, or as they should. the overall benefits of trade mean level to someone who lives in a poor country and that lacks the means to export. so perhaps, with today's disappointing global economic performance, we should not be surprised with the rise in antitrade sentiment in many countries. been a the u.s., there's particularly strong reaction to tpp,atives like the dpp -- or issues like overcapacity in the steel sector. we do have to respond to people's concerns and to people's concerns into the very real problems that they represent. but we should not do so by attacking trade or any other mythical scapegoat. this requires a much clearer view of the challenges before us.

leveledge that is often against trade is that it sends jobs overseas. particularly in manufacturing. , trade can cause this kind of displacement. but the factor that should not be overstated. actually, trade is a relatively minor cause of job losses. the evidence shows that over 80% , so eight in 10 of the job losses in advanced economies are not due to trade. but to increase productivity through technology and innovation. output in the u.s. manufacturing sector continues to rise to record levels but technological advances have meant that fewer workers are needed to produce more goods. and where jobs are created, those jobs, those vacancies require a much more advanced set of labor skills.

jobs arety is that risk today due to technological advances that were thought nearly impossible just a few years ago. take trucking, for example. there are currently over 3.5 million truck drivers in the united states. supportingre jobs those drivers, providing coffee, food, motel rooms and so on. self driving technology is set to transform that picture dramatically. companies are already looking to develop the self driving trucks. when that technology does come on stream in a few years time, how are we going to adapt and respond to this? you can ask the same questions about many other lines of work. studies suggest that almost 50%, so half the u.s. jobs are at high risk of automation. this is not just a rich country

problem. cambodia, indonesia, vietnam, the philippines, thailand found that 56% of the jobs in those countries are high risk of automation. that's just on average. in some sectors, over 80% of jobs are risk. in japan, there are three good 15 robots per 10,000 workers. in china, the numbers only 36, but is rising fast. in the u.s., the number is 164, which is relatively low. but is set to go up. this is the real economic revolution that is happening today. many will find it unsettling, and that is complete understandable. but like trade, technological progress is indispensable for sustained growth and development. in the answer is not to reject these forces, it's quite the opposite. we must embrace these changes

and learn to adapt. lead tog diagnosis will the wrong medicine. in this case, all too often, it is suggested that the .rescription is protectionism in this medicine will not help the patient, it will hurt the patient. protectionism will do nothing to address the real challenges that we face, and would cause many more problems besides. preventing imports would not prevent innovation. and even if it did, the net effect would be to slow economic growth even more. jobs will be lost throughout the economy, not created. in other regions, economies that embrace innovation will prosper and dominate the production of high-end goods and services. just a fewutline reasons why protectionist approaches are so flawed. first, protectionism hits the poorest the hardest.

for consumers by more imported goods and are more sensitive to prices -- to changes in prices. a joint study by the ucla and columbia found that people with high incomes would lose up to 28% of their purchasing power if the borders were closed today. 28% is already a lot. the poorest consumers could lose up to 63% of their purchasing power. a whole range of consumer goods are vulnerable to this effect. for example, if you're smart phone was made solely in the u.s., for example, the price would rise. the only question is by how much? some estimates are 10%, others 100%. competing smartphones and other countries that are produced in other countries will dominate globally. second, protectionism is an ineffective and very expensive

way of protecting jobs. in the latter part of the 20th century, the eu protected various interest is -- industries, including steel, agriculture, textiles, and the french economist analyzed this approach. he found that average costs per job saved were several hundred thousand euros per job. or about 10 times the corresponding wage in each of those industries. it was a similar story when the u.s. applied tariffs on chinese truck drivers in 2009. around 1200 jobs were saved. but this came at a cost of $1.1 billion in higher prices for consumers. that works out as a cost of about $900,000 per job. the peterson institute estimates that these higher prices also

resulted in around 2500 job losses in the thai retail sector due to the slumping sales. protectionism-- is a very blunt tool. tariffs ona puts goods from country b, the jobs instantly reappear in country a. they would most likely migrate to countries as c or d. tariffs on goods from countrythird, protecs will not reflect the nature of the modern economy or the international nature of production. most goods aren't made in one country. most exports have components which have been imported. retreating imports, you can restrict your ability to export as well. , protectionism is a two-way street. it leads to retaliation and the domino effect. i understand that the president of united states, franco delano roosevelt, was a good friend of

the national press club. when he picked up his membership here in 1933, shortly after his traderation, retaliatory reductions are just wiped out two thirds of world trade in the space of four years. for these reasons and many more, protectionism is just the wrong medicine. they wouldn't address the ailments that we are trying to the current economic context, it would be particularly damaging. we are seeing a dramatic slowdown in trade growth. the wto announced a revised to trade forecast for the year. we expect trade growth in 2016 to be 1.7%. and this would be the lowest rate of expansion since the financial crisis. it would mean that for the first time in 15 years, trade growth would be lower than gdp growth.

factorse a range of combined with full performance, sludge and -- sluggish economic growth, weak investment activity, protectionism is a relatively minor factor behind the week trade expansion figures. theunquestionably poses biggest downside risk. there are three challenges before us. first, we need to ensure that the benefits of trade reach farther and wider. in other words, we need a more inclusive trading system. second, we need to break out of the pattern of low-grade growth. respond towe need to the economic transformation created by technological innovation. we need policies which are designed to respond to these challenges. i think that there are two levels in which we can respond. first, the level of genetic policy, and second, through

systemic reforms. let me say a word or two about each. starting with domestic policies. while trade has fueled growth and development around the world , it is the task of domestic policy to ensure that countries are ready to compete and to disseminate the benefits of trade in an equitable way. i think governments around the world are now recalibrating their approach. there is a common realization that more can be done. in that business as usual is not going to suffice in the years ahead. it is clear that there is no single recipe for all countries. let's forget the one-size-fits-all approach. whatever the chosen recipe, we must understand that action is .eeded across governments action cannot be limited to trade ministries only. given that unemployment is not strictly reaven mainly a trade issue, trade measures will not

address this disorder. more active and cross cutting market policies will be essential. on aspects oft finance policy, education and skills, and improve adjustments to the unemployed. we should learn from where things have been done well. so countries such as singapore, denmark, south korea, they have adopted adjustment programs with great success. we can learn from that. the oecd average for spending on active labor market policies is 0.6% of gdp. in some countries allocate less restless -- much less than this. some, consider one more. denmark spends 1.5% of gdp on .abor market policies this combines greater labor market flux ability with enhanced unemployment insurance.

it guarantees 90% of the employeewage when an is laid off. the regeneration of pittsburgh ananother good example of active response to the challenges that we are discussing today. the city appeared to be in serious decline in the mid 1990's. -- 80's, sorry, with a sharp drop in steelmaking jobs. but it has become a center of innovation. city and state officials, the private sector and local universities work together and succeeded in helping to diversify the city's economy. they put a focus on a high-growth sectors like robotics, medical technology, defense, and innovations like self driving cars. the result has been a renaissance of the city and the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs. i think that a more active and creative approach at the

domestic level can deliver a great deal. this will require political leadership and commitment. this must be joined by leadership and commitment of the global level as well. globalnow turn to the systemic response that i think we should be working to develop. decades, the world has built up a record of momentum towards open trade with the u.s. as a leading advocate. but now, the momentum has slowed , and it is affecting economic growth globally. we need to put renewed vigor into that effort if we are to respond to the challenges that i have online today. we have to act to kickstart trade growth and ensure that the system is open and truly available for all. disrupted has already how we trade. worth about $22

trillion last year. the internet has the potential to bring millions of new entrants into the market. many entrepreneurs in the developing world have succeeded in selling their goods and services in foreign markets, but still today, less than 50% of the world is online. how do we respond to that, activity challenge? -- to that connectivity challenge? how do we leverage technologies of this marketplace doesn't just become the preserve of the big layers -- players? how can we shift from a few large known exporters to a world in which exporters are many, small, and unowned. how can we ensure that this transition works for consumers? furthermore, how do we ensure that trade can continue to promote growth and lift people out of poverty?

initiatives to increase trading capacity and development in these developed countries will remain vital. we must continue delivering new wto, reforms through the which helps everyone to compete in benefit. delivering such reforms would have seemed impossible. for years, no agreements were struck. it seemed like all action on trade was moving elsewhere. by the end of 2013, we started to change all that. wto hasen, the delivered a number of significant deals, including but not limited to the trade facilitation agreement to cut trade cost and red tape, which could boost the global exports .y up to $1 trillion per annum the information technology agreement which illuminates tariffs on a range of new generation of i.t. products,

trading which is worth about $1.3 trillion each year. a deal to abolish export subsidies in every culture. these are the biggest reforms in the global trading system for 20 years. the biggest since the wto was created in the i-75. all of this has been delivered just since 2013. we have seen a huge boost in engagements in our work as a result, including from the private sector. there is a clear sense that the wto can do more, and a desire among members to keep delivering , as well as discussing long-standing issues like agriculture, industrial goods, services, numbers are also looking at a number of other issues. the w g o is connecting with the challenges i put on the table here today, specifically how to open goods and services trade to new players and developing and

developed countries? small ensure support for and medium enterprises, and how to harness the power of e-commerce to support inclusiveness. we are still of the early stages of these discussions, but engagement is high and so his ambition. whatever we do next, it will be just the first step. there are other encouraging signs. a number of members are working to conclude the environment of goods agreement by the end of this year. where the u.s. is playing a very key leading role. this is a great initiative which what trade can do for sustainability and for the environment. in addition to that, many countries, including the u.s., are also interested in moving work forward on agreement to limit harmful subsidies that lead to overfishing. it is worth noting that the to deals reflect

a variety of types of agreements. doing agreements like the trade facilitation one, which allows a great deal of flexibility for members on how they undertake commitments. and also provides ample mentation support, technical assistance where it is needed. that kind of pragmatism will help us to keep delivering negotiated results that continue to foster developments, inclusiveness, and growth. so, there's a lot to do. aboutd to be clear eyed the challenges in the economy and in the trading system if we are going to design an appropriate response. i think we have the tools to act , and i think we have one critical challenge, which is that we have to work harder to make the credible, well-informed

and balance argument for trade. my concern is not that antitrade arguments are being made in public. my concern is the echo they attract from people. that echo is loud. we cannot ignore them. we have to hear them. we have to respond to them. there is a responsibility on leaders, policymakers, academics , you, the media, international organizations, to reflect on that and to respond. harder to ensure that the benefits of trade are more widely shared. we have to work harder to explain why it matters, and to ,o so in clearer terms recognizing that there are both benefits and challenges. we are going to be doing this more and more over the coming months. is joining forces with

the imf, the world bank, the oecd and others to produce new .esearch to help make the case to paraphrase winston churchill's comment on democracy -- i'm really paraphrasing. based worldes commerce may be the worst form, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time. trade may not be perfect, but it is essential. it is up for all of us to make it work better. in this effort, i am absolutely convinced that american leadership will be more important than ever. thank you all. [applause]

and clicks given that tomorrow is four weeks away from the presidential election we will start with a few political questions. the antitrade sentiment in the united states has made international trade a significant subject of this campaign. donald trump appears to oppose all trade agreements. hillary clinton is struggling to support free trade. impact on the the wto if there were to be a president trump or resident clinton? >> article leadership is also

important. it is an intergovernmental organization, governments that are driving the agenda in one way or another. the engagement and leadership countries like the u.s., the u.s. is a major player in the wto, it is fundamental. this discussion needs to be clarified. when we talk about trade, won't we talk about unemployment it is easy to blame trade. you can see the imports, you can see the culprit very easily. put things into perspective. like i said in my presentation, the wrong diagnosis leads to the wrong medicine. raising trade barriers to do , and advancedent economies in particular is just the wrong medicine. it is a shot in the foot. not going to help the

problem. it will aggravate it. there will be more jobs lost and not saved. >> as you spoke about the echo in our speech, how do you factory worker in ohio that he did not lose his job because of nafta or other trade and had you change this failing sentiment that trade is what is costing their jobs. grexit is no comfort. it is no comfort for them. that is why governments need to to help this transition. a particularin community may cost two or three jobs in another. that is the factor of protectionism. taking dollars away from the poor people. the more reliant you are on your salary or income if you do not have access capacity to spend, the more you are hit by

protectionist measures. dramatic side of this. what we need to do is to ensure that that person who lost the job be a to trade or a new it is, thatwhatever the government will support him to either find a new job by two healthy income of his family. while he is finding a job. it is easy to say we need to retrain people. it is ok for talking about a 20-year-old or 30-year-old person. , youu are fiftysomething lose your job, it is a big blow for you and your family, how do you do that? as i said before, some countries have dealt with it in one way or another. singapore, denmark, the netherlands, south korea, they all went through this and there are ways of doing that. it is much cheaper to support a job meant to try to save it through protectionism.

your tie him about couple things that should happen. a safety net is something countries have to have with these trade bills. >> you have to take care of those who are hit by these phenomena. before, 3.5 million truck drivers in the u.s. alone are going to be hit. it is a matter of when. it is a not -- not a matter of if. it will happen. what are we doing now because it is not just that $2.5 million. it is about the indirect services that are there in the market to support them. they are talking about millions of jobs and how are we going to handle that, how are you going to observe all that? it would say this people who leave those jobs, they will find other jobs. jobs, the entry-level

ones that do not require high skills, they are disappearing. it is becoming tougher to find a job if you do not have the right set of skills. it is not only support, it is training for young people for the market. today there's a study that shows when you enter the university, most of the people, i did, for sure, i had a job in mind, somewhat, that is what i want to do when i graduate. host: this job right here. vedo: differently not this one. you can bet that the job was going to be there. you enter the university aiming .t a position when you finish that job may not exist any longer. more than that even if you get the position, it may be not as rewarding as you thought when found it.

all the shifts and changes, they are dramatic. i think we not thinking about this enough, that's all. ialt: both u.s. president candidates agree on one thing, opposition to tpp in its present form. what is your position and will it facilitate greater trade implications of it is not ratified? wherever it trade, happens, is good news. it tends to be catchy, it is contagious. so is protectionism, by the way. so i am absolutely for agreements that facilitate trade, that lower trade costs, that are low -- more inclusive and allow more people to participate. that is something we should be pushing for in the united states and everywhere else. in the world. i definitely want these things work.

what i have to tell you is that it does not surprise me that all these things are there. when these negotiations started someember quite well journalists and academics and analysts said, how are you going to handle it, all these things agreements,ed in what is the role of the wto in there? i said, weighted say. anybody who thinks that a trade deal that big is going to happen like this, they have not been doing trade long enough. trade is tough. it is difficult. it is very sensitive, it is quickly charged. all of these things are being full. if they were not meaningful, you would not he seeing the kind of debate and difficulties that you see now. it does not as me at all that these things are having a hard time to get approved. host: what happens if tpp fails? i am the wrong

person to be asking that. i will be doing my best in the to ensure the reforms that would be necessary in the agreements would be contributing to reforms, reforms are done in the way that we can in the wto. thatpe is we can do unilaterally. things have been negotiated so can betpp or ttip i inspired. you cut and paste. let's cut it from these -- provisions from this agreement bastednsplant it to the, into the wto rule. it can inspire a lot of things that we are doing in geneva. has said thatrump china has fixed exchange rates

to still u.s. dollars. to start a virtual trade war with the u.s. and has a stronger economy than the united states. could you comment on mr. trump's claims? i do not know about mr. trump's claims. imc are about that. currency debates are extremely complex. very really, you can see one fix itstrying to exchange rates for the purpose of trade. ofis usually a byproduct economic policies and other lead to aaims that number of outcomes. sometimes one of the outcomes is greater competitiveness. -- we areo have a having a conversation in the wto exchange rate fluctuations. members are examining that, they

are discussing that. like i said it is an extremely complex conversation. mathematically half are overvalued and half are undervalued. it is a complex conversation. when you win today, you lose tomorrow. you cannot take measures that work only in the short term. everything that you do, if you wanted to be significant, it has to be with a long-term perspective. you spoke about this in your address, critics of globalization are blooming trade for the loss of their jobs. your stance is not because of trade but that is the common thought that it is trade or not manufacturing changes. you are adding and technology, manufacturing, cheaper labor and other countries. could you talk to us more about what the actual reason is that these jobs are disappearing, like the trucking jobs you spoke of. it is newo:

technologies. i saw graph yesterday that showed the jobs that were at high risk of automation, jobs that are likely to disappear because of automation and they bank tellers, accountants, god knows, a whole bunch of things. i look for journalists, by the way. it was not on the list. jobs are going to disappear. one very striking example is kodak. 150,000 employees. --t is due to people instagram. it is a ratio of 2001 and this is not an isolated case.

you see that all over the economy. i had a meeting yesterday with a number of ministers and, of course, christina was there and .ark carney every agrees this is a problem. especially because one obvious consequence is what do we do with the unemployed? one of them said this is a fiscal problem. absolutely. it is a much bigger problem if you treat it with protectionism. this is not the problem. this is not what is causing the and employment. there is unemployment due to imports. that is less than 20%. what about the other 80 something, how are you going to handle that? it is not going to disappear. it is easier to blame trade or a fortune another country than to say that we have a fraud system of education, if flawed system of so security, we have flawed domestic policies. it is a soul-searching that is

difficult to me to make. it is not the problem in the u.s. only. it is a global problem. tory single person i talked particularly in advanced economies, they all face the same problem. host: can the debbie t o do more for supporting job training not just in the u.s. but other countries that are losing manufacturing jobs? mr. azevedo: this is a good form to discuss this but we cannot implement policies. we are trying to do things, we are stimulating conversation in the rutile about inclusiveness. one way of helping to diminish the problem of unemployment is the small and medium enterprises. in many countries they are responsible for the largest majority of the workforce. in the u.s., it is about 60-some percent.

i do not know the exact figure. countries, many of them, it is 90% of the workforce. they can be much more productive. the can be much more efficient if they participate in the global value change, global trade flows. what we now is that there is a very high percent, 90-some percent of the small and medium enterprises that are connected digitally and participate in global platforms. they export and they do not export to one or two countries. they export to 5, 10, 20 countries. some do not know the x were because they provide input to companies like caterpillar, for example that the next word. they do not know they are part of this global value change but they are. there is a number of things that thean do that will leverage insertion of the small and and thenterprise

workforce into the global market. the: what do you see as future of international trade as written leaves the eu? well the pound loose power? aboutevedo: i do not know the future of the pound. if i knew, i would be a rich man. let me to you this. there is, i think, a clear perception on the part of the authorities and talk about the future of to in the u k that the future of the u k is an open, is a future where the uk's open to the world. they want to negotiate trade deals, they want to be a free-trade economy. that is hope. a healthy view, anyway. how quickly we can get there in

light of the uncertainties of the renegotiations that we -- will have to take lace kayak -- take place, i am unsure. i have told everybody and i told you now, trade negotiations are tricky. depend on the terms of separation between the u k .nd the eu i am working hard to make sure that the position happens as smoothly as possible. if you have a -- the economy is better off if you have a smooth transition rather than a turbulent one. that is the first step. then you have to talk to the other wto members that will probably have to -- and it will have to be negotiations between the u k and the regional agreements that able onto as part of the eu, now they don't. have many things that we marks inof question the future.

i think the mentality, the frame of mind is one of liberalization, is one of assertion, free trade, and that is the right frame of mind to bn. host: how involved for the debbie tob and providing that form for the u k and various countries? mr. azevedo: very actively. we are in touch with both countries, both governments. they're exploring alternatives, possibilities of outcomes. we provide the technical support that is necessary. we explain what the alternatives are, the likely scenarios here and there. like i said, whatever we can do to facilitate the transition and make it a smooth one, we will. post: i am assuming you are referring to the eu and the u k. mr. azevedo: yes. riccio support [inaudible] if so, why oh why not? mr. azevedo: we do not have

specific disciplines or provisions in the rulebook labor standards, thinks of the kind. it was discussed in several occasions including when we were trying to launch the doha round. this was a discussion. at that time it was very polemic, very controversial. it did not enter the negotiations themselves. we are constantly in touch with organizations that do have a more direct role in the labor standards conversation. we are in touch with the director general. the economists worked together trying to understand the effects the relationship between trade and labor. we try to ensure with studies notdata that trade does

lead to a race to the bottom in terms of labor standards in developing countries, for example. we are not directly involved in that conversation. china,witching back to how serious do you believe china's military actions in the south china sea are on international trade in that region? mr. azevedo: that is a very indirect relationship between the two, trade in that. i think trade in general in stable economic environments. in stable political environments. the more predictable, the more economic environment and political environment in a region, in a country, the better it is for the economy, the better it is for investors, the better it is for consumers, the

better it is for trade in general. that is the most i can say in and its instability relationship with trade. post: thank you. question from the audience on international sanctions from russia. the back-and-forth sanctions on agriculture, between the eu, the u.s., and russia, do you think that threatens the trade deals that are in place? mr. azevedo: they do have conversations at the wto about these things. it is sometimes brought to the attention of the general counsel that particular sanctions are particular measures are affecting trade or affecting the stability of the economic -- the economic stability of country a, b, or c. we offer a form for conversations. i myself more than once personally talk to leaders of delegations from those countries to try to figure out whether we

can handle this in a way that is .ot to atrocious in general, we understand that those are issues that are much , at a much higher political level than what we can do with that the wto. debbie t o is a multilateral organizations, a deals mostly with technical issues, it has been permeated with political undercurrents, but there are certain things that we can solve . there are certain things we can help solve. but some of those issues, they have to be dealt with the between capitals. host: the u.s. is filed more than a dozen complaints against china.

u.s. officials filed a complaint with the wto claiming china's rice, wheat, and corn crops are the product of excessive government support and provide and fair advantage. where did -- where do things stand with the complaint? mr. azevedo: the settlement is defenses ofiggest the young -- of the trading system. i was a young diplomat in washington in the 1990's and i remember quite well the environment in terms of trade was extremely contentious. there were unilateral actions here and there. rice, thenuice, meet, then soybeans and everybody was taking unilateral actions against anybody else. it was heavily politicized with no outcomes. it just led to a spiral of

unilateral elections and retaliations from part two part. designed andm was engineered precisely to avoid this situation. we have a record number of disputes at this point. more years, a little bit than that, we had since 1995, so 20 years, we had about 500 disputes that have been heard by the settlement mechanism. it is technical, and is impartial, it is predictable to a large extent, and more than that, it is not politicized. i think that cartoons -- countries should resort to that. that i see is good news that members are trying to solve their differences not by imposing patella torry measures

or things of that kind been solution find a legal and it has been working quite well. more than 90% of the cases that have been brought to the wto have been sorted out and have been in fermented and decisions taken by the panels and they have been implemented. 10% is trying to figure out ways forward but it is a very big success story. host: on this specific complaint, is there any advancement, anything changed since it was filed? about how the complaint is going? host: where does it stand? mr. azevedo: i have no clue and i don't want to have a clue. whenever you have disputes, there is one thing the director general does immediately is stay away from it. this is, like i said, a highly process.

it works well, you have the panels, you have the appellate that is independent, i do not even talk about that. ora delegation or a minister head of state wants to talk to me about that, that is one thing that i say i can not talk about that. host: i will have to learn from you. can talk about that. host: will the wto pursue billions of dollars against airbus for failing to correct some city violations? mr. azevedo: it is part of this process. litigated for brazil at the time when i was diplomat -- a diplomat for brazil. often we came to situations where brazil was authorized to impose sanctions on the other country. my experience at that point in i

have only firmed this opinion even more is that retaliations do not help anybody. they are not the solution. they are a good incentive for negotiations. usually what happens is that long,ou have those drawing disputes, there is so much the settlement can do because it does not have the .ower to impose and enforce it does say you are not in compliance, therefore you have to adjust your practices or your laws or regulations. it does not say how. it is up to that country. a dispute, theas implementation was not correct, we end up with authorization for retaliation. bestperience is the solution is bilateral negotiations. you sit down instead of getting high numbers of retaliation and

things like that, you sit down around the table and refine a solution. you negotiate and the two sides found to be in violation of the wto disciplines . it should be possible for them to sit down and find a solution. host: we only have a few minutes left but i wanted to ask, your native country brazil is in the little of the serious and continuing political crisis. any thoughts about returning to brazil to help resolve the crisis at all? as a brazilian, i follow that process very closely. i am really hopeful that the brazilian government and the brazilian people will move forward, will find a way forward. they are experiencing one of the most dramatic recessions in the

history of the country. i really do hope that they can find solutions and overcome these problems with the sentiment of national unity. there i think is the most important, looking from afar, looking from geneva, i think what they need now is to stand ,p behind some key objectives development, growth, economic growth, and be together behind it. point fromo at this geneva is to hope that this is a successful effort. host: thank you, sir. a quick reminder of the national -- that the press club is the world's leading organization for generalist and we fight for free press worldwide. for more information, go to press.org. we will remind you about the upcoming program.

convert the secretary of education will speak. we present each guest with our press club mug. thank you.: the quality compare of soccer in geneva to soccer in brazil? why got to geneva drawing the group of people who were playing soccer, it is a very challenging experience. in different levels. honestly, not try to be a politician or anything, when i find is fantastic as the power of soccer tonight people. walk onto the soccer pitch and people of different social

strata, different origins, different countries, different languages, they just get in the pitch and they hammer it out for however many minutes they can stand up. after -- at the end of that, after cursing each other their out -- throughout, they going to a beer. a hope many of the things we face today can be solved with soccer. post: what a wonderful sentence -- sentiment to end the program on. thank you. thank you very much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]