Able to get the broadest diversity diversity of questions. If you have a card or question, lifted up. We will have runners to pick them up from you. Scott miller will make sure we get the best and most questions to the table as possible. I am responsible for everybody here. If something happens, i will ask you to follow me. First i will take care of the ambassador, but i will come back to you. Right behind me are the exit doors, the stairs that go down closest to this one will go down , take two lefthand turns and go across to the national geographic, get ice cream and celebrate our survival. We are going to be just fine. Follow my instructions if i have to have you do something. To introduceident the u. S. Trade representative, but fortunately i have two who are and especially one who is a close friend. Thetor brock, chairman of Republican National committee, i think he has edited five or six headed five or six commissions on education. It was through his office that he was able to enlist representative light house or like kaiser Robert Lighthizer to join us. Please welcome senator brock. Good morning. I want to remind john that there are two other ambassadors to take care of, in case something happens. I was privileged to hold this trade job a long time ago, and i did love it. And i used to say that economics, Economic Policy can have more to do with the piece and stability of the world than all the diplomats in the world. There is a fundamental truth to that, and the strength of this country in economic terms is the source of our strength envision in addition to what i think is our moral strength. We were trying to open a lot of , particularly in the area of services, intellectual property, investments. Free tradeng some agreements with israel and canada and when you are in that field, you work with congress or it does not get done. I had a terrific relationship with lloyd bentsen, bob dole, and i had a terrific opportunity to work with the staff director and chief counsel of the Senate Finance committee. When he was given the opportunity by president reagan , it wase the deputy ocr a combination of people that had worked together and i was very comfortable with that and the thing that made me comfortable about this nomination, this year was in having worked with him, i learned what an extraordinarily intelligent, thoughtful and caring person he is and i watched when he was working with dozens of bilaterals, a bunch of them. Having him with that background, it leads me to considerable comfort in the fact that he knows the rules and knows that they work. That is important, in todays world. There has to be some pattern or consistency. Wto oru talk about the u. S. Trade rules, the different sections of trade policy, understanding them and employing them productively is a fundamentally important part of the job of the u. S. Trade rep. It is with a great deal of pleasure that i want to introduce somebody for whom i have a lot of respect, bob lighthizer. [applause] thank you, senator. This thing with guests, friends, first, when i was asked to do brock, it is not one of those things you can say no to. One of the things that i was reminded of was very early on, when we worked together, so im going from the staff director of the Senate Finance committee to work for senator brock, and we are taking our first trip together and i am a newly minted ambassador, and proud of myself, and in those days, you had to fly from here to new york, into paris. Trip, iirst leg of the am sitting next to the senator and i say i know i am missing something. It was my passport. [laughter] i am a ambassador flying with my boss from the cabinet and i dont have my passport. About halfway through, i lean over and say senator, ive forgot something. He was cool, he said its not a problem. He make he makes a couple calls. I fly to paris with him and somebody brings my passport the next day and i come by and talk. O his secretary at the time hes she said he forgot his three times. That is one of those things that you remember, when it happens to you. Now i have people who tell me, do you have your passport . I have been blessed in my life by having some great men to work with, and none greater than senator doyle and senator dole and senator brock. A great friend and a great teacher, an extraordinary career. Your. Know what title that you have not had, legitimately. People something people generally dont know is he is a bit of a insurgent. He challenge orthodoxy he challenges orthodoxy. And theran for congress senate, he ran more as a insurgent. I think of it as a little bit like the 1960s or 70s tea party guy. It took on the big machine and rnc, at and then at the some point, you can go through the details, but there were a number of things that were controversial, not the least of which was going to detroit for the national convention. Ustr, he did a great job of balancing our international tradetions and moving the system forward but also defending american industry. We end up with the reagan traded reagan trade policy which is insisting that we get fair treatment on motorcycles and steel andecially semiconductors and automobiles and my own view is the reason these Japanese Companies originally moved to the United States was because of senator they put inlicy place. What i do things that are challenging the orthodoxy, you know where it is coming from. It is coming from my mentor, and he should get all the blame. People who know me know that im a bit of a contrarian. Let me just make a few points and then take some questions. Of course, these are very Interesting Times for trade. For decades, support for what we call free trade has been eroding among the electorate. There has been a growing feeling that the system that has developed in recent years is not quite fair to American Workers and manufacturing and that we need to change. Parties ranh major candidates who to one degree or another were trade skeptics. Democratic side on the democratic side, we had senator sanders, who campaigned hard on this issue. Their candidate, secretary clinton did not espouse the trade views of her husband or for that matter, her boss when she was secretary of state. She professed some degree of trade skepticism. On our side, the views of President Trump are wellknown. Ofiticians can be accused changing to populist positions, to get votes. This cannot be said of the president. Years,go back 20 or 30 you see a remarkable consistency. Of thebeen critical prevailing u. S. Trade policy, of socalled free trade deals and their effects on workers. We will have change in trade policy. Lets talk about our philosophy. I know that many sincerely believe that the prevailing world trade policy has been great for america, and that those who complain are people who are victims of economic progress. These analysts think of the whole problem is one of getting the correct message through. Not a policy direction issue, but a failure to communicate. They believe that the voters are illinformed or in some cases perhaps ignorant. If they only understood, they would support these trade agreements and all the rest. Most of you know that i am not in that group. President , ande i believe that americans can compete successfully with anyone in the world if the conditions are fair, not in all sectors but in most. I believe like many of you that removing market distortions, encouraging fair competition and letting markets determine economic outcomes leads to greater efficiency and a larger production of wealth both here and abroad. Im sure most also agree that many markets are not free or fair. Governments try to determine outcomes through subsidies, closing markets, regulatory restrictions and multiple similar strategies. The real policy different i submit is not over whether we want efficient markets, but how do we get them. What is the best thing to do in the face of market distortions, to arrive at free and fair competition . I believe and the president believes that we must be proactive. The years of talking about these problems has not worked, and we must use all instruments we have to make it expensive to engage in noneconomic behavior and to convince our trading partners to treat our workers, farmers and ranchers fairly. Inmust demand reciprocity home and in international markets. Expect change, new approaches, and expect action. Second, the president believes and i agree, that trade deficits matter. One can argue that too much emphasis can be put on specific bilateral deficits, but i think it is reasonable to ask when faced with decades of large deficits, globally and with most countries in the world, whether the rules of trade are causing part of the problem. That tax rates, regulations and other macroeconomic factors have a large part in forming these numbers. The president is tackling these issues, but i submit the rules of trade also matter and that they can determine outcomes. In a simple example, how can one argue that it makes little difference when we have a 2. 5 tariff on automobiles and other developed countries have a 10 tariff . That it is inconsequential when the same countries order dashboard or adjust their taxes and we do not, or that it is unemployment unimportant when some countries undervalue their currencies. Is it fair for us to pay higher tariffs to export the same product that they pay to sell here . I believe there is one challenge on the current scene. It is substantially more difficult than those based in the past, and that is china. The sheer scale of the coordinated efforts to subsidize, create national champions, the force Technology Transfer and to distort markets in china and throughout the world is a threat to the World Trading system that is unprecedented. Unfortunately, the wto is not equipped to deal with this problem. Predecessor, the general agreement on tariffs and trade, were not designed to successfully manage mercantilism on this scale. We must find other ways to defend our companies, workers, farmers and our economic system. We must find new ways to ensure that a marketbased economy prevails. Fourth, we are looking at all of our trade agreements to determine if they are working to our benefit. The basic notion in a Free Trade Agreement is that one grants preferential treatment to a trading partner in return for an approximately equal amount of preferential treatment in their market. The object is to increase efficiency and create wealth. A is reasonable to ask after period of time whether what we received and what we paid are roughly equivalent. Where the numbers and other factors indicate a disequilibrium, one should renegotiate. We had election. No one really ran on maintaining the status quo in trade. President trump won. We have a different philosophy, and there will be change. I look forward to working with many of you in this room on these issues, as things develop an returning from time to time, to talk about progress as we move forward. I look forward to answering your questions. [applause] good morning and let me add my welcome to all of you in the auditorium and online. I am the Senior Advisor and we are delighted to have you here. This is without question, the largest, most interesting crowd i have seen, which says to me it would be a good career move to do more with senator brock. Rep. Lighthizer it did work for me. Scott the ambassador has given us an amount of time to interact with questions. Because of the large crowd and the short time, i would ask each of you, if you have a question, write it on a card and pass it to the center aisle. Get it to the outside. Staff will pick it up and we look at the questions up here. I will put my reading glasses on and let you know there is some preferential treatment given to readable print. Brock the first question. He had a question about trade agreements. It struck he and others as unusual that given businesses prefer to have a stable, portable environment and certainly in tax law and regulation, most businesses period of a stable time under which to operate. How does the provision of a son how does the idea of a sunset provision work . All, ighthizer first of am not going to talk about any provisions that may be in this i will have to opt to answer that privately. Scott lets ask a broader question. You were in office during the reagan administration. Between now and then, a lot of changes in trade policy. As you take office after an absence in private practice, what is the most important changes to the u. S. Economy and the most important changes to trade policy that affect your day . Rep. Lighthizer in the first place, the whole economy is whole is wholly different. I dont think we had cell phones. So when we got off the plane in new york, you had to find a place to put a quarter in and make a phone call. There was no digital economy. Other thing that i would say is that we were focused on a mercantilist policy from japan and ie had to worry about think now, it is on a scale, multiples of that with china. I have thely, japanese come in and meet with me, and they say we have to do something about this mercantilism from china. They are very worried about it. The principal challenge we face, is how do we deal with china in a Global Trading system. How do we deal with china in a system where we want market efficiency to dictate . There are other challenges we have. Trade agreements we dont think have worked out in our interest, we have to create rules that work well for services and the digital economy. The biggest challenge we face right now, the biggest difference between now and those days was the appearance of china. Scott let me follow with a question on the trunk trade policy for asia. Since the reagan era, there has. Een a key focus on a rising asia key focus on a rising asia. Soon after bush number 1 bush number one, you would say it was the Clinton Administration focused on china in the wto. The bush 43 administration did trade agreements with singapore, australia, key allies. The Obama Administration worked a lot on the transpacific partnership. What is your thought about the trunk policy toward a rising asia . Rep. Lighthizer in the first place, we prefer bilateral trade agreements to multilateral trade agreements. The working assumption is that if you have a 18 trillion economy, you can do better at negotiating, individually. Not only can you negotiate better agreements, and you can enforce them, more easily because usually in a multilateral agreement, it is difficult to enforce the agreements because you are disrupting too many things. Policy will be to engage the countries in that region on bilateral agreements. We have to determine when we are going to do it and what will the order we order be. This administration wants to stay very much engaged in asia, and we expect to do that. Scott well we are the subject of bilateral, they one has gotten a lot of attention since Prime Minister may visited the white house, is it possible for states u. K. Bilateral agreement . Obviously the u. K. Has to work out some aspects of their article five article 50. What are your views on the bilateral with the u. K. . How do you expect that to play out . Rep. Lighthizer i have met with dr. Fox and talked about these issues at the appropriate time issues. At the appropriate time, i think the United States will enter in agreement with the u. K. I think they will come to an agreement that is beneficial to both parties. That is probably a year or two off. When when it is going to happen is not clear, but we have had meetings. We talked about how we will proceed. It is something that is on the horizon, that the governments have spoken about. At the appropriate time, we will have a negotiation and im sure it will be a successful one. Scott lets turn to the multilateral system. There is a conference coming up in when a set is in white house areas in buenos aires. What does the Trump Administration lan to do with the ongoing negotiations, such as the Trading Services agreement customer agreement . Rep. Lighthizer trying to make some decision as to which ones we think are in our interests, which ones we want to pursue. Ustr is doing a study on that and hopefully it will come out in another month or so. Our view is it is unlikely that is going to lead to any negotiated outcomes. There are a number of areas where we would be willing to engage. Hopefully we will end up with a good conference, one that we decide what the upcoming agenda will be and there will be an agreement on that. Clearly, services are important for the United States. We have a 250 million trade surplus. Oft is a very important part what we want to encourage. American companies could be much bigger if we had better roles and if we didnt have countries blocking u. S. Exports and services. That is a major thing for us. I have huddle i have had a lot of executives talking to us and they have a myriad of problems, trying to move around. Continue with the wto, the United States has raised some objections to the way bodies are formed and that process. Can you tell us about what the u. S. Is trying to accomplish in terms of changing the body . Rep. Lighthizer there are a number of issues on which there is a pretty broad agreement that the wto there are transparency issues. There are issues with the staff. I think there is a general agreement to our problems, but i think even beyond that, the United States sees numerous and its over the years has really diminished what we have argued for. Been a lot of cases opinion, it is really indefensible. We have tax laws that have been struck down. Weve had other provisions where thatto took the position they were going to strike down something that should not have happened. What we have tended to see is wericans look at the wto and say ok, this is a contract and these are my rights. Arers tend to think they evolving governance and theres betweenifferent idea these two things and i think sorting that out is what we have to do. Really, things we are trying to evolve into what is good for trade, that is one thing. When ambassador hill sat down and negotiated, she had a very was theidea of what it United States with giving and what it was we were getting in anything that is not forced that is troubling. Obligations and it has reduced a lot of our benefit. Practically is what we have to and it ist in the end a fundamental part of the wto. Issues. Raise major level, toactical patterns that have come out on both sides which is not therising at all and complains tend to win much more toss orn toss corn coin toss. The u. S. Is involved in a lot of cases. How do you think the decisions on cases will affect the reform process . Areo the extent we objecting to the process because we dont agree in many cases the limitede body has not itself to what is in the agreement. That is the nature of our complaint. That is not to say we dont. Back when senator barack and i were there, there was a system where you would bring in half negotiations. And trade group and we resolved issues eventually. Now under this dispute process, we have to create a point of view. Large problem. It is somewhat new. We have not done that recently. What should we expect to see . Personal, it is an investigation so i cant prejudge it. Decide gather facts and what the situation is and if needed, we will recommend a remedy so we have not prejudge anything come of it you say, there are an awful lot of complaints about Technology Ceos come to see me continuously in almost every ceo at some point will say they are having a problem with china, forcing them to join. Their processnse less than market value. In addition to that, theres another issue which is whether ofnot there is piracy intellectual property so we are looking at both of those things. Theres an awful lot indicated. Intellectual property is one of the competitive advantages the United States has. The United States has developed an enormous amount of intellectual property in getting that for workers is very important. It is a fundamental case. If we turn on violations, we are not device other remedies where forces. With armed we all want to get to the same thing and we have confidence that if we get to the point where we like free trade, the United States will do great. Question is, what do you do to get there . Or if you talk about it, people will see the light. I guess what i wanted to say is he kind of walked on both sides. Hopefully well do that to as we move forward. I think you were quoted as saying negotiations or at warp speed. A little less than two weeks between negotiating rounds. 2015, congress was fairly specific for ongoing consultations. How are you and your team thating expectations congress has set and advancing at the speed you are advancing . We all know if were going to get to a conclusion. We are running very quickly somewhere. We have a series of fiveday sessions as you say. Another one starting in ottawa and another in a week or so. There are elections coming up in mexico and plus it United States, the whole process is having effects on ranchers and business people, particularly in the United States and mexico, but also in canada. The consultation process is complicated as most people know. The first time this process was 1979 when the Carter Administration came into that agreement. Since then, i think it is fair to say they have added some new twist that somebody said why dont you do this and the reason for that is the constitution gives power. They have a right to say what these terms are. We have to consult with the congress. Text or at least give the process an opportunity then we have to go to congress and get proposals for the process. It is it will come of the heart on the people. You have a real negative effect, unintended Collateral Damage on sol people selling products it is difficult and takes a lot of time. It is hard on everyone, but a something that has to be done but i think we have to do a good job on it. Negotiationsral that a radically underway, ive not talked about it all. It never really got much past definition gerund. What are your thoughts on trade with europe . It is aes this go huge relationship. That agreement is one where looking at. Haves a reason we elections in europe. On the broader question, the question is extremely important. Improving the rules there is something. Including the challenge of china, also negotiations with the wto is also important. One final question on services and what we talked about the agreement and what youre hearing from companies. Clearly, it is a major issue in a major source advantage in the world. What is your vision for when negotiations can go in this administration. It really is not what a lot of people here might think. And the companies or attorneys and that is our american and others, they will be a different data capitalist spread around we understand whenever we had a bilateral meeting. We always have a list of complaints of very specific barriers and we have a certain amount of leverage and not in others. We are doing what we can to open the markets in right now, we are doing it at a bilateral basis. The first to thank you for coming here and having a forthright vision of what youre doing. We do appreciate you being here. Thank you and wish you the best of luck. Thank you. [applause] coming up in about 10 minutes, a look at pensions in north korea over north Koreas Nuclear weapons and missile programs. It will have that live at noon eastern in at 2 00 in the veteran diplomats involved in the negotiations with the negotiations with north korea would discussed the history of north for International Peace live at 2 00 eastern also on cspan and tonight, Hillary Clinton will give her account of the 2016 president ial campaign and she talks about her election memoir. The first lady will talk to her muscatine livea today at 7 00 eastern. The house of representatives is in recess this week. Congresswoman saying shes fine with the u. S. Coast guard to tour the devastation by hurricane irma. We have to be sure we get the best writing for the Health Care Dollars we currently spend and best job deaths that health care is delivered Higher Quality to all american. The simple fact is that americans are spending nearly now 1 trillion a year on health care and were not getting our moneys worth. Years, thepast 30 Video Library is your free resource for politics, congress in Washington Public Affairs so