it is a template, as my friend bob lighthizer says. we have that deal in hand. we are looking toward voting in congress. i might add, speaker pelosi has been very cooperative with bob helpful, invery allowing him access to her conference. he spoke to the whole democratic conference, which is very cool. we are gaining on the china deal. we have come further and farther, deeper than anybody thought possible. we are engaged in talks with europe. we are engaged in talks with japan. we completed a good south korean so-called chorus deal. again, for administration that is supposed to be whatever we are supposed to be, our trading relations are wide open and intense. we are trying to solve important problems in pursuit of free, fair, and reciprocal trade. we have come a long way. a lot of the skeptics have been proven wrong on this. usmcaer: briefly on the the section 232 tariffs are also a snag on this. you have acknowledge that a lot -- acknowledged that a lot of people in congress want them lifted. mr. kudlow: ambassador lighthizer is hard at negotiations with canad

good headway according to bob lighthizer and steven mnuchin. the talks go on. without getting into -- i can't comment on specific details. this is the largest scale, deepest discussion of trade between the two countries in history. we need a good deal. the president said we need a great deal to do this. talking is good. we are talking issues we have never talked before, including enforcement. ip theft, forced transfer of technology, cyber hacking, enforcement, i will repeat. tariffs and nontariff barriers for various commodity trading. all on the table, all making good progress, all making good headway. we are not there yet. we are not there yet. we hope this week could get closer. reporter: is there any word on what that is going to look like? mr. kudlow: bob lighthizer outlined a plan when he spoke to the committee on the hill. i think a very good plan. multi tiered plan to deal with it. penalties if the complaints don't want tout i go into any of those details. linda: sean higgins, over here. senator grassley is promoting legislation to rein in the section 2

bob lighthizer knows that. he is working closely with the president to do something. the chinese do not want wiggle room. they want to know what they will sign when xi jinping shows up. the problem is some of these issues are too big for ministers like lighthizer and xi jinping's emissary to make decisions on. it takes leaders. david: great reporting, as you will have to keep doing for a while. reporting from washington. now is get a check on the markets. we turn to emma chandra. emma: risk on for u.s. equities on that deal you were just discussing. talks between u.s. and china seem to be going well with regards to a trade deal. we are looking at the s&p 500 advancing to its highest levels of the year, trading at its highest since october. almost every single sector with the s&p 500 in the green, just consumer staples and energy the laggards. small losses there. tech is one of the leaders which is why we are seeing the biggest gains for nasdaq today, up more than 1%. this is being driven by the chip stocks, the philadelphia semiconductor index. rising more than 3% and

trying tohave been figure that out, and bob lighthizer has been looking at some structures.his is a key element of a trade deal for the trump administration. they have to make sure that china lives up to their commitments or else face consequences for the tariffs, so there have been some different mechanisms that have been talked wouldin terms of how that work. the chinese worry would be that they were giving up some sovereignty. they do not want the u.s. to be judge, jury, and executioner here. they want to have some say in it. this structure sounds a lot like an embassy to me, is one thing that is being talked about. they have also talked about joint panels. bob lighthizer has talked about a series of different meeting schedules where, every month, officials meet every quarter, sort of more senior officials meet, and twice a year ministers , meet to review progress. but we are still waiting for all of these details. sometimes when we hear raises more questions, like today, then -- then what it actually answers. emily: meantime, chinese officials called a meeting with execu

my dear friend bob lighthizer has been guardedly optimistic. lighthizer is the best trade attorney, best trade negotiator i have ever seen, and he and i are antiques, relics from the reagan years, i love that, both lighthizer and i are reagan antiques. we worked together 35-years ago, i was 13 years old. [laughter] bob: but you have seen progress? mr. kudlow: yes, we have made progress. a tricky business, it has to be a great deal. it has to be the right deal. it has to be an enforceable deal, and it has to cover the structural issues like technology and ip and a cyber hacking, and then of course the commodities, the tariffs and non-tariffs. we have made enormous progress. we continued that last week when they were here. they have been teleconferencing this week.we have made enormous they continue to make progress. i cannot say the deal is done. it is not done. there are things that need to be covered. so am i confident? i will just say i will play this , from the optimistic side. but there are issues that have to be done. bob the economy and w

trade representative bob lighthizer and steven mnuchin traveling to beijing to resume talks on wednesdayfed decision and news conference with chairman powell coming up. rates likely to remain on hold for the bank of england on thursday. jobs numbers on friday. still with us is matthew hornbeck, greg staples, and iain stealey. what are you looking for next week from chairman powell? iain: what will be interesting is his taken reading on inflation. that is the ship we have seen over the past few months. that is the fed's mandate now. they know the growth side is ok. to me, what is the lower bound, what will be low enough to knock them into cutting rates at this stage? matthew: the idea of an insurance rate cut is definitely something people are going to be interested in hearing about. depending on what he says in his prepared remarks, hopefully some enterprising reporters will ask him about the concept of an insurance rate cut. jonathan: maybe some here at bloomberg that may ask the question. walkway through that concept. a win to michael mckee. walk me through this concept of an insurance

she opened the door, bob lighthizer addressed the which is aconference very positive thing. has voted for many trade deals through the years so i'm not going to prejudge. i haven't seen her in a bit since i took office but she was a guest on "the kudlow report" several times. believe, and i'm not a political expert, she will determine the vote. i think we get a vote on usmca. it's just my view. a vote, wewe get have an excellent chance of passing. i want to put a plug in for usmca. we talked a lot about china, but usmca is a very important trade deal and it's a good trade deal. you have not only i think a better distribution with respect to the mastic content with many fact -- domestic content with manufacturing and wage adjustments. adjustments, we had some good breakthroughs on the dairy farming issue with our neighbors to the north. stuff is new economy very positive. it's much stronger intellectual property taxes, which is so vital for entrepreneurship and investments, so vital, expansion of digital services, expansion of financial services, expansion of biologics and so

i remember at one of the hearings bob lighthizer said if we don't get usmca there is no trump trade agenda. i think he was probably exaggerating a little bit, but in any case they see that as one of the big pillars. there is a sort of -- just imagine a world in which usmca doesn't get passed. there's no trade deal with china and there's no deal with japan or the eu, and then really the whole kind of trump trade agenda falls apart. but i think it's a bit too early to kind of come to that conclusion, especially because we don't quite know if nancy pelosi has made a real political decision at this point to sort of turn this into a massive fight or whether to kind of find a way to make it work. >> just one little comment on that. i think pelosi is an incredibly strong position on this one. okay. i mean, so you push usmca. trump talks about pulling out of nafta. have at it, right? so the dislocation and the problems are all the republicans' fault. it's a pretty good position for her. >> thank you very much. i'm a reporter with the voice of america. i have two questions. first is what is the cur

my dear friend bob lighthizer's been guardedly optimistic. he's the best trade attorney, the best trade negotiator i've ever seen, and he and i are antiques, we're relics from the reagan years. i love that, bolton and lighthizer or and i are, like, reagan antiques. we worked 35 some odd years ago. i was 13 years old -- [laughter] i was the associate director of omb. [laughter] >> but have you seen progress? >> yeah. we've made good progress. i mean, that's -- i don't want to predict. look, it's tricky business. it's got to be the a great deal. you've heard the president say that. it's got to be a great deal, it's got to be the right deal, it's got to be an enforceable deal, and it has to cover the structural issues on technology and ip and cyber hacking. and, of course, the commodities, the tariffs and nontariffs. we have made nor mouse progress. we continued that progress last week when they were here. they've been on teleconferencing this week. god, it's already thursday, yeah. they've been teleconferencing. they continue to make progress.

bob lighthizer said there was only one tool he had and that was tariffs. we know donald trump likes tariffs. he said it again today. in the past, he has called himself a tariff man. he thinks they give him leverage, and they are very keen in the white house and this administration not to remove any of that leverage too soon to make sure china lives up to its promises in a deal when we get a deal. it's interesting if you consider how that is going to work with respect to tariffs. if our report this week proves to be correct and they get another six years in terms of compliance with regime, there's a question of what happens to him for stability during that period. >> absolutely. what of the ways we've been thinking about this trade negotiation is that it will somehow lead to a trade deal that is a classic trade deal. actually, this is an incredibly transactional negotiation. in some ways, we should be viewing this more as a legal settlement, the kind of thing you get enforced by a court when resolve theire to differences and lay out a timeline of milestones

bob lighthizer and -- susan: steve mnuchin. >> liu he, serious negotiators.tand if there is no deal, if we go back to confrontation, it hurts our economy and the chinese economy. there is mutually beneficial gain here, mutually beneficial prosperity for the fact they do reach a deal. if they don't, there is mutual economic disruption which no one wants, either. susan: thank you so much. good to see you. bob hormats. speaking of mutual agreements and prosperity, look at the markets today. we are up 305 points, very close to the session highs as we are just around 15 minutes away from the closing bell today. fannie and freddie, fannie mae, freddie mac at the center of a new d.c. storm. coming up, charlie joins us with exclusive details on the white house in-fighting that could keep the mortgage lenders solidly under the government's thumb. charlie breaks it down on "countdown." susan: fannie and freddie largely becoming the poster children of the 2008 subprime crisis. now the two mortgage lenders are finding themselves at the center of a new d.c. fight that's p

trade representative bob lighthizer. bloomberg and other outlets report the u.s.the chinese might be signaling they will purchase more commodities, as well as even allow for the u.s. to purchase chinese-based firms. it also comes at a time when there is intense scrutiny as to whether or not president trump ing willident xi jinp ultimately meet face-to-face, as other outlets reported. romaine: some headlines from trump, saying a trade deal with china is not ready yet, but also that a trade deal could be within the next four weeks. sean, i want to go to you. what are the big concerns is still that they have to work on? time, we at this talked about enforcement mechanisms and timing for compliance. is that still where the biggest challenges will be? sean copeland the biggest challenge right now in the short term -- sean: the biggest challenge right now in the short term is how and when you unwind the trade war and tariffs. the chinese want all of them to go away, and the u.s. would want to keep as many as they can as leverage to get the chinese to live up to their en

bob lighthizer is working on that.ll see. >> the president and abe will have a lot of quality time to talk about trade. they'll be meeting in the oval office this even. they will get together for dinner for the first lady's birthday and then to play golf tomorrow. >> shepard: the president was at the nra thing. did somebody throw a cell phone at him or in his direction? >> that's what it looks like. that's what the u.s. secret service is investigating. it was as the president was walking up on the stage. you see something there fly across in front there. there it is in slow motion. lands on the far side of the stage. it doesn't like like whoever through that was throwing it at the president. it landed about 20 feet away from him. the secret service contained the individual. they're trying to figure out what his intention was and whether or not there should be charged brought against him, state or federal. i've been monitoring my phone because i'm hoping to hear -- just got something a second ago. no, no from the secret

he is a bob lighthizer. xi xinping is, on the other hand like donald trump. they're the top guys.lly decide. but i think, liu he will get a good as deal as can be reached both from the american perspective and from the chinese perspective. he is a good man. very smart. connell: a little more from the president. we're rounding the turn he says, we made a lot of progress, that is how he is describing things, senator baucus. as a final point i talked to a lot of people over last how many months, sometimes the take from wall street types and the like, hey, whatever you think of the president and his approach, maybe you don't even like the tariffs he is doing more than his predecessors has done, he has made more progress than say president obama who you worked under with regard to china. what would you say to that? >> i think it is true that president trump has been much more aggressive, much more direct, almost up frontal assault if you will against china compared with his predecessors, not just president obama but president bush as well, that is basically because the problems we're f

and within e.u ly propose to my friends, especially to bob lighthizer i will have a meeting with him tomorrow morning to enter into a negotiation and to do something to found a consensus and a compromise between the u.s. and the e.u we have to avoid a trade war we are facing, as you just said, a slowdown both at the global level and at the european level the reason why there is such an economic slowdown is that there are trade tensions all over the world. there are trade tensions between the u.s. and china we should not add new trade tensions between the u.s. and the e.u. it will be a political mrs. take and an economic mistake, too >> meantime, the imf's managing director christine lagarde says the macroeconomic situation in russia is healthy. speaking in washington at the spring meeting lagarde add thad more deep and structural reforms are needed to boost russia's growth potential in january the imf downgraded the gdp forecast for 2019 and 2020 jumana spoke with the russian finance minister in washington and asked him how he thinks the russian economy would be fairing if it weren't

bob lighthizer is on it and we're moving hard and we'll see.eporter: chinese president xi xinping had a national address. in that address he said quote, we'll establish binding enforcement for international agreements. we'll protect intellectual property for companies. white house economic advisor larry kudlow say they're 95% done with a trade deal with china. he said that last 5% is very difficult to cross the finish line. charles: always is. no matter what trying to lose weight, that 5%, whatever it is, that last 5%, you hit heart break hill. edward, thank you very much appreciate it. reporter: thank you, charles. charles: a new story in "the washington post" says president trump's approach to the trade deals are at odds with chamber of commerce. lifetime support of course has always been for them to expand what they call free trade. according to a report the chamber says the gop has gone very far right, too far right. they want to be more centrist. here is discuss to fox news contributor liz peek, "wall street journal" editorial page editor

broader pushback since liu he went back to beijing to try to sell the deal he agreed to with bob lighthizere have been pushing back and the meetings we've seen last weekend in beijing, this week in washington, rather than assign that the deal is imminent, this is a sign that both sides intensifying their negotiations because those gaps remain and from washington's perspective, if beijing is not able to sign up to the kinds of structural reforms they say is necessary to address the 301 concerns, washington is comfortable just leaving those tariffs in place so the eurasia groups, the fairly robust probability if we don't see a comprehensive deal by the end of june, by the g20 summit in japan where both leaders are set to meet, the risks of a deal being indefinitely delayed and those tariffs remaining in place for a good part of 2019, those risks will rise considerably. >> eunice, final point monitoring the progress in china of what's happening there, does that seem unlikely to you? and if that kind of a verification sis unlikely, then are tariffs the only likely outcome? >> seems unlikely bec

bob lighthizer put this together, i think it is the single best trade deal in american history, i mean that. i have been out there fighting for it. happy to talk about it in on your program. it is so totally pro-growth and pro entrepreneurship. it fits right in with all the other things that this administration is trying to do. i'm still playing it cautiously optimistic on the china trade. they are hard at it. david: china has all of the tensions between the china and the u.s. have caused a lot of problems, not just here, but around the world. if there is a china deal, what happens to the world economy? do we see -- how big a boom could we get from a good china deal? >> well, if it's a good deal, or to use the president's phrase, if it's a great deal, and if it's an enforceable deal, then yes, i think it's win-win, growth for everybody. it will help open up chinese economy. if they open up their economy, we will sell them a ton of goods. our export sales will soar. we are the most competitive economy in the world; right? so if they let us in, we'll have phenomenal export sales trading

bob lighthizer and steve mnuchin have been regularly having videos, if you will, with the vice premierver documents themselves like they are fifty-year associates at a law firm. there are a lot of issues to cover, and they are doing a very good job. the basic relationship among the andle is straightforward problem-solving oriented. sure that there will be an agreement -- jason: soon? stephen: your definition of student would have to be discussed -- of soon would have to be discussed. my thought is within the next six weeks, you will probably have this where it is going to be. it is not going to be an agreement that solves all problems because of china's economic form. it is different, with huge state ownership of certain things and subsidies. there are a variety of issues important to the united states that will be addressed. there's goodwill. china understands it is in their interest longer-term to open their markets and start protecting intellectual property and things of that type. , butthe wrong continent rome wasn't built in a day. this won't be all done in one deal. that nothing

investor bob lighthizer, steven mnuchin will be heading to beijing for talks. after that, the vice premier will be here in washington. that may be a moment when some at least a closing of a draft deal. president trump on thursday talking about xi jinping coming to visit him at the white house sometime soon. we are in an important endgame here. amanda: of course, all of that going on, and we have the bri fo rum happening here. anything on the political side of this as china expands its influence, that could change the tone of how they think about china, as they get to the final strokes on the street agreement? shawn: i think there are still huge amount of suspicion in the national security world in washington about china's intentions. the big question that will come up immediately after we get a deal is, was it worth it did president that preside trump get the concessions he needed out of beijing to justify on tariffs, the impact felt farmers and others here in the u.s.? secondly, that big geostrategic question. if you look at donald trump's national security st

has a bob lighthizer history. he is pretty tough on this. like to keep them in place until we can say at some point in the future the chinese are complying. hours on them, and you go into negotiation like that and it is going to be difficult to persuade the other side. david: the question was whether this was an agreement to have further negotiations because basically it will go on and on. to be thehat seems fallback position, to kick the can down the road if china stimulus can boost the party enough to keep the rest of the world floating, why are you arguing about this? alix: thank you very much for joining us. take a look at the wto and what they are looking at in terms of the forecast on trade, lowering their overall growth forecast about 3.9%. for this year they are predicting 3.7%. general of the wto talked about that yesterday. the downwardion of trend is due to increased certainties in the market. the biggest chunk of uncertainty in the market drawing china's attention. still with us, eric freedman of u.s. bank wealth management. is i

as we talk here deciding the fate of the world they're over in bob lighthizer's office in ustr decidinggreement. they will discuss it and discuss it most of today and probably next week at senior principles level there will be more discussions by teleconference, whatever. the key point i'm trying to communicate, stu, is not a deadline. it is a good trade deal, what the president calls a great deal for america and at that point, at that point, people will begin to figure out how to schedule a meeting between the two leaders. stuart: larry, are you going to tell us categorically there will be a china trade deal of some kind at some point? >> you know, stu, that is an unanswerable question like any negotiation. you know baseball, free agents, who knows. they're talking. stuart: do you think it is likely? >> they're talking. i will say this personally, i will play this from cautiously optimistic side. i think the president was cautiously optimistic yesterday. i think vice premier liu he was cautiously optimistic. there was a lot of good feeling, a lot of good will in the oval office and neg

you know, secretary mnuchin and bob lighthizer -- they're in china right now. unless they are flying -- unless they're over the pacific. but they're -- knows talks have really advanced tremendously. and everything -- it's not disadvantaging our friends and partners. it's really about lechg the playing field. and lechlg the playing field. i think ots of other presidents wanted to make progress on that but haven't had success. president trump has had success. you can see with o it with the korean and usmca deal. but we are sfraemly hopeful about the progress we made and the talks with china too. you know, we'll see how that goes. >> when i talked to your colleagues in the administration particularly about china some people seem focused on getting the bilateral trade deficit down. others seem focused on intellectual property theft. what's the overarching objective of the negotiations. >> here is the basic thought you need in mind. the negotiations have lots of object he was as all negotiations do. but the basic thought if you want to think about the rmts with chin

lighthizer, and the chinese. sticking point is tariffs if they are left in place. alix: still with us, sebastian page and bob look at the wto chart and how they downgraded overall forecasts, does this change what the chart looks like it would get the deal we think we are going to get? >> it would have an impact on trade numbers, of course. but the deal is more or less priced at the moment, so the risk might be moving to the downside. when you look at the trade nevers and tariffs, you are looking at the tip of the iceberg of the issue with trade. below the headlines are deep issues with supply chains, for example. 40% of what china exports to the u.s. is from u.s. companies based in china. implications chain are real. erts on thexp ground report that ceos are worried about investing until this is resolved. so we need the deal for this to keep going. david: if there is a real trade deal that makes at least some reforms, is there a much more powerful reason to invest in this sense? here?re an upside could president trump have a point that we could liberalize trade from china and around the world and increase th

the negotiations and it does make me wonder whether in the final stretch there's a chance that bob lighthizerto come back and say look, we just haven't been able to make some fudge and often this does not satisfy all the concerns raised in this investigation and if we can make a recommendation to trump not to take the deal which trump might say, get lost, we will do the deal anyway. but i think that is one thing that i think everyone needs to watch out for because also it means that if a deal struck that's fairly limited on these key issues than there could be a more serious backlash from congress and that could cause problems in the political level for trump. at the moment, trump is any real sweet thought because you got the market have been rallying in the fears of the slowdown have used in is in this great position in which he can say he is negotiating a fantastic three deal but nobody really knows what is in it and there's just a few weeks away for the last two months. the reason may be why this has been suspended for so long is because being a few weeks away from a fantastic three deal i