larry kudlow and bob lighthizer and peter navarro, the president's economic team, they understand what the president wants and understand exactly what the president is going to get at the end of the day. trish: i'm a big larry fan. he and i used to do a show together. one thing i would mention about that, however, larry is mr. free trade. >> sure. trish: he and peter navarro, they never saw eye-to-eye. i saw pretty spicy debates between those two. >> which is fabulous for the president of the united states. the president needs to have advisors who bring all sides of the issue to him. so on nafta and all other trade disputes that are going on around the world, these, this team is going to be responsible for educating the president on the specifics of these opportunities and potential dales. that's why larry on one hand and bob lighthizer on the other and peter navarro can bring together

trade representative bob lighthizer is with us today.pattern of chronic chinese abuses including intellectual property theft that has caused this country hundreds of billions of dollars. and also the targeting of american technology. hundredsst us untold of billions of dollars over the years. larry kudlow is here and shaking his head approvingly of what i am saying. or disapprovingly of what they have done. as you are all aware, china has consistently treated united states agriculture unfairly. i was proud of something i did in mar-a-lago in florida. she -- who is a friend of mine and a very good man, i don't blame china, angling our representatives. our past resident and trigger executives allowed this to happen. during a brief conversation, i said president, we want to sell beef to china. they haven't sold it in 14 years. he looked at me and said, say it again? aid i want to sell beef and china, and he said we will sell beef and china. and the thing that is interesting to the people at this table is beef. and they are selling a lot of

lighthizer. should we interpret that to mean that you are now open to negotiating a bilateral trade deal between the united states and japan? and then, a second question. japan is the only major american ally that was not exempted from the steel tariffs. did you ask the president to exempt japan? and if so, how did he reply? president trump: thank you, mark, very much. the fact is that they do have three prisoners. we have been talking about them. we are negotiating now. we are doing our very best. as you know, they've been there a long time and it's harsh treatment. we fought very hard to get otto warmbier back. and when we came back, he was in very, very bad condition. it was a very sad event. we are likewise fighting very diligently to get the three american citizens back. i think there's a good chance of doing it. we're having very good dialogue. we will keep you informed. but we are in there and we are working very hard on that. we have come a long way with north korea. we were, as you know

could i ask bob lighthizer to say a few words? >> i would say first of all, we will get into details in the private session, as you asked. i talked to a lot of people around this room a lot. i hope you all realize i am available to talk. information, consulting is important. i have not talked to all of you, but most of you i talked to a fair amount. i welcome you, happy to do it. >> 23 hours a day. he sleeps for one. look at him. [laughter] that's all right. that's ok. you're looking good. >> i don't look that bad. >> second thing, we tend to think a lot about agriculture. the fact is, you can't really find a serious market where we could not do better in agriculture. china, we talk about the sales there, a fraction of what they should be. so we are very much on the aggressive side, as far as it goes. moving quickly, we have made all this progress. i feel, i agree with the president on everything, including on nafta. having said that, we are making progress on nafta. wto,ve 18 cases at the pursuing the interest of agriculture with

americas moves in -- who is in and who is out, why vice president pence will attend but robert lighthizer will sit it out with an agreement on nafta remaining out of reach seemingly. likens donald to a mob boss in his new book. the present call the former fbi director a slimeball. ♪ david: president trump has been storm, up by the tweet from trade, border, robert mueller, syria, it did not overlook russia. he said our relationship with russia is worse now than it has ever been and that includes the cold war. no reason for this, russian needs us to help with their economy, something very easy to do and we need all nations to work together, stop the arms race? he also warned that russia should not be harboring with what he calls a gas killing animal, referring apparently to president bashar al-assad. dana rohrabacher serves in the house foreign affairs commission and chairs the subcommittee responsible for russia. he is with us now from washington. , do you question is agree with the president that our relations with russia are at the worst have ever been including during the cold war? >> t

we know that larry could know and robert lighthizer look at how the u.s.ould potentially look at the transpacific partnership. it will be interesting to see the reaction of the tpp 11 who got the deal done with the absence of the u.s.. a big day ahead when it comes to the dollar calendar. up, the china trade coming and we keep an i on the trade surplus that is expected to narrow. let's take a quick look at how the market in the u.s. ended. it has ricocheted from a couple of days of losses, and we saw it rally again. betty: we did indeed with the s&p up and the dow rising over 300 points, and the nasdaq also higher by 1%. we arenote to viewers, awaiting from words from president trump on action against syria, that may or may not, depending on what action is taken -- spoil the risk on move we saw in the u.s. haidi: and some of that as you say, tensions relaxing the market has to with his tweet on syria, saint it could come soon -- saying forall russia to watch out for missiles heading to serie a, will watch out for that in the next couple of hours. broad-bas

has anything been done you said you speak to lighthizer a lot?you know anything about the reception that's receiving by the 11 members that are already in the tpp is it possible that happens? >> sure. again, let me say, i think it was a big announcement in davos where the president said he would reconsider entering, but only do that under better terms. we quietly had some conversations with our counterparts about what the issues are with the 11 people in tpp, we have free trade agreements with many of them today he will be talking with japan about trade at mar-a-lago. japan is one of the big participants and we're focused on our trade relationship with them that's a big part of the tpp right now. >> does china have anything do with this new interest in joining the tpp, would you say >> no. no it's independent again, the president had been consistent to only join tpp under a different deal >> you handicap it at 1 out of 3? 2 out of 3 what are the chances we end up in tpp >> i don't really handicap it. >> better than 50/50 >> i'm not going to handi

and nothing was done people said see i told you nothing would happen then we have that he asked lighthizer and larry to look into it. has anything been done do you know anything about the reception that's receiving by the 11 members that are already in the tpp is it possible that happens? >> sure. again, let me say i think it was a big announcement in davos where the president said he'd reconsider entering, but only under better terms we quietly had some conversations with our counterparts about what the issues are the president's at mar-a-lago today. he'll be talking about trade japan is obviously one of the big participants and we're focused on our trade relationship with them that's a big part of the tpp right now. >> china have anything to do with the new interest in joining the tpp? >> no. it's independent and again, the president has been consistent he'll only join tpp under a different deal >> you handicap it at one out of three, two out of three? what are the chances we end up in tpp >> i don't really handicap it because it's not -- >> but is it better than 50/50 >> i'm not going t

he said he's going to deputize larry kudlow and robert lighthizer to look at reentering the tpp negotiations. that's good news for america and good news for the rule of law. thanks for listening. >> -- could this potentially become reality? we know where the president stands with tpp. is this something he floated? something he is sincere about? is the guy whot likes to blue sky a lot and entertain different ideas. tppeaffirmed the point that might be easier for us to join now once the tpp 11 is aligned. we might be the 12th party to that negotiation. i'm sure there are lots of particulars. i don't speak for the administration on any of that. timesesident multiple reaffirmed in general to us and looked right at larry kudlow and said, go get it done. is, look, as we talk to these countries, that's putting pressure on china. how do we increase trade, open markets, and our leadership rather than china's? >> how concerned are you about a trade war? >> the objective is to open markets and to avoid any kind of retaliatory tariffs. that was the focus of discussion today. how do we get their trade, f

that is bob lighthizer's area. i would just say that nothing is around the corner.ill be a big discussion of that. >> is it a bad cop, good cop situation where larry kudlow is the good cop and bob lighthizer is the bad cop? >> there is been intense pushback from republicans on capitol hill. he went on to state that he believes and the administration believes that the relationship between the united states and china has been so taken advantage of by the chinese that they feel that this type of back-and-forth is just an opening bid. ♪ >> the united states and china ramped up their trade rhetoric overnight, with president trump calling for new tariffs on another $100 billion of imports from china. the chinese government responding it will "follow suit until the end, no matter the price." >> the thinking among analysts and economists is that china may move beyond the world of tariffs and into the will of nontariff barriers. so they may target orders for existing u.s. goods from chinese firms, or they may target existing u.s. investment in china. there is a sense that we

trade representative robert lighthizer and trade adviser peter navarro who don't support it.nd what you think this is going to go. >> my sense is there is been an ongoing push by what is a big cabal of tpp supporters in the administration to try to keep the thing alive. to keep the hope alive, that somehow the u.s. would try to renegotiate the terms of it and enter were originally before the other countries took out some of the most egregious anti-access to madison stuff the u.s. have put in there and signed it, they had hoped the u.s. might reconsider, etc. there is a huge throng of tpp supporters in the high levels of the trump administration, no doubt. and by the way, the same folks are totally in love with the status quo of nafta. they would like to turn after into tpp 2.0. if they cannot get tbb through the front door, they would like to think it through the backdoor, basically injecting tpp into the nafta negotiation. but the good news is, the person who is the chief trade negotiator, the us trade representative is a guy named robert lighthizer. .e is strongly against t

and cudd low are looking at it. >> that's an as you issue for ambassador light lighthizer. i can about trade as a global issue outside of that question i was on a panel a long time ago. i was a mcmahon adviser and austin gulls by was advicing president obama. and austin as he often does said something really really brilliant about the role of the economists in the trade debate. because he said that if an economist wrote a free trade deal that it would be one sentence. it would say free trade. but the trade deals have thousands and thousands of lines that are written by lawyers. and so when we as economists talk about trade then we can talk about like what trade looks like in our model. and that can be interesting you know for academic purposes. but when you're thinking about what we should do with this or that deal you have to remember the dole has thousands of pages. and i think it's an -- so he was then being humble about his ability to discuss i think at the time the question was nafta that he was asked. but maybe it was something else. but i think that that's -- when yo

i want to use a phrase about their lighthizer used with me last night.oderate, tempered approach that we are taking. tempered, and, proportional. is not a trade war. there is no war here. all we are trying to do is stay and defend american technology, which is crucial to american economic growth. and by the way, global economic growth. this whole program, whether it is tax rate reduction or rollback of regulatory costs, or rollback of energy problems, and now trade. this is all designed to promote faster economic growth and the united states, and i believe we will. we're running out of time. i want but a few more questions in. once want to understand what the chinese can do to satisfy the concerns for the president and this administration over the next several months. what can they do tomorrow that can make all of this go away? there'll be i think a discussion. want to tread lightly here because i do not want to get ahead of the game. i think ambassador lighthizer and the president are thinking about submitting a list of suggestions to the chinese. hopef

robert lighthizer. should we interpret that to mean you are open to negotiating a bilateral trade deal between the united states and japan and then a second question, japan is the only major american ally that was not exempted from the steel tariffs. did you ask the president to exempt japan and if so, how did he reply? >> president trump: thank you. the fact is they do have three prisoners. we have been talking about them. we are negotiating now. we are doing our very best. as you know, they have been there a long time. it is harsh treatment. we fought very hard to get otto warmbier back. when we got him back, he was in very, very bad condition. it was a very sad event. we are likewise fighting a very diligently to get the three american citizens back. i think there's a good chance of doing it. we are having very good dialogue. we will keep you informed. but we are in there, and we are working very hard on that. we have come a long way with north korea. we were, as you know, and when i say "we," for ma

trade representative robert lighthizer and trade adviser peter navarro who don't support it.nd what you think this is going to go. >> my sense is there is been an ongoing push by what is a big cabal of tpp supporters in the administration to try to keep the thing alive. to keep the hope alive, that somehow the u.s. would try to renegotiate the terms of it and enter were originally before the other countries took out some of the most egregious anti-access to madison stuff the u.s. have put in there and signed it, they had hoped the u.s. might reconsider, etc. there is a huge throng of tpp supporters in the high levels of the trump administration, no doubt. and by the way, the same folks are totally in love with the status quo of nafta. they would like to turn after into tpp 2.0. if they cannot get tbb through the front door, they would like to think it through the backdoor, basically injecting tpp into the nafta negotiation. but the good news is, the person who is the chief trade negotiator, the us trade representative is a guy named robert lighthizer. .e is strongly against t

out of this meet iing is that the president said he was deputizing larry kudlow and ambassador lighthizer to renegotiate the tpp negotiations >> reporter: it was surprising because on the campaign trail, the president was an intense critic of tpp saying it was bad for american workers and american jobs. this is what he said back in 2016 >> there is no way to fix tpp. we need bilateral trade deals. we do not need to enter into another massive international agreement that ties us up and binds us down like tpp does. >> reporter: in 2016, the president hated tpp p. in 2017, he got the united states out of tpp, but here in 2018, the president softened his tune in january in davos, the president told cnbc he was open to a form of tpp, but only under certain circumstances. this is what he said then. >> opening up the door to reopening tpp? >> only saying this, i do tpp if we were able to make a substantially better deal. the deal was terrible. the way it was structured was terrible if it's a substantially better deal, i'm open to tpp. >> reporter: open to it if a better deal. apparently now, he

is looking to hold talks with china led by steven mnuchin and robert lighthizer, but says we are tryingo get china to stop aggressive attacks. as larryher hand kudlow said earlier, everybody in the world knows china has not been playing by the rules. here is what he said. >> the damage to our economy comes from china's restrictive practices. china.ght on that, blame they have been doing this for decades. don't blame trump. trump is doing what everyone in the world has said we should do. saying what leaders have to do sometimes, they have to lead. wellresident is saying as that there are other nations with similar complaints. larry kudlow talked about a world alliance to deal with chinese trading practices, especially intellectual property threats, unfair licensing practices in technology. end, larry kudlow said we want to open markets, bruised growth. we are not trying to punish anyone. is kudlow exaggerating when he says the world agrees with trump? japan havehe eu and said they want to join the u.s. in this case over chinese practices. is part ofouse case china's alleged theft of u.s.

we are close to getting that hard.and we worked could i ask bob lighthizer to say a few words? shery: that was president trump speaking at the room in the white house, in a meeting with governors and members of congress. you could see u.s. trade representative over to my kaiser commenting on everything -- robert lighthizer commenting on refineries. president trump saying he will take care of the farmers 100%. they have been hit by the latest actions on trade by china. and also president trump assuring farmers will be the beneficiaries on what is happening with trade. but people have been concerned with what is going to happen with these chinese trade tariffs, that apply 25% tariffs on a lot of products given trump's actions on china. 60 to and the president comfort in saint president xi released a statement see just think that will open the markets more, which will help u.s. exports. the other thing that struck me with respect to network, he did not know if russia, the people are building auto plants in mexico. i'm not sure how reassuring that is to u.s. businesses. and we have

robert lighthizer had written a letter that will like to get the trade deficit down best we have a sensef if the chinese responded? edward: i think there are clearly negotiations going on within a couple of days of the original tariff announcement from the president. we heard from the chinese that there were talks of the u.s. and secretary mnuchin and ambassador nikki haley kaiser has been involved -- and ambassador like hauser. we recognized some of the u.s. concerns, and on the other hand they say if you hit us, we are going to hit back in kind. to take it tong the u.s. course the way this was has done, we are going to hit act in kind so the chinese are sending a double message and we still know how that is going to play out over the next couple of months. david: has president trump succeeded in what he wanted to accomplish in making this bilateral instead of multilateral -- we know that wto is there to resolve this trade dispute. are we really breaking down the multilateral approach to trade that has taken place since world war ii? therd: we are taking down approach since the creation

tradenister and representative lighthizer will have a fruitful discussion.ver the last two days, president trump and i have spent more than seven hours together over meals and playing golf, while at the same time had fruitful talks in a relaxing atmosphere. the last few days were a time where i was further able to deepen my friendship and relationship and trust with president trump. astly, i would like to express my appreciation for the wonderful welcome from the people of the united states. thank you. president trump: questions? >> thank you very much, mr. president and mr. prime minister. rector toour cia pyongyang, and he returned without the americans who are detained there. and also without any visible signs of concessions the north koreans have made to the united states in advance of your meeting with mr. kim. orquestion is, do you intend are you willing to sit down with kim jong-un if americans are still being held in north korea? on otheryou insist tangible concessions from north koreans in return for gestures like sending a potential future secretar

trade representative, robert lighthizer, is lightly to announceu duties like clothing. president trump has said the u.s. would join the tpp if the deal was better than that offered to president obama the white house confirmed trump has told top advisers to investigate the possibility of joining the transpacific partnership. a spokeswoman said the president asked robert lighthizer and his new economic adviser, larry kudlow, to reopen negotiations. >>> neel kashkari is sympathetic to president trump's trade approach to china. he said china needs to be pushed to open its markets to u.s. business and the current threat of tariffs could help level the playing field. kashkari added a trade war must be avoided given the impact it would have on the u.s. and global economies our colleagues state side will speak to the new york fed president, william dudley, next week >>> feel free to get in touch with the show at streetsignseurope@cnbc.com, and you can tweet us at @streetsignscnbc. >>> coming up, a closer look at the new man of the driving see the of volkswagen. hotel, car and a

ambassador lighthizer will take the lead for the united states. the past few days have been extremely productive. the friendship between japan and the united states has never been closer. i truly believe it has never been closer than it is today. and the bonds between our people have never been stronger. in the months ahead we'll rely on this great friendship as we face an array of old challenges and new opportunities. and we'll face them together. we'll work closely on trade. we'll do something having to do with the imbalance that frankly should have been done for years and years and years. mr. prime minister, i want to thank you agai again for travelg toll masha lago for these important -- traveling to mar-a-lago for these important meetings. it's been important to work together for peace for our two great and wonderful nations. thank you for being here, shinzo. thank you very much. >> representing the japanese people would like to express my condolences to president bush and flame members. we express our heartfelt condolences. from the infinity

that's why larry on one hand and bob lighthizer on the other and peter navarro can bring together theopportunity for america and i think the best deal for american workers and american companies. trish: what is your reaction to the comey memos? >> well, you know what? gosh, you know, i have a lot of reactions. one, congress has been asking for these memos and congress can't get them, they're leaked. this is part of the systemic problem of washington but james comey seems to articulate a lot of issues in the memos that the president agrees with. the problem is were national security and details and information in some memos that he leaked? and will the inspector general be finding james comey responsible for potentially leaking classified information in this report i guess we're going to see at the beginning of may. there is a lot of bombshells i'm expecting. i think this will be one of them. trish: you just heard from judith miller. she doesn't have a whole lot of faith in james comey. she doesn't think he has a whole lot of faith in the media, which i know you don't either, david, bu

who won't height lighthizer back then.ould say you don't want to get involved, you do want to get involved, you don't want to. but every opportunity dan weaver had, no matter who was in the mayor's office or the general manager was, he said i want to bring folks down to the car barn and we have to do a tour. and we have this amazing asset and resource in our community. it's one of only two historic buildings in our district. balboa high school and the car barn. because of the tenacity of that man and all the people i named and folks in the community, we're standing here now with phase onefully funded. let's give it up for phase one! [applause] and then we had an angel investor from the state assembly who knows his assembly district very well. and as he said, he was the parks champion of 2017. and that was assemblyman phil ting who came in with $3 million. and our former supervisor who was able to go through the outside of the budget process and push really hard and got the attention of his colleagues on the board, and with

donald trump has a different view robert lighthizer has a different view and we're seeing that play out time, so we have the question of these tariffs. we also have the question of the iran nuclear deal. and emanuel macron gave it his best shot to try to persuade president trump to stay in the deal, at least until something else can be negotiated we'll see whether angela merkel can add her voice to that and have any impact in moving the needle on president trump. macron, when he left washington, said he was pessimistic. he thought the president was going to pull out.javers, we jue chancellor angela merkel greet the president. they didn't seem to shake hands. did seem to be a congenial greeting as they walked into the white house. what are you seeing there from the white house lawn >> well, look. so much attention paid to the body language between these two leaders because of the moment last year where it appeared angela merkel wanted to have a handshake with the president and he either missed it or ignored her. a lot of interpretation was he was being rude the white house said no, he ju

along with ambassador lighthizer and the rest of the economic team, larry kudlow and others. this is very well organized. our strategy is very clear and we've been very clear in describing our strategy to china in what we want. >> and can you tell us what you told the president about the potential economic effects of this additional $100 billion of tariffs, of tariffs on goods >> again, i think from our perspective and our analysis, again first of all we haven't announced what the next $100 billion will be on. but again, i think that we can manage this without significant difficulty to the overall kpli there is obviously certain sectors if we did get in a trade war china could target and we'll deal with that, specifically agriculture, we have ways of dealing with that. i won't get into the specifics of negotiation but the president is daily involved in these conversations with the economic team and on the one hand he's absolutely willing to defend our interests. so let me be clear, this is before free and fair trade china's been able to do trade freely in our country. our com

he say he will deputize again larry kudlow and ambassador lighthizer. for america and for the rule of law and economic security in the pacific. kathleen: shortly after this came out, democratic senator elizabeth warren had a tweet saying what is going on here? this is a bad deal. let's look at what she said. donald trump has sworn up and down he will not support bad trade deals. he pulled out after he was elected, but now he wants back in. ridiculous reversal and a slap in the face to the hard-working americans trump promised to fight for. tpp is a lousy deal. it is true donald trump that american workers have been hurt badly by these trade deals, and is also true that elizabeth warren has been a vociferous critic of donald trump. ,he is a democratic senator expected to run for president in a couple of years but she says no way. it is not on her radar screen. yvonne: so is this a ridiculous reversal? there are still a lot of questions about if the u.s. does rejoin tpp, can trump actually strike a better deal? kathleen: there has been a lot going on with

the president has instructed bob lighthizer his top trade negotiator and advisor, larry kudlow, top economic advisor to go forward to try to potentially reenter negotiations as it relates to tpp sasse said that kudlow or the president looked right at kudlow and said, larry, get it done. as you know though, the complication with that the president pulled out of the negotiations in the very first week he was in office here at the white house, and the 11 nations, the 11 other nations who are involved with it. of p -- with tppp have moved forward. how realistic that the u.s. could potentially jump back into these negotiations. david. david: you better believe they will do it. let's bring in today's panel. scott martin, kingsview asset management. fox news contributor. carol roth. economist tim cane, gop congressional candidate in ohio. first to you. tim. a lot going on has a lot to do with larry kudlow announced last week the united states rather than going it alone against the whole world in terms of trade tariffs and stuff we'll do partnerships. we'll partner with the world trade organization

so, he ordered robert lighthizer to conduct an investigation and we put $50 billion worth of tariffslace. there's going to be a 60-day comment period and the intention is to put those tariffs in place. >> so the intention is to put them in place? >> but, but as you note, there are communications going on between the chinese and ambassador lighthizer and secretary mnuchin. the bigger issue here, though, is the president's vision for growth. he has a four-point program. as you know it's tax cuts, deregulation, unleashing our energy sector, and rebalancing our trade. and the trade issue, erin, as you know, is a big issue. when we run a $500 billion trade deficit with the rest of the world, that basically means we're shipping our factories overseas and on the order of three or four million jobs that are there instead of here. so, this is a growth plan the president is pursuing and i think that's the mission and that's what's going on today. >> you know, and look, you always make a good case, peter. but many would call tariff threats and a possible trade wars the opposite of a growth plan

lighthizer and kudlow have been ordered to do this that's what the president is thinking about in termsf policy in terms of politics, it's the comey book. the fired former fbi director's book released yesterday coming off embargo. a lot of news organizations popping headlines on it. this first excerpt gives you the tone of what comey is saying about the president of the united states. here's comey on the president saying the president is unethical and untethered to the truth and institutional value. the president is untethered to the truth, unethical, ego driven and john kelly called comey the day he was fired to commiserate with him kelly said he did not want to work for dishonorable people who would treat me in such a manner. i urged kelly not to quit because the country needed principled people around this president. so comey saying kelly was saying that there are dishonorable people in the white house, presumably saying the president is dishonorable. watch that sound bite. john kelly has been on thin ice now that he's the president's chief of staff we'll see whether this tips the ba

i'm working with a number of labor unions on talking with lighthizer. lighthizer has been very open. i think he's the best trump nominee in terms of the work he's doing. i'm optimistic that we can get to nafta 2.0. andrea: thank you. discussing trump's nominees. what do you think of president trump's selection of ronny jackson as the new v.a. head? and what do you think needs to be done at the v.a.? mr. brown: we were all -- everybody -- i'm on the veterans committee, every senator i talked to about this was surprised with his appointment. i know he has leadership training in the military. i give a lot of credit for that. he's an admiral. i also -- i don't know about his leadership skills to run one of the largest entities in the united states of america. the veterans administration. which has hundreds of thousands of employees. so i don't know about his skills. i want to know that more. but primarily i want to know -- i want a commitment from him that he will not privatize the v.a. i know what happens when you privatize. the workers lose wages and bene

trade chief robert lighthizer says the chinese aren't playing fair when it comes to american tech, that they pressure u.s. tech companies into forevering their technology to chinese partners and flat out steal american it. that theft costs the u.s. economy between 225 and $600 billion annually. there are real world implications of this chinese theft. for example, in december u.s. chip maker micron fil a lawsuit in san francisco accusing united micro electronic of taiwan and a chinese start-up of conspiring to steal its technology. micron allege has the defendants recruited key personnel from micron's taiwan unit getting elem to der trade secrets, a bold scheme for the chinese company to avoid hun eds of millions of dollars in costs, and months of r and d sneefrt one of the most important parts of our entire economy is the ip protection. it ishe extreme competitive advantage to the united states. and it is the core of an enormous number of sectors that you tonight think of quite as high-tech. >> a tech will be theext front in the administration's attempt to reboot the u.s.'s trading rela

we were watching lighthizer. top trade negotiator and our secretary of treasury mnuchin are heading there now to negotiate. that is exactly what the president intended by threatening these extremely large tariffs. neil: you know, you could look at all of this, scott, wonder what is the fallout for technology in general? we'll get facebook earnings after the bell. there is a great deal of scrutiny of all these guys where some technology giants have been taking it on the chin, including amazon. is it your sense that their go go bull times ended or at least slowed? >> slowed is a good word, neil. tech has been really bumpy last few months and weeks. we had a facebook hearing a couple weeks ago and that knocked down the facebook stocks and shared so much information and shared it to our detriment maybe. if you look at tech among all the s&p 500 sectors, tech how we own it and express it in our portfolios has the most earnings power, best cash flow going forward here. if you're looking taking cash off the sidelines i

host: back in march, robert lighthizer appeared before the finance committee to talk about this idea of intellectual property theft. you can see the hearing in total when you go to our website at c-span.org. here's a portion with the trade representative on that topic. [video clip] >> the first question that we ask is do we have a problem with ip theft? and of course, we do. if you look at the record going back to 1991, george herbert walker bush brought at 301 against china for failure to protect ip. we had one from clinton, none of which amounted to much. then we had a system of dialogues over the time in the wto. during that time on at least 10 different occasions, china made specific commitments not to do certain things in the space. it has not kept any of them. we start with the proposition that one of the most important parts of our entire economy is the ip protection. it's an extreme competitive advantage to the united states and the core of a number of sectors that you do not think of as high-tech. we have done a study and will put that study up quickly. the members will have

i had lighthizer in my office. he said we're signing bilaterals. it's been 15 months. has there been a bilateral signed? i don't know of any. we're backing out of nafta, out of tpp. tariffs on chinese goods. china is a bad actor, they've been doing stuff, but you put me and my neighbor's business out of process. the administration has a major problem here. i know it's to get a better deal, but in the meantime those price goes to hell, we're done. >> let's talk about where we are on the trade negotiations again. i think we had a successful negotiation with chorus. that will be announced very soon. agriculture is better off, no worse off than we were with chorus. we are expecting, senator, an agreement on nafta that has some improvements for agriculture. maybe not all that we wanted, but some improvements with agriculture on nafta. i know that you and i probably wouldn't use the same negotiating style that president trump does, but it appears that even with china called into question on some of these things, look, there's no doubt. i'm anxious, producers are anxious. it'

americas moves in -- who is in and who is out, why vice president pence will attend but robert lighthizer agreement on nafta remaining out of reach seemingly. likens donald to a mob boss in his new book. the present call the former fbi director a slimeball. ♪ david: president trump has been storm, up by the tweet from

lighthizer whispers to the senate committee, we are not doing that. charles: the chinese stocks were down because they are bringing up whrending. that underscores the vulnerability of china. all we ever hear is how vulner america is and how this will wreck our economy. >> the chinese banking system is incredibly levered it's controlled by central government. whether it goes out or doesn't go out. i think that, you know, the areas that we are more concerned with is what happens with i.t. that will impact a lot of u.s. companies. charles: when we start to limit chinese investment in technology. >> we are holding back what they can buy from u.s. companies. but also china buying our components because we are trial to protect our i.p. charles: they may apply these tariffs on other countries themselves. we'll block china from sneaking cheap steel through our country. we don't know. because they have other ways of getting the product into this country. i think mexico saying they are going to do this is huge. >> spot on, charles. it is huge. it's a great nego

because the president statement last night says that he has totructed bob lighthizer open up to investigatet this would be in the best interest. that is a months long process, does not happen overnight. vonnie: we make it a provisional pact next week and talks were not ongoing. they broke down. today, a form of session in washington, d.c. russia, 17 senior government officials, tycoons, companies, 12 companies, sanctioned, how what the meeting between vladimir putin and president trump go down with this history? kevin: there has been no word formally as to when or where the meeting will take place. it comes at a time when russia has very much tried to respond to what has been the response from the administration. the most aggressive rehab response on behalf -- response on the demonstration. joined bymp was european counterpoint and russia is ongoing. the focus now turns to congress. because, how the united states will better protect itself against not only political institutions, but financial and big tech companies? that will be on full display next week when the big testimony of mark zuck

we got this report from robert lighthizer. we will see if there is room for retaliation from china.pec-led deal improved 85% the problem of oversupply. we will see whether he is worried about a potential trade war. >> i am not that concerned about a trade war getting to the oil market. unique, as youis know. of, it may affect the cost overall,n, but i think that affect is going to be minor to the oil prices. will this be resilient over the years? i think it is more affected by supply and demand rather than trade wars. >> i understand there have been discussions. i understand that in vienna, there was the five-year average, which i know you were using, and a seven-year average. which one is at the market needs to focus on? >> the basis of what we agreed on, that is talking about the five-year average. the deal was taste on the five-year average. is that fair or not fair? that is another question to analyze. i would prefer to focus on achieving the mission first, and do you can talk about, like five-year average or something else? confusing that with of the situation we are in today a