we were hit with mine it is first time we sailed up the persia. all kinds of terrible things happened and yet we prevailed. no one in the u.s. congress was with us at the time but since there are 535 of them, it's hard to get the congress moving in the same direction at the same time. so the whip hand is with the executive branch if the executive branch will understand that. >> rose: are we exercising our economic power and our trade power as much as we should? >> the short answer is no. we have three existing free trade agreements left over from the bush administration with korea at a time when korea needs the support. the president has indicated he will push for this but it doesn't seem that we do have a trade policy. it's not clear congress will go along with it. and so in asia, at least, where trade is the name of the game to some extent then we're playing with one hand tied behind our back. >> rose: and the chinese are going all over africa and latin america making deals, makg deals, making deals. >> but south asia, afghanistan, bangladesh, t