Would you please give us just a brief personal introduction? And I'd like to know how you happen to be in the role that you're in now.

Sure.

Happy to do it.

So like you mentioned, I'm the U.S. trade representative.

I'm part of President Trump's cabinet.

And my job is to be the president's senior advisor on all trade matters, to be his chief trade negotiator and to monitor and enforce our trade agreements.

So I just make sure that other countries are treating us fairly and unfortunately for many years they haven't.

What is the thing that people don't understand that you would like them to understand about what President Trump is trying to pursue with his trade policy?

Can you give the audience any kind of clue on how significant this is and when they will start to see these things actually come online?

Well, uh, let- so I, I think you've hit the nail on the head.

You know, t- today I'm in Utah and, and tomorrow I'm gonna go visit an $11 billion investment by Texas Instruments in Lehi, Utah to build semiconduct- uh, semiconductors right here i- in Utah.

Think back to the pandemic.

People may, may or may not remember this.

For a time, we couldn't get new cars.

We couldn't buy new cars, and the cost of new cars went up, and of course, used car prices went up.

Have we made any r- you know, inroads on that?

Can you give the audience any kind of clue on how significant this is and when they will start to see these things actually come online?

Well, uh, uh, so I, I think you've hit the nail on the head.

You know, t- today I'm in Utah and, and tomorrow I'm gonna go visit an $11 billion investment by Texas Instruments in Lehi, Utah, to build semiconduct- uh, semiconductors right here i- in Utah.

Think back to the pandemic.

People may, may or may not remember this.

For a time, we couldn't get new cars.

We couldn't buy new cars, and the cost of new cars went up.

Have we made any r- you know, inroads on that?

How do they... stay ahead of the

game like China? Well, it's not a recipe for sustainable growth.

I agree with you.

I don't know how long it lasts for Vietnam.

What I do know is that President Trump is taking action.

You know, we've taken strong tariff measures over the past year and a half.

Our trade deficit's substantially down with China.

Any progress being made?

Well, when it comes to, you know, a- a- a partner like the European Union, where do they stand with you? Because right now they have historically low steel production, their exports have fallen, and they are absolutely being hit by China's overcapacity.

On, on the one hand, uh, we have an agreement that we concluded last summer with the European Union, the Term Barrier Agreement.

Uh, and the, and the Europeans, they've executed on an important part of that.

They've reduced all their tariffs towards US industrial exports.

They've given us duty-free quotas for important ag products.

Uh, so our trade deficit with the EU has, has really, uh, cut down over the past year.

Uh, you're talking about their...

What's the status of the relationship? Are we moving back to potentially signing an agreement?

Well, when it comes to, you know, a, a, a partner like the European Union, where do they stand with you? Because right now they have historically low steel production, their exports have fallen, and they are absolutely being hit by China's over capacity.

On, on the one hand, uh, we have an agreement that we concluded last summer with the European Union, the Term Barrier Agreement.

Uh, and the, and the Europeans, they've executed on an important part of that.

They've reduced all their tariffs towards US industrial exports.

They've given us duty-free quotas for important ag products.

Uh, so our trade deficit with the EU has, has really, uh, cut down over the past year.

Uh, you're talking about their ...

What's the status of the relationship? Are we moving back to potentially signing an agreement?

I just want to give the opportunity to help people understand why that trade tension exists between these two countries right now.

Well, think about it this way.

The United States, when President Trump implements his trade policy, he's thinking about it globally.

He's thinking about our trillion-dollar trade deficit in goods.

He's thinking about the offshore.

He's thinking about the 70,000 factories that are closed and the 5 million manufacturing jobs, etc.

He thinks about it globally.

He's almost incentivized to carry on on this track.

Uh, but, but how would you characterize, uh, the breakdown in talks? What caused it?

Well, thanks, Joe, and, and thanks for having me on.

Uh, and, and to your point, I will be, uh, as objective as possible, and I don't wanna characterize anything that, uh, the Canadian senator did.

That's kind of their, their thing.

Uh, just re- just remember how we started with, with all of this.

Uh, the Canadians, over a year ago, uh, they prohibited the sale of American wine and spirits in their stores.

They put limits on how many autos could go into Canada, and even before that, uh, they restricted the sale of US dairy into Canada, so lots of, uh, new and longstanding issues with Canada.

While the White House has been adamant, uh, uh, officials are in lockstep, two people familiar with the talks said that Lutnick felt that the deal framework hammered out by Greer's trade office was," quote, "sprung on his agency, despite involving a number of policy issues he oversees." What do you think?

How does this work? Why does it work? Why are you doing it?

So the key word here is forced labor.

Here in the United States, for 100 years almost, we've had a law that says if something is made overseas with forced labor, slave labor, child labor, you can't ship it into the United States.

It's prohibited.

And so we stop this at the border.

We prevent it.

Uh, we're the only country in the world that has this kind of law and effectively enforces it, believe it or not.

Um, what, what's the next step?

We just have a different labor market, and people, you know, work for lower wages, but no one's forced." Uh, who decides what forced labor is?

So really, each country, each country does.

So, so we're, we're not really going into each of these countries, and, and we're not assessing whether they have forced labor in their borders.

What we're trying to do is we're trying to stop trade in those types of goods.

So in the United States, uh, we have processes, we have agencies that go through, do investigations, and we identify companies and countries that have a prevalence of forced labor, and we stop those goods at the border, and we don't let them in.

Other countries don't have these processes, so we're telling them, "You need to establish this process.

You need to go...

If this is a case that the, that the president truly cares about this issue, then why not introduce this plan earlier, 2025?

Can you describe exactly, uh, what it was and why these, uh, very targeted, uh, tariffs, uh, affecting hockey sticks and, uh, it, uh, uh, some things that, that maybe we wouldn't think of immediately?

Well, let me give you just a little bit of history, Joe, on this issue.

Uh, in April of 2025, as you know, the president embarked on a new trade policy really designed at reshoring manufacturing production to the United States and getting the trade deficit down after exploding for, for decades.

Of all the country ...

And, and we imposed tariffs on, on all the world at varying levels.

Of all the countries who retaliated against the United States, one was the People's Republic of China, and the other was Canada.

Some of the things they did is they banned the sale of US liquor and other booze on Canadian shelves.

What do we-- What do you think the President feels we should do with USMCA? What, what will be the end result? Do you know?

Does that explain the delay entirely or how long it's taking, or if there's been reports that maybe China, the China issue is complicating it more than it is with the others?

No, I, no, I, I don't think that's the case at all, right? I mean, China's included in this structural excess capacity Section 301.

The reality is it's a more complex investigation, and we have to make sure that we are hitting our milestones.

Uh, you know, we've received a lot of comments from the public.

We have to analyze those.

Uh, we have to incorporate them into any responsive action we might take.

So we're trying to make sure that we're, we're actually living up to the letter of the law and, and the spirit of the law.

And as we get closer to October, do you anticipate that that agreement will be renewed in due course?

And as we get closer to October, do you anticipate that that agreement will be renewed in due course?

So, so China's, uh, compliance with the rare earth elements of our agreements, uh, it's not perfect.

Uh, I think everyone knows that.

You can, you can read that in the paper.

Uh, that being said, we are getting a flow of rare earths.

Uh, we don't have factories shutting down because they don't have it.

But again, we really want to be in a position where we were, uh, you know, in, in, in 2024 and 2023 in President Trump's first term, where we had a regular flow of rare earths.

I see.

And as we get closer to October, do you anticipate that that agreement will be renewed in due course?

So, so China's, uh, compliance with the rare earth elements of our agreements, uh, it's not perfect.

Uh, I think everyone knows that.

You can, you can read that in the paper.

Uh, that being said, we are getting a flow of rare earths.

Uh, we don't have factories shutting down because they don't have it.

But again, we really want to be in a position where we were, uh, you know, in, in, in 2024 and 2023 in President Trump's first term, where we had a regular flow of rare earths.

I see.

Why do you think that that's n- more nuanced?

Well, the, the article you're talking about, I, I really address two economists.

Uh, because I think fundamentally for many years, particularly following the end of the Cold War and this idea that, you know, history has ended and now there's this inexorable march to everybody becoming a market-based democracy, uh, which of course is false.

We look now, we see where we are.

We know, we see some of the largest economies in the world, China, uh, not a democracy, not, not market based.

Uh, India, certainly a democracy, but quite statist in its approach.

So all of the underlying assumptions of economists during the past 30 years that, that efficiency was going to win out, uh, in economics and global trade, none of that really came to pass because we live in the real world.

U- is it used e- efficiently and, and almost surgically? It- would you say that's what's been done? 'Cause critics would say it's, it, it has not been surgical.

How do you assess the success of the administration's policies? And if the answer is, "Not yet, we need more time," what's a reasonable timeline that we should be using to judge the administration's trade policy?

So, so on the deficit numbers, we're, you know, we're tracking that.

On the workers' wagers-- wages, uh, I think we have a more nuanced view o-on some of that.

I think if you look at the last month or two, um, you know, it's, it's not where we want it to be.

But if you look overall since the beginning of the Trump administration, if you look at manufacturing line workers, non-supervisory workers, you know, those wages have gone up, right? By over a thousand dollars, you know, comparative to the last administration over four years net, they went down by eight hundred dollars.

So, uh, you know, we're, we're looking all in, we're looking relative to where we were before, and we've seen a lot of progress on wages, particularly in manufacturing, which is where we're quite focused.

Um, and again, we're looking at real wages.

Thank you.

Which products are gonna be affected by that board? Are these items outside the current investigations that you are conducting?

So when we l- think about the board of trade, we're thinking about how to manage economic relations between the US and China.

These are two economies that are quite different, and we're focused on trade in non-sensitive goods.

When you talk about sensitive goods, you know, the most high-tech stuff, uh, you know, things that can be used for military uses, those are things that, those are national security issues.

So we're looking to discuss things like sales of agricultural goods to China, energy goods, Boeings, medical devices.

When we talk about the kinds of things we want to be importing from China, uh, there are a number of things.

There can be consumer goods, maybe low-tech items, and so we look at, uh, those types of areas where we should be trading.

So really this just seems a message of stability, because you were already discussing a lot of these things on a bilateral basis, right? I mean, what's new?

So was the president telling the truth when he said that tariffs didn't even come up?

Of course he was telling the truthOf course he was telling the truth.

So, so the way this works, uh, George, is before the leaders meet, uh, people like me and Secretary Bessent and our staff, we meet with our counterparts with the Chi- on the Chinese side, and we work out among ourselves a lot of issues so that the presidents don't have to address it, and that's why they didn't address tariffs.

The United States under President Trump has had high tariffs on China for quite some time.

Uh, we are looking at esta- We a- we are establishing what we call a board of trade with the Chinese to talk about trade in non-sensitive goods.

Uh, you've seen the president over the past year, uh, pick some goods where he didn't think tariffs were necessary, things that we didn't make in the US or grow, you know, bananas, uh, fruits, that kind of thing.

He, he, he said he's gonna take tariff off UK whiskey.

How do you respond to critics who say not much was achieved in this summit? And what were the most tangible, uh, specifics to come out of it? What, what, what was the most tangible progress?

Are there soybeans? Are there energy? Can you walk us through some of the deliverables?

Yeah, I'm happy to do that.

So remember, we're in a situation where we're trying to rebalance our trade with China.

We've had a lot of success in that.

Our trade deficit with China went down by a third last year in one year.

And so we're trying to manage the trade around the kinds of things we want to be selling to China, whether it's Boeings or soybeans or other ag or energy or medical devices.

And so you can see us bit by bit building up this strategy.

Will China allow their companies to buy them?

When will I feel the benefit of that? What do you say to them?

them?Uh, thanks, Brian.

It's great to be on.

And, and this is a great question.

So we spent the past year, uh, obviously using tariffs to protect American production, and that gets a lot of the news.

But a little bit of the untold story are these deals.

Uh, we've had dozens of countries come to us and pledge to lower their tariffs and non-tariff barriers to US exports.

What's the problem with Canada?

Do you see the US alliances as shifting as some of these negotiations take place? Or are these negotiations independent of any kind of traditional alliances that the United States has had?

So I think that's a good question because it puts into context everything that we're doing.

And I think you have to look a little bit at history.

People think about our alliance system as something that is set in stone, never had issues, have always been perfect, and there have never been problems.

That's just not true.

I'm sitting here in Paris in a place where decades ago Charles de Gaulle essentially pulled France out of the military structure of NATO and sought to have its own independent nuclear program.

which in retrospect, maybe De Gaulle was right.

Do you think that's changed?

He told me it's inevitable that some things won't be produced in the US.

Obviously, there are things that, y- you know, we're not gonna make in the US, we need to bring from overseas, and so we still have a ton of trade, uh, but we have to be in a situation where we have resilient supply chains, and we're seeing companies reshore.

By reshore, Greer means bringing manufacturing back to the US from overseas.

Now, listen, I know that multinationals, they don't, you know, they don't wanna change their supply chains.

There's friction when they do that.

We know that, but we have to change it.

Did you have an update to give American trading partners about the flow of trade through that critical waterway?

Well, right now, I think the thing to understand is that the United States is generally insulated from a lot of the supply chain effects when it comes to direct commodities and things like that.

For a lot of that, we have domestic sourcing.

We have sourcing from our partners to the north and south of us and other places.

But obviously we're aware that this has an impact.

In other countries, particularly in Asia, we know that their supplies are tight.

And so we're watching that really closely.

Can you give us any sense of what the main deliverables are going to be in Beijing?

Did you have an update to give American trading partners about the flow of trade through that critical waterway?

Well, right now, I think the thing to understand is that the United States is generally insulated from a lot of the supply chain effects when it comes to, uh, you know, direct, uh, commodities and things like that.

For a lot of that, uh, we have domestic sourcing, we have sourcing from our partners to the north and south of us and other places, but obviously, we're aware, uh, that this has an impact.

In other, in other countries, particularly in Asia, uh, we know that their supplies are tight, uh, and so we're watching that really closely.

When I was meeting with all of them, this was not a par-particularly high on their agenda of things to discuss with me because we were meeting for other reasons.

But we're, we're monitoring the situation given that, uh, the, the supplies of commodities coming out of the, out of the Gulf can affect our trading partners a lot of ways.

Can you give us any sense of what the main deliverables are gonna be in Beijing?

I think that one of them, uh, and people, there's been a little bit of coverage on this.

I don't wanna say it was gonna be a cakewalk, but I think there was a view that it, it would be something more akin to that, and it clearly is, is, is getting more complicated rather than less, despite whatever successes we, we seem to be having.

Well, I, you know, I, I, I don't work in the Pentagon.

I, you know, I used to serve in the military many years ago.

Uh, but all I know is the Pentagon for years and decades has been planning for these kinds of contingencies.

We saw the president and, uh, and his security team execute, uh, historic victories in, in Venezuela.

Uh, we saw what they did with Iran and the, and the Fordow site last year.

Uh, I'm-- I, I have full confidence in the team that they've planned out all the different scenarios, not just the military scenarios, also the economic scenarios.

Um, in terms of, uh, the next stage of these tariffs, 301, uh, and otherwise, these investigations that are taking place, how quickly do you think those investigations take place? Um, what kind of reports need to come out of them? And then how quickly can those tariffs be implemented?