okay this segment has some good news
you know when president biden does good
we praise him
yesterday his new ustr trade rep kathryn
thai
announced they intend to keep the trump
tariffs on china
in place this is good roughly 370
billion dollars essentially
enforcement leverage to monitor the
phase one china trade deal
and maybe to maintain leverage on
unsolved issues like
massive china state subsidies to their
state-owned businesses cyber security
other matters you've got to say so far
the bidens have followed president
trump's policies
regarding being tough on china all right
so let's bring in the top negotiator for
the china phase one
trade deal himself now i'm going to say
this he's a great friend
the best trade negotiator in the
business that being
robert lighthizer bob lighthizer and i
want to say folks bob lighthizer
let's not forget he negotiated u.s
mexican canada trade deal otherwise
known as nafta 2.0 no mean feat
and you should add smaller deals with
japan south korea
india and brazil which is pretty darn
good for a supposedly protectionist
administration
doing these trade deals mostly trade
opening deals
so bob lyheiser i love bragging on you i
think it's great i think you did a
fabulous job
and you taught me plenty well thank you
and i want to get to this um
uh ms ty your successor who seems to be
following
in your footsteps have you spoken with
her and are you yourself
pleased at what's going on
so first of all i have spoken they're
not not in the
in the very recent past but i have
spoken with her
a great deal i know her very well i
think she's very solid on the china
issue
i would say also think that secretary of
state lincoln is
is solid on the issue and and the
director of national security
uh sullivan i think all three of those
people are
are solid they get the point uh in the
case of
ambassador ty she's been there for a
long time in the case of the others
maybe they're converts but
you know we welcome converts i think
this is one of the great achievements of
the trump administration and i'm glad to
see it carry forward now that
as you suggest the pressure is going to
come from u.s companies you probably saw
that a few days ago
20 odd trade associations or groups
wrote a letter to the administration
saying get rid of the china tariffs and
the reality is they're all importers
they're all people who are making money
in many cases transferring jobs to china
so they're expected to be on there on
the other side but there's going to be a
lot of pressure
like that on these uh on these policy
leaders in the biden administration and
i hope they stand up to it
they call it i'm i'm hopeful that they
will they call it the tariff reform
coalition bob
and i guess this is um
i don't know what the hell it's called
but oh the national foreign trade
council
is sponsoring the tariff reform
coalition and you're right there's about
three dozen trade groups
that want to overturn the tariffs but
you know
you still regard the tariffs as a kind
of safeguard monitoring device and
how does the trade deal look to you i
know we spoke about
a few three four weeks ago they're a
little bit behind on purchasing goods
i think you mentioned that they're doing
better on the intellectual property
thefts
how do you see it right now
well i would say first of all the the
tariffs are a very important part of the
phase one deal i mean they really are
they offset
uh technology theft benefits subsidies
uh
closed market and the like so they're a
very important part so
i would say there are people in china
who who want this deal to be successful
and there are people who don't
hawks who don't and the same thing is
probably more or less true in the united
states
i think that that the economic people
over there want the deal to succeed they
realized this was an important
uh beginning of a process of setting
rules that worked for both of us and
they wanted to be a success they made a
commitment they want to live up to it
they are a little bit behind on the
purchases the tariffs are a significant
part
the systemic stuff financial services
and intellectual property and technology
and the like
i think they've done a pretty good job
on so the jury's still out
um but but i'm you know i'm hopeful that
that this will be the basis of moving
forward i make one other point real
quickly
also larry and that is that there is a
dispute settlement
process as part of the phase one deal
and that has to be used that has to be
activated when there are problems
to get china to change bad behavior you
know bob one other thing here that's
worth mentioning um
not conclusive now but china just signed
a deal with iran
and china is kind of big financier of
iran
maybe their largest financier and
purchaser
i presume of iranian oil are you
concerned
on the one side the biden administration
seems to want a rapprochement and a new
nuclear deal with iran
but on the other side is in fact
following your lead
and trump's lead on being tough on china
can those two work together
a deal with iran but stand tough on
china
well well i sort of have the same
problem you do it's troubling to me
they've always had sort of a soft spot
for iran that i never quite
understood i mean all the way back
through the the obama years i mean there
were various theories as to what it was
i don't get it
i hope that those people who are
involved in the biden administration
see this deal with china which by the
way they've been negotiating since 2016.
so really since the biden years
but they didn't finish until they i mean
since the obama year they didn't finish
until the biden years
i hope that this wakes them up and makes
them realize that there's a problem here
with iran
because i think that was another real a
real winner for you know for the
president trump and trump's policies
and you know can i make one other thing
to kind of link these first two
um segments that you have larry this
competition with china which is
really really really important perhaps
the most important thing that's going on
is going to be very much affected by our
domestic economic policy we can't have
a policy that sets us behind and still
win a competition with china these two
ideas are very very close together
we have to have competition we have to
have an economic policy that lets
us win the competition and then have
trade rules
that are successful for both of us you
know i saw it first
under reagan but it's the same under
trump
domestic security domestic economic
security is essential to international
security
if we damage our economy bob with all
these tax hikes
including the corporate tax hikes
companies will be leaving not coming
here we will lose jobs not gain jobs
our whole economy will suffer the
chinese are left all the way to the bank
the two are very much linked and the
trade piece has become part of that it's
like a three-legged stool
so this is part of my concern you know
you can't
just pick out here we're for china but
on the other hand we're going to
decimate america's corporate
competitiveness it doesn't work for me
doesn't work for you either yeah all
right bob lighthizer
you're the best we'll see you soon thank
you my friend appreciate it very much