Secretary he is the principal voice of business in the Top Administration trying to ensure that u. S. Businesses have the tools they need to create jobs and pursue economic opportunity. He served the secretarys of the beginning of administration that gore 2017. Hes got limited time with us today for be brief in my introduction so we can get right to his talk. He will be laid at the conclusion of the talk and then the panel will ensue. Secretary ross is no stranger to commerce with over half a a century of experience in Investment Banking and private equity come restructuring over 400 billion in assets across Numerous Industries and serving as chairman or director more than 100 companies in over 20 countries. Hes also the only person elected to both the private equity hall of fame and the turnabout Management Hall of fame. We agree please welcome him here today and please join me welcoming commerce secretary wilbur ross. [applause] thank thank you, dean, for tt kind introduction. And thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Trump Administrations trade policy and how it fits into our longterm goals for the country. Federalist society has always advocated for informed debate, and the commitment to our constitutional government. The overall goal of our administration fits perfectly within the federalist charter. Only by maintaining a strong and viable economy can americans live freely under the rule of law with guaranteed individual liberties and a separation of powers. Today, thanks to policies focus on rebuilding american industry, american jobs, american communities, and american prosperity we are turning the tide toward a far more prosperous and hopeful future. But you would never know it by listening to liberal politicians hellbent on impeaching the most successful president since Ronald Reagan, nor to the left wing medias desperate efforts to frighten americans into a recession. In fact, the u. S. Has the strongest economy of any major economy in the world. Our Unemployment Rate of 3. 5 is the lowest its been since 1969. Since the election of President Trump, the United States has added 6. 4 million new jobs, including 500,000 in the Manufacturing Sector alone. And 136,000 new jobs in the month of september itself. Income and wages are up, poverty is at the lowest level in almost two decades. The number of americans needing federal Food Assistance has fallen by more than 10 million, from 44. 2 million in 2016 to 33. 7 million this year. Retail sales up by 4. 6 over the past 12 months. And interestingly, the u. S. Import price index fell by 2 over the past year, despite the fears that people had had about the impact of tariffs. Last friday, the president announced phase one agreement in principle with china. This would phase in 4050 billion of agricultural purchases over a twoyear period. More than twice our prior annual peak sales. Would also address some of the issues regarding intellectual property. The remaining issues, the remaining structural issues and their enforcement remain to be negotiated. In return, the u. S. Has agreed not to raise tariffs from 25 to 30 on october 15. And as a sign of good faith, the chinese recently made substantial purchases of agriculture, especially soybeans and pork. I believe that china came to the negotiations mainly because we imposed substantial tariffs on them, but also because of the personal relationship between President Trump and president xi. Now, they naturally retaliated to the tariffs we put on, but because they sell us more than four times as many goods as we sell them, i given amount of tariff action means that they would run out the goods before we do. And also their economy is only 60 the size of ours. Therefore, a given amount of tariff product purchased them far more than it hurts us. Hurts them it also cause the eu recently to buy more ag products from us and to begin negotiations of the topics. And it is the reason why japan agreed to buy more meat and why the koreans renegotiated chorus. The tariffs are now having a direct impact on chinese producers. And perhaps more importantly, our accelerating the taliban out of chinas supply chain. China already was suffering some manufacturing immigration because of rising costs. Companies have begun to move operations elsewhere, in southeast asia, africa, and to north america. That will be hard to stop. Chinas problems with hong kong also hinders its economy, and may further accelerate and exodus of foreign producers. Last week the Commerce Department added 28 chinese governmental and commercial organizations to the entity list. List. That list restricts the export of items used to target uighurs and other ethnic minorities. We also responded the chinas belt and Road Initiative with our new indopacific strategy. Last week i was in new delhi, bangalore, singapore, and sydney to discuss the prime ministers and other ministers of the three countries our engagement with them and with others in the indopacific region. In november i will be in bangkok, jakarta, and possibly other cities in the region. Through the belt and Road Initiative, china has invested in 117 nations, and those nations account for twothirds of the worlds population. Their Stateowned Enterprises uses chinese materials in chinese nationals to build projects with very little local content. And as defaults occur, they foreclose on the assets rather than renegotiating the loans. For example, in sri lanka, china has already foreclosed the chinese built fort. It is also taken control of Natural Resources such as cobalt mining in the congo and hydrocarbons in venezuela. Belt and road is also effectively a jobs program for china that eases some of the impact of tariffs on their domestic employment. Electing President Trump in 2016, the American People instead demanded free, they are, and reciprocal trade. Section 232 tariffs imposed by the department of commerce are part of that strategy. Part of prior to the imposition of the 232 tariffs in march of 2018, both the u. S. Aluminum and Steel Industries were on the verge of collapsing. Now utilization rates have improved noticeably, and 13 billion of vital expenditures have been committed to expanded and modernize capacity, including 1. 3 billion from an indian steel company. Now that our Corporate Tax system and Regulatory Environment are so business friendly, Foreign Companies are more eager than ever before to invest in our market. We have the largest Foreign Direct Investment stock of any nation, totaling 4. 3 trillion. Two foster rapid growth in fdi, i and other commerce executives constantly speak to Business Leaders around the world, and every june we host the select usa conference here in washington, a threeday summit promoting Foreign Direct Investment. Last year this event attracted 3100 participants. Weve also created a recent initiative to encourage American Companies to reselect the United States as their domestic and export manufacturing hub. And last but not least, the Trump Administration aggressively pursues bilateral trade deals. We had signed an initial trade agreement with japan that opens that market to u. S. Farmers and should generate 7 billion in sales. Thats about 40 of the agricultural trade that we lost to chinese retaliation. The chinese the japanese trade pact also will facilitate 40 billion in bilateral trade between the u. S. And japan in digital services. This is close to 90 of what we would have achieved from the transpacific partnership, yet without the harmful tpp concessions that the u. S. Would have made to other countries besides japan. And this is the third major trade deal announced by President Trump in less than three years, a remarkable achievement since trade agreements normally take many years, often more than a decade to execute. For the record, the other two agreements on the korea free trade agreement, and the u. S. MexicoCanada Agreement, which is pending congressional approval. Let me conclude by talking about the situation in turkey. Yesterday, President Trump announced two actions against turkey that involve the department of commerce. We are raising their steel tariffs back up to 50 from the current level of 25 . Turkey is the eighth largest steel producer in the world, and steel was about its largest export to the United States before the tariffs. Exports of steel to the u. S. Surge 303 , from 10,000 metric tons per month to 42,000 per month when we dropped the tariffs originally back to the 25 . The president also directed the department to cease work on the plan we had been developing with the turkish government to expand our bilateral trade from the current 20 billion annual total, to 100 billion over the next few years. Already, 1700 u. S. Businesses operate in turkey, and in september i have traveled to istanbul and ankara, bedding the detailed plan with leading turkish businesses and government officials. The three major businesses associations there all endorsed it, and one of them hosted a large celebratory dinner on 42nd street in new york city during the u. N. General Assembly Week in september. If achieved, the plan would increase turkish gdp by 4 and provide more than 150,000 direct jobs. The plan was always contingent on resolving the military differences between our two countries. These now include the excursion into syria. It would be an excellent time for turkey to break into Global Supply chains in a big way, as Many Companies are reassessing their earlier decisions to concentrate so much on china. But there will be a cost to the turkish economy if present military practices continue. Turkey will bear the costs of the war and forgo the potential trade benefit. In conclusion, the Trump Administration is focusing more intently on trade than any prior administration. There are some shortterm costs associated with this shift, but they are much greater longterm potential and probable gains. Millions of americans have demanded that we put their interests first. That is what we are doing, and that is what we will continue to do. Thank you, and i appreciate that Federalist Society is discussions about these issues. They are critical to the health and preservation of our democracy. Thank you. [applause] thank you, secretary ross. If we could call the panelists for word, we will move on to the next phase of our program. Thank thank you so much, secy ross for joining us today. We are going to begin our panel. Well hear opening remarks from each panelist, in turn can write down the lane and ill introduce them in the order theyre going to speak. Each will have about five to eight minutes strictly enforced for the opening remarks and then well have some discussion and ultimately questions from the audience, so do of those in mind for when we get to the portion of the program. Ron cass is our first speaker, hes dean emeritus at Boston University school of law. Its also a former vicechairman and commission of the u. S. International trade commission. He is currently the chairman of the center for the rule of law and president of cass associates. There he is an arbitrator or mediator for commercial international and intellectual Property Rights disputes. He also interestingly has been appointed six times, six president ial appointments spending president Ronald Reagan to barack obama which i sigrid think was a ploy for him to just like it into a Bigger Office with wall space to make all those commissions. We were there next from donald cameron, partner in the morris, Manning Martin law firm right here in town with an International Trade practice. Hes got over three decades of experience representing multinational businesses, foreign governments, Foreign Trade associations and u. S. Importers. Hes got particular experience defending clients in Industry Sectors that are politically sensitive so we welcome him today. And lastly will hear from jeffrey kessler, confirmed unanimously by the u. S. Senate on april 3, 2019, so its been with the secretary for quite a while turkey serves as assistant secretary of commerce for enforcement and compliance with the goal of promoting u. S. Jobs and economic growth. Prior to serving at commerce he was and International Trade attorney in private practice litigating several precedentsetting wto cases, among other things. With that, five to eight minutes for each of you. Dean cass. I get very much, dean it i actually thought we were here today to talk about your bestselling book. Dean is recently published a book. Im envious. My books are what my wife calls academic books. She says once you put them down, you just cant pick them back up again. [laughing] i urge you to look at his book instead. Im going to start first with a small story from the pregps age about the great americans loss for yogi berra. He was in his apartment in new york, and was cooking and started a grease fire in his kitchen. He called the fire department, told them that he had a grease fire in his kitchen any need them to come put it out. The person taking the call at the fire station said, will be there since we can, mr. Berra, can you tell us how to get there . His response was, what happened to those low rent trucks you used to have . There are times little red trucks certain things are quite obvious but not always obvious to everyone else. I am a proponent of open trade. Trade is a source of competition, competition is generally good. Obviously its not good for everyone. Its not good for somebody who is competing with me, but, or not good for me to have extra competition. But competition generally promotes giving more things to more people at better prices and with better quality. Having an opportunity to have trade and trade on terms that open economies one to another is generally something to be supported. But competition takes place in other spheres as well. One sphere that i am particularly focus on is the National Security sphere. We are competing with other place in the world, not just to get our products into their country and to get the products we want from their countries. We are also competing on various military and security dimensions. And in that regard i want to say that i regard everything that is being done by the administration as generally supporting trade, but with a special focus on china. And i think that focus is appropriate because china has special interests in the National Security sphere that we must be aware of. China has a lot of state run parts of its economy. It is opening the economy more. It is allowing more free enterprise, but it has also maintained a lot of state control through both investment and personnel. There are more than 150,000 Stateowned Enterprises in china and many other enterprises in china that have state investment and state control, both direct and indirect. And lexmark and many other chinese brands. Products that have been found to have back doors in their software or flaws in their construction that allow security threats to be maintained and to have chinese espionage and Cyber Espionage elements make use of those opportunities. Those are things i believe the department should look at through the section 232 process which is a process that allows us considerations of National Security into account into we when we are making ourdecisions on what imports are appropriate into the United States. The great majority of products are products thatare outside the space. They are products that involve the sort of technologies that are relatively easily evaluated. A lot of complex products, a lot of us carry around cell phones that have Computing Power far greater in the first large Scale Computers had, then the computers had thatwe sent people to the moon with. Those are very highly complex technologically and devices, hard for any of us know whats in there. The same is true of the computers we use which now most of us have notebooks or laptops or other Computing Devices that we do almost all our work on. Again, hard to know whats in there. Hard to make sure we are protected from a security standpoint. My wife and i were in a hotel room recently having a conversation and a voice, not hers or mine guarded responding to us asking us things. We hadnt realized there was one of those, ithink it was an alexa device in the room that was turned on. We dont know what sort of information is going out in a lot of the communications we are doing as well as not knowing whatcomes in. That aside and again, i think thats something to be taken seriously and something on which china is different than o