thank you, everybody. reporter: thank you. reporter: the possibility of [indiscernible] would have to talk to the president's scheduler about that. >> today is day five of a partial government shutdown. the house and senate return tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. eastern, and negotiations continue on a spending ball -- spending bill to reopen the government. you can watch live coverage of the house here on c-span, and the senate on c-span 2. when the new congress takes office in january, it will have the youngest, most diverse freshman class in recent history. new congress, new leaders. watch it live on c-span, starting january 3. bloomberg trade reporter

jenny leonard joins us for a discussion about the year ahead in trade policy. icy. let's start with our closest neighbors from the north and south and what and when the next steps will take place when it comes to replacing nafta with the so-called usmca. guest: usmca is the new nafta. it is not yet in front of congress. so the president reached a deal signed it at the g20 and argentina. obviously the fight in congress is going to be a long one and it has not even really started. what is called the implementing bill has not been written by the administration. all the changes in u.s. law that need to be made democrats and republicans both still want to weigh in on. turns out some of the democrats that have been closely involved in the negotiations with the administration are calling for a reopening of the agreement. host: explain that.

when this gets to the floor are their chances to amend it if there are parts of it members of congress do not like or is this an up or down vote on what the trump administration is negotiating? guest: on the negotiate -- on the agreement it is an up or down vote on everything that has been negotiated. if they reopen the agreement or make changes to the actual deal that is still in flux. and the agreement is done what the members of congress will vote on is the so-called memberst a bill where can get their fix is in. the democrats are asking for stronger label -- labor enforcement. that could be done through the implement and bill are some language passed in u.s. law. host: a reminder to viewers, some of the key features of that agreement at its negotiated now increases access to dairy poultry and egg products to be

sold in canada members must 40%uced 75 step -- at least of the car must be made by workers earning at least $16 an hour usmca make some changes to nafta's dispute settlement system. that is a key negotiating point. extends copyrights to life of authors plus 70 years. as we talked about making changes to this, how open is mexico and canada to doing that now? do they see this as a settled agreement? guest: they do. mexico has just undergone a transition and government so they just had a new president come in on december 1. that administration, the incoming and outgoing, were working together on this. for them it was a long process negotiating this. they would like to get this behind them.

they would like to see this voted on in the u.s. congress and get this through their legislatures and move on. host: what is the timeframe for that happening in those countries? guest: for mexico, the senate could take it up soon. what the u.s. congress and democrats want to happen first is mexico passing and labor law, a reform law. that has not happened yet. i think the other countries are pointing to the u.s., where the fight will be a lot more critical in terms of what changes could maybe be asked for. basically pointing the finger to the u.s.. host: you note that canada avoids calling it the usmca. why is that? guest: the usmca calls the u.s. first. they country moves around name to make sure it's maybe not

the u.s. first and obviously the president cost trade agenda is america first so everyone sort of calls at its own name but it is the same deal. host: jenny leonard, joining us for about the next to five minutes this morning, talking about what's on tap for trade in 2019. you can start calling in, (202) 748-8001. (202) 748-8000. independent, (202) 748-8002. i cost defined and signals more tension ahead. walk us through the signals that china has given and what you're looking for in the new year. guest: the china trade war has ratcheted up in 20 $.18 may. met theident have

second time in november on the sidelines of the g20 where they reached a trade truce. they said let's delay more tariffs for now, for 90 days and see what we can do. china has pledged to address u.s. concerns and president xi gave an important speech some --the administration may some in congress look to for signals to say what is china willing to do? is it willing to make those structural changes the trump administration is asking for. host: you mention the concerns. what markers has each side laid down when it comes to trying to reach that deal? timeline --rms of host: in terms of what they want to see in a final agreement.

, on top ofu.s. wants more purchases of u.s. products, farm products and energy products by china, it also wants to see changes in china's ip and tech transfer policies. u.s. trade representative's had a long study that took eight that wasd it came out basically the basis for imposing tariffs on chinese products the first time and it happened the second time so now we are at 250 billion. because of china's policies damaging the u.s. and 100% for the u.s. trade representatives a marker has to be china makes substantive changes on those demands, 90 days is very short.

issue. a long-standing we will see where they get by march 1. and of course what signals come out of china in the meantime. host: where do the tariffs go that are collected? what are they used to pay for and how much have we collected from chinese companies at this point? guest: it's not just chinese companies. it's u.s. companies. if you are a u.s. manufacturer and your input is coming from china and your input happens to be on one of the lists of the product lists tariffs are imposed on the importer pays the tariffs. company you as the u.s. bringing in the chinese goods. host: what is the dollar total at this point? do we know? guest: we should know. i should know. if you listen to the president it is billions of dollars.

he is confusing sometimes the trade deficit and how we could pay for the wall with that. it is billions of dollars. host: is that my going to the general u.s. treasury account? where does it go? guest: it doesn't. exporters.the it does not going to the treasury. host: a lot more to talk about about tariffs. want to bring in viewers as well. phone lines as usual as we talked with jenny leonard. eric is in east setauket, new york. democrat. caller: good morning. glad to have this topic. listening very carefully so far. i'm trying to understand and flipped it. understanding as well as i could

, how do you explain -- how tariffs hurt american companies and american people, if they are effective in the long run, if trump's strategy is we tariffs china, in the long run maybe it would be successful if both of androp all of our tariffs we are back at zero in either direction. is that the grand plan? connected to that, how do the tariffs work against china so it hurts them? but howhow it hurts us is china impacted by these tariffs? i keep getting confused. host: thanks for the question. guest: i would say for some in the administration there is a split on president trump trade team between the hawks and doves as they are often referred to.

doves,the so-called larry kudlow, often says the grand strategy and end goal is zero tariffs, zero nontariff barriers, going to that if you ask the other side of the aisle, the hawks, will not address the problems that the u.s. has with china. going to zero tariffs on cars, the u.s. does not ship that many cars to china so that necessarily wall protect what they call the crown jewels, u.s. technology. it is a little unclear at this .oint what the final goal is i think there are a lot of questions. i think the administration, depending on who is talking about this, has a different answer for people. but it's very unclear at this

point what the grand plan is. there are people in the administration who are definitely going for zero tariffs as the end goal. host: you mentioned kudlow as a dove, who are the leading hawks? guest: the leading hawks, one that i think has been written a lot about his trade advisor peter navarro. he wrote a book before he came into the administration, death by china. he has -- he is opinionated on china specifically but you often see him on tv defending the president's strategies on tariffs. u.s. trade representative robert -- haszer also has been had views on china for a long time. alsoe doves side, probably treasury secretary mnuchin would go on that side.

host: frank is in newport, richie florida. caller: i have a comment to make. what i would see more often is betweentrading goods china and u.s. and perhaps even with other countries which are interacting with us and china. host: appreciate the comment. we go to patrick. in independent, go ahead. caller: the first time the expression the rust belt was mentioned was in 1978. nothing to do with trade deals because richard nixon took us off the gold standard. inflation exploded. the dollar became strong. u.s. companies could move their manufacturing overseas and pay slave wages, come back and put

their profits into 20% government bonds. i don't know how old your guest is but i'm 60 and i can remember all my toys as a kid made in america and within a year or two they all were made in japan. what do you want them to do? their child to do what they can for their own country. one billion people to try to feed. host: what do you think is the end result of the trade tensions between the u.s. and china? caller: we subsidize our farmers, we subsidize our drug companies to the national institute of health who does all the basic research and hands it over to them. we've all got our problems and i think c-span for whatever reason up.rying to gin this crap

trump said i'm going to have a egg youthful drug plan. we would haveed billions of dollars to spend on the wall. thanks for taking my call. host: that is patrick and lady lake, florida. how long have you been covering trade? guest: coming up on three years. host: as you look ahead, we talked about usmca, china, what other nine usmca, non-china stories are you looking for in the new year? guest: a lot. if you think 2018 has been a big year for trade i think 2019 is where it comes down to the wire. usmca has to pass congress's i think that is something everyone will be looking to. what will it take to pass congress? there's going to be a new

chairman of the senate finance committee coming in. senator chuck grassley. .e heard subsidies for farmers i think priorities in negotiating new trade deals will be ag focused with this chairman or at least some emphasis by the congress cannot put farmers at a disadvantage. host: is that something the white house seems receptive to? guest: you think so. there was a second round last week of farm subsidies because of the trade wars. it seems that the white house is aware of the fact that farmers are being put at a disadvantage. 2019 is also not going to stop other countries from cutting trade deals. this big trade deal, the transpacific partnership, is moving ahead without the u.s. so it's now 11 countries. it has japan in it.

a lot of u.s. farmers will be put at a disadvantage because for the other 10 countries those products can go into japan tariff free or at a reduced rate whereas the u.s. is on the outside. host: remind viewers where that money comes from as congress -- does congress has to prove that money? guest: it is basically coming usda and giveso it out and programs to specific farms a complicated program. it does not at all cover all of the commodities or all of the farmers in need of help. it was $12 billion the first time around. we are now at 250 billion only with china on tariffs china has imposed 160 billion on us. don't forget there's also retaliatory terrorist from mexico and canada for stealing tariffs they imposed.

those hit u.s. farmers it's not really proportional if you look at the amounts how far as being hit. 2019 is going to be really interesting and important for new trade deals to be cut because usmca religious updated nafta. what really needs to happen is happening. something with the eu, something with japan and that is what the administration is working on. .ost: mike is been waiting in independent, good morning. caravani have my own i've been waiting to observe the one of all the american workers

that want to go to texas and california and get on their hands and knees and pick strawberries. i want to ask your guest if there is any -- is there any evidence of americans taking the jobs in agriculture on account of all the undocumented being scared away by the trump administration policies leaving farmers with a lack of workers. altering his campaign saying these people were taking jobs that americans want. i've been looking for this caravan of people flooding to southern california or picking apples in pennsylvania. is there evidence that is occurring? guest: good question. i do not know the answer to that. says interesting i would that the white house is

increasingly coming under pressure to answer those questions. what will happen to agriculture? in 2018, very focused on steel, aluminum, autos, a big focus in the usmca negotiations. what will happen with agriculture? i think they are running out of time, running out of steam to really come up with answers to those questions. host: we seen a lot of changes in president trump's cabinet. the team he surrounds himself with from the trade officials you brought up already, is there any thought to some turnover? anybody president trump has been unhappy with or people you are watching as on the way out? guest: i would say there's a lot of rumors every day. reportedly gets mad at people on a daily basis

and it depends on the day and the issue on who was on his bad .ide i don't think we're seeing anyone on the court trade team on his way out. i think there were some rumors in the past two days about secretary mnuchin and the president came out and said he has full confidence in him. so let's take him at his word that mnuchin is safe. everyone else seems to be. ahead. wilbur ross needs to finalize an autos report. a study on his auto imports hurt national security that could lead to auto tariffs in february , at least that is the deadline for when he has to finalize the report. the trade team is pretty busy. given all the other turnaround it seems like confirming new people in the middle of multiple

trade wars and big trade files might not be a good idea. host: a few minutes left with jenny leonard. if you want to follow her on or you could call the question like mickey did from milwaukee, wisconsin. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i want to mention about this dollar value of the tariffs collected so far. about $22 billion. overyou have a budget of $4 trillion, 22 billion next dollars is nothing. people keep thinking all these tariffs. the president is misleading people by saying china is paying the tariffs. the u.s. companies are paying those tariffs either passing it on to the consumer for having less profits for the company.

in our budget the tariffs that are collected throughout the year is only 1%. when the markets are down it's not because interest rates are going up. because of uncertainty in the market china is getting less dollars from the sale of products to u.s., buying less treasury bonds. the federal reserve has to increase the interest rates to offset that. this is all connected. the economic downturn we might have this coming year will be the result of the trade world of china and the uncertainty the president creates. host: thanks for the comments. things, there is -- there are a lot of companies in the earnings calls my colleagues have covered in the past couple months tariffs are definitely a

concern they taken a little bit of time to catch on because it was first only aluminum tariffs and the china tariffs phase one and phase 2, two separate phases. u.s. are a lot of iconic companies like harley davidson this is getting to the point where we need to shift some production out of china or we need to get our inputs from somewhere else because it does not seen the administration is willing to back down. the tariffs that are in place, the $250 billion no talk at all of rewinding these tariffs and going back to normal so this might be the new normal. the other thing i would say going into 2019, the uncertainty

just mentioned is definitely something you hear from companies. how long is the can going to be kicked down the road with china tariffs. there are now at 10%. they will go to 25%. they were going to go to 25% january 1, now it's going to take until march 2. is there going to be little room for another extension or not? that's all something companies have to take into account. it is up to the president every time you ask someone in the administration is it a hard deadline you get different answers. followed by the fact that this is all up to the president anyway. you're asking an advisor and they can't really give you an answer. host: time for one or two mark -- one or two more calls. caller: you mentioned about american steel mill.

i think we have only nine left in america and most of them are owned by foreign governments like russia, china, mexico. , if we go toous -- what would happen if we there so many questions i have trump wants mexico to pay for the wall we just have to order from american steel mill owned by the mexican government. host: steel mills owned by foreign governments is what the caller saying true? guest: i'm not a steel expert there have been some letters coming out of congress. i think one was spearheaded by elizabeth warren saying all of the exclusions from the terrors

put in place, exclusions given that were all given to foreign companies instead of u.s. companies. so that's an interesting factor. on the national security side i would say the tariffs put in place its the 25% tariff on steel imports. that was put in place exactly for national security reasons so the trump administration used the law that is not used very often but says we are doing this out of national security and to build up our steel and aluminum base so that was exactly the justification for doing that. host: if you want to see jenny leonard's work, bloomberg.com, she is a trade announcer 1: today's day five

of a partial government shutdown. the house and the senate return tomorrow and negotiations continue on a spending bill to reopen the federal government. as the debate continues, you can watch live coverage of the house here on c-span and the senate on c-span two. when the new congress takes office in january, it will have the youngest, most diverse freshman class in recent history. new congress, new leaders. watch it live on c-span, starting january 3. when the newly elected congress comes into session january 3, democrats will have a majority in the house of representatives. nancy pelosi has been nominated to be asked speaker of the house, while steny hoyer will be the majority leader. side, kevinlican mccarthy will be minority leader. steve scalise as minority whip.

their public and conference chair, and tom heading the national republican congressional committee. january 3, watch the house on c-spanand the senate on two. the new york bar association hosted a discussion on free speech in the 21st century. include former president of the aclu, nadine strossen, and attorneys sharing their views on hate speech, social media regulation controversial college campus , speakers and president trump's tweet. s. roger: good evening. i am roger juan maldonado, president of the new york city bar association, and i welcome you to tonight's program on the first amendment in 21st century america. we started this first amendment series last year, following the tragic ent