U. S. mexico canada trade agreement. Hosted by the Wilson Center, this is just under a half an hour. Good morning. So welcome to the Wilson Center. Were going to get started today. Im chris wilson. Im the Deputy Director of the Mexico Institute here and i lead our work on the u. S. mexico border among some other things. Were very pleased to be partnering with the Border Trade Alliance once again, our sixth annual u. S. mexico border conference. I say too often the mexico border, when viewed on the National News media is understood as a potential risk. Potential Entrance Point for a terrorist attack, thank goodness something thats never occurred, its a risk for drug trafficking, a risk for unauthorized immigration and it is, in a sense all of those things. It does represent some risks. The u. S. mexico border is an integral part of our Homeland Defense system along with intelligence work and International Partnerships and good policing across the country and plenty of other pieces of that system but the border is so much more than that. The border represents an opportunity. All rig already the border states represent the fourth largest economy in the world. We have a half trillion dollars in trade that crosses the border each year. We have the mix of competitive advantages of the United States and mexico that make it an attractive place for investment and production with the American Manufacturing platform. The border region has traditionally been seen as the periphery, the edge of the United States, the edge in many ways sort of a wild frontier. But i think its becoming, and in many ways has for a long time already become the heart and the center of the north american regional economy and thats what were trying to highlight by having an event like this and doing it every year. Were trying to make sure that the national conversation, the conversation here in washington about the border, has people like so many of you that are from the border region who see it up close and personal and know that theres so much opportunity in the border and yes some risks but that we can manage those things with smart policy ideas to enhance security and enhance competitiveness at the same time. And so i want to thank the Border Trade Alliance, Britton Clark and all of the Board Members for partnering with us. Id like to thank our sponsors for helping make this event possible. Id like to recognize any of our special guests in the audience. I know pthat ambassador barsenof from the Mexican Embassy is coming upstairs as we speak actually and i of course want to say were honored to be joined today by senator cornyn of texas. Hes been a long friend of this conference, participated in it before, of the Border Trade Alliance, and of the Wilson Center. He was here just a couple months ago to talk about u. S. mexico security cooperation, what was a fascinating conversation with our director jane harmon. Shes in boston today and sends her regards. Shes still working to get you that credential as an official part of the Wilson Center team. Were delighted to have someone like you here thats truly demonstrated leadership on u. S. mexico relations on building a competitive border, on all these things that were here to talk about and focus on today. We couldnt be more honored to have you wick off our conference this morning. Thanks very much, senator. Well, good morning, everyone, its good to be back at the Wilson Center. As chris said i was here not that long ago talking with jane harmon about security challenges and it seems like when we talk about the border that seems to dominate our conversations. But im here to talk about not just that, but as paul harvey, the famous radio personality used to say, the rest of the story. And we know the Security Issues certainly steal the headlines. But as a texan, this is personal because of course our relationship with mexico, as i like to say, its were like an old married couple. We cant get divorced. Weve got to make it work and we do that every day to our Mutual Benefit so ive long believed in the strong the importance of the strong trading relationship with our southern border because i know of its positive impact on our state but also on the nation. Nafta is and our trading relationship in north america with canada and mexico is credited with supporting about 5 million american jobs, just the binational trade with mexico, about another 8 million binational trade with canada. Its obviously very, very important and our total goods and Services Trade totaled more than 670 billion last year alone and most of it is because of our proximity to mexico between the state of texas and mexico which is and mexicos far and away texass top trading partner. In 2018, for example, texas exported 110 billion in goods to mexico and imported more than 107 billion from that country. Now, that trade feeds our local communities and our certainly state and national economy. Its critical to the supply chain for the Manufacturing Industry that depends on that binational trade and i think we ought to be looking for ways to do more business, not less business with mexico. So i appreciate the chance to talk to you about a few of those things today. I want to thank my friends at the Border Trade Alliance and of course here at the Wilson Center for hosting us and i had a chance to visit with some of you yesterday so its good to see you again. Well, right now the thing that is dominating the headlines is the humanitarian crisis thats occurring at the border. That was first that phrase was first coined in 2014 by president barack obama who called the surge of migration coming across the border a humanitarian and security crisis and its gotten worse, unfortunately, due to a confluence of circumstances, as you know. Last month 144,000 people were detained at the southern border. But whats so different is people are simply turning themselves in because trafrankl the coyotes have figured out american law and realize if you bring unaccompanied children or send unaccompanied children or bring families that they will successfully navigate our immigration laws and end up being able to stay in the United States because theyve simply overwhelmed our capacity to deal with the issue. So i wouldnt be surprised, actually, until some of the more recent developments weve seen for that number to get even bigger. It was the third month in a row that the number of individuals who came across the border were six figures and its a trend we havent experienced since 2006 when the yearly total topped more than a million. As you know theres essentially no net migration from mexico. Its primarily a Central American phenomenon although the rio grand valley detained people from more than 140 countries. This is wellknown to the smuggling organizations and who care nothing about the people. They view them merely as a commodity and of course many of these criminal organizations are commodity agnostic. Theyre in it for the money and nothing else. Well, congress and the administration have grappled with a way to manage this massive influx of migrants and its caused some consternation as you know about legal trade and travel and created a lot of challenges. For one thing because the numbers have simply overwhelmed our capacity the ports of entry are now primarily ways that children and family units are cared for as they are processed through our system and of course customs and Border Protection officials are being deployed to hand out juice boxes and diapers as opposed to moving commerce across the border. I understand things have gotten a little bit better since weve surged additional customs and Border Protection officials to those ports but what that means is were taking them from other places around the country and were hearing from our friends from the Northern Borders and airports and other places around the country theyre experiencing delays and problems as a result of this reallocation of resources. I remember there was one time when i had this conversation with President Trump who said were going to shut down the border and i called the president and i said, mr. President , thats going to have a lot of unintended consequences and please let us come back to you with some more targeted ways to try to get peoples attention. Of course the most important thing that could be done is congress could actually do its job and act. And indeed i reached out to my friend and frequent partner on trade and border issues, henry quaar. Hes a reasonable, rational, good, patriotic american and a great tex an. Loopholes that are being exploited now by the human smugglers to move people into the United States. The other alternative is what the president resorted to when congress wouldnt act, he threatened additional tariffs on mexico. And i am happy that the relationship with mexico and the United States is such that they were able to negotiate a result, which is involves mexico signing more of its National Guard along the southern mexican border. Traditionally this has been viewed as an american problem and mexico hasnt viewed this as their problem, much as they have the drug issue where theyve viewed this as being an american problem. If there wasnt the demand then people wouldnt be selling drugs which seems like an obvious point but its an important one nonetheless. Now i think mexico views this as a shared problem and challenge, something we need to work on together and i hope its with that attitude in mind we will continue to do so. But the most important legislative thing we can do beyond dealing with this broken asylum system that henry and i are trying to work on is make sure that the usmca is confirmed. Obviously mexico has taken the first step, which is very encouraging, and i know all of you have followed this very, very closely. Theres no question in my mind that nafta has been annet net benefit to the United States and particularly texas. Those are controversial words in some circles but i believe its true and i believe you can demonstrate it in dollars and cents. When i first learned the administration was eyeing nafta to look at changes, i encouraged them to fix it, not nix it. There was talk about terminating it and questions among lawyers as to whether the president had the authority to do that. I was under the opinion that he im glad we didnt have to confront that issue. I think that would contribute more chaos and more uncertainty where we need to have less chaos and a little more certainty. But obviously nafta could stand a little update and the truth is that the Energy Sector and particularly the Digital Economy were things that really werent as influential in our shared economy back when nafta was first passed as they are today so after a long year of negotiation by our governments i was glad that this rebranded agreement was signed by the head of all three countries in november. A couple of months ago the International Trade commission publicly released its analysis of the Economic Impact of the agreement and showed its positive impacts. The itc concluded that within six years of going into effect the usmca will raise u. S. Gross domestic product by 68 billion. We can also expect that more than 33 billion increase in our exports and about 31 billion in increased imports. Thats great news for american workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses that will reap the benefits of this agreement and im eager to get moving on the next step in the process, which is congressional consideration. We recently the congress recently received a statement of administrative action from the trump administration, that was three weeks ago, which in government speak is the implementing of legislation should be coming soon. Were anxiously awaiting the next step, enabling legislation to come over to us. As you know once it does come to congress under trade Promotion Authority congress cant maemd it so theres not the usual legislative process where people are going to be offering amendments and voting those up or down. Its an up or down vote on the entire agreement and so its really important that any negotiations, in terms of side agreements and other understandings, take place before the enabling legislation comes. And of course im i am encouraged by speaker pelosis being receptive to passing the usmca. I know she wants to make sure the house does its Due Diligence. Its my understanding shes appointed a team of legislators who is going to primarily speak for the house in terms of those negotiations but im anxious for that to take place soon. The house will vote first and then given the revenue implications and it will come to the senate and well consider it in the Senate Finance committee on which i sit and then the full senate will vote. In terms of when you can expect this to happen, thats in the hands of the administration. We can get the implementing bill as early as july the 30th which would start a 90day shot clock, or it could come thereafter. My personal preference, and i would encourage you to encourage the administration and the house to not let this linger any longer than necessary. The farther this gets into the reelection cycle and the more this becomes politicized by the taillig president ial campaign and other campaigns that would be to the detriment of considering the usmca in getting it passed. On Tuesday Morning ambassador lighthizer testified in front of the finance committee, i asked him the question when does the Administration Plan to submit the implementing bill to congress . He was studiously vague. He noted his interest in sending the implementing bill and noted t negotiations with House Democrats to advance. He didnt give me a time and i dont blame him but i wanted to ask the question anyway to encourage him and encourage people watching this to get the job done. Historically speaking the closer we get to the election the more challenging it is to get anything passed and particularly in a divided congress. I hope we can get this moving along soon. Now, one of the most thats probably one of the most anticipated changes in the trade world but we are actually working on infrastructure and staffing at our ports of entry, both on the southern border and elsewhere. Texas is home to 29 air, land and sea ports of entry, more than any other state, and we rely upon the dedicated men and women who serve to both protect us from dangerous and illicit goods and facilitate legitimate trade and travel. And in recent jobs as i suggested earlier that job has gotten nothing but more difficult because of the skyrocketing numbers of people crossing the border, as i mentioned customs and Border Protection officials had to reassign duties, some of the busiest texas ports like those in el paso and laredo, theyve born the brunt of these reassignments with fewer customs officers on the job we began to see lengthy delays at our ports and check points along the entire southern border and juarez, across from el paso, as you know, truckers reported sleeping in their vehicles overnight so they wouldnt lose their place in line. And i was told by one of the Car Manufacturers that they literally had taken to chartering airplanes to fly from juarez to el paso. I think they said its about an 11 minute flight in order to by pass the congestion at the ports of entry. The impact of those delays, of course, reaches far beyond my state and could be felt by the national economies, particularly in manufacturing and agriculture. But an estimated shortage of almost 4,000 cbp officers nationwide, and many being reassigned to deal with the Current Crisis the impact of the ports will get worse, especially during the busy summer months. To help address on an interim basis the staffing issues, i introduced legislation called securing american ports of entry act of 2019. That bill would require an additional 600 cbp officers until the Agency Staffing needs are met. It also authorizes the hiring of Mission Support staff and technicians to perform nonLaw Enforcement functions, allowing officers to focus their efforts on Law Enforcement priorities. It also would require reporting on Infrastructure Improvements that would enhance our screening capabilities. And i believe its an entirely feasible goal to meet and would be would ensure cbp has the staffing and the resources and infrastructure needed to keep our ports safe and running efficiently. This bill was passed unanimously yesterday by the Homeland Security committee in the senate and i hope we can bring it up for full conversation by the senate soon. Both the usmca and more effective and efficient ports are critical to maintaining a competitive and smart border. But without action to get to the bottom of what has led to many of these challenges well continue to find ourselves in a battle of wills and a battle of physical versus economic security. My point is here today we dont have to pick between those. We can have both and we need to focus on both, physical and economic security. Its not a zero sum game by making targeted reforms we can address the flow of migrants coming across the border without compromising our economic security. I have the privilege of chairing the Senate Judiciary committee on Border Security and immigration and we recently heard from Border Patrol chief carla provos who compared the Current Situation to holding a bucket under the faucet. She said it doesnt matter how many buckets you have if you cant turn off the spigot. Thats why i introduced the legislation i mentioned earlier to you, the humane act. The main problems that need to be addressed by the humane act are the fact that the socalled flores agreement prescribed how unaccompanied children should be handled at the border. And obviously we want to make sure we treat all of those children in a compassionate and a humane way. But the agreement had also been extended in a way that made it almost impossible to detain families that come across with children. And the problem is, any of you who are involved in Law Enforcement know, you can pass all the laws you want. But unless theres some deterrent aspect through the law people are going to continue to come and thats exactly what has happened. So essentially, under the current status of the law, children have been turned into get out of jail free card for some migrants and, in fact, there have been documented cases of people claiming children that were not their biological children and the Border Patrol has literally taken to perform dna tests to make sure that children arent being exploited. A recent Washington Post story quoted a man as saying thats the thing everyone knows now, if you go you need to bring a child with you. So our bill would clarify that the flores applies only to unaccompanied children not to family units and it would help eliminate that pole factor and prevent single adults from exploiting children to gain entry into the United States. In conclusion, let me just say as our country struggles to deal with this humanitarian crisis and we fight to prevent it from turning into an economic crisis the discussions youre having today could not be more timely. I appreciate the chance to come and join you today to share my thoughts. Id like to welcome chris back to the stage. I understand he has a few questions for me. Thank you very much. Thanks, so much, senator, were going to turn to the audience to see if you have a question or two. We have a couple microphones around. Does somebody help with the microphones. Please raise your right hand if you have a question. Introduce yourself and keep it brief so that we can really just have time for one or two questions but well go to sam vail over here. Please get the microphone. Sam vail with public policy, board of trade alliance. Senator, we appreciate very much what you do but i would like to get some clarification when you talk about port improvements acts, is there any room in there for what really could get funds going faster, which would be Public Private partnerships that would allow big ticket items to ultimately be reimbursed by the government but over a period of time that not like a like capital lease, but more of an operational lease, five to ten years at a time, that way you get a lot more money for the buck, more nonintrusive stuff in. So were very curious about that. There seems to be some questions on how that could operate. But we would certainly encourage you and your staff to do something in that area. Well, sam, my understanding is well, a few years ago we passed a Pilot Project that allowed for the use of Public Private partnerships, i believe you and the board of trade alliance were instrumental in convincing me that we needed to do that. That now has been expanded and made permanent. I believe there is the law does provide for an ability to do that. To the extent that thats not being implemented or being used as widely as it could be or should be, were happy to work with you and try to figure that out but i do believe the Legal Authority is there today to do that and i agree with you, thats really important because federal dollars, tax dollars are hard to come by, and if we can continue to work with the border communities and Public Private partnerships i think thats the way to go. Thanks very much. I want to ask a second question. I would like to get the senator to respond to the importance of side agreements, having done it in nafta, doesnt that give us more flexibility Going Forward without having to have everything work out on that day . My understanding is there can be and probably will be some side agreements because of the fact that we cant amend the agreement itself because of trade Promotion Authority rules that side agreements will be probably necessary, i think, just from a political standpoint because people who want some changes in return for their vote and we need their votes in order to get things passed. I would expect that to be the case. One last question from pat ottensmire here if we could get him a microphone. So you encouraged us to do what we can to put pressure on clock to move this threw. Id call it encouragement. Encouragement. And a couple weeks ago i was here and called on 12 democratic congressmen, including congressmen clyburn. Are there specific actions . I mean, how how can we get the most bang for our buck in the next 30 to 60 days to well, actually as i think i indicated ive been encouraged by speaker pelosis response and ambassador lighthizer has told me hes had extensive conversations with her and the democratic caucus. The rank and file members in the house are waiting from a signal from her that now its time to act. Shes appointed a group of house members to begin to process of the legislation. I think shes doing her own Due Diligence to find out sort of what her members concerns are and be like any leader in a legislative body, try to be responsive to that and shape the battlefield, so to speak, in a way that will guarantee success. So i think just continuing to encourage the speaker and democratic leadership in the house since it has to start in the house is, to me, the most important thing you could probably do. Senator, thank you so much for helping kick off our event today. We really appreciate it. This weekend American History tv will mark the 50th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River fire an event that shed light on the Water Pollution and helped create the clean water act. David straddling joins us live from along the river in cleveland to take your calls and talk about the fire, myths associated with it and the campaign by then cleveland mayor carl stokes to find solutions. Watch our program on the 50th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River fire live sunday at 9 00 a. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan 3. Im a cold war historian, a historian of communism, difference of theologies and so forth and friends of mine emailed me and said why do you want to tackle this issue, marriage and family . Youre jumping into the culture war. Do you really want to do this . Author paul kengor will be our guest on in depth sunday from noon to 2 00 p. M. Eastern. His latest book is the divine plan, dupes, takedown and the crusader as well as books about the spiritual lives of ronald reagan, george w. Bush and hillary clinton. Join our live conversation with your phone calls, tweets and facebook questions. Watch in depth with author pul ken gor live sunday july 7th from noon to 2 00 p. M. Eastern on book tv and be sure to watch in depth next month with author lee edward. Watch book tv every weekend on cspan 2. Senator mark warner, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, recently sat down with pbs newshours Judy Woodruff to talk about chinas 5g technological advances, Artificial Intelligence and global security. This hour long event was hosted by the council on Foreign Relations in washington, d. C. Good afternoon, everyone. What a cheerful looking group. I am Judy Woodruff with the pbs newshour and im delighted to be here with all of you at this council and Foreign Relations meeting with senator mark warner who truly needs to introduction. As you know hes vice chairman of the Senate Select committee on intelligence. Im going to be presiding over this discussion. The meeting is the annual kenneth a. Moscow lecture on Homeland Security and counterterrorism. This is an annual lectureship that honors the memory of kenneth a. Moscow who was a long time member of the council with a distinguished career in the intelligence community. Further details on his life and his many professional accomplishments can be found in the booklet that you have at your seat. I do want to extend a special welcome to the members and guests of the moscow family who are here with us today seated at the center table. Welcome to you. So without further ado, ill just say i will invite senator warner, he will speak for about ten minutes and then ill have the opportunity to ask him questions for about 20 minutes andhe