We're here in Davos, so we had to her, who is the vice premier of China here
for a while, that he had to go to Zurich to meet with Janet Yellen, Treasury
secretary, to start some discussions, maybe some back and forth.
Give us the trade call on that. What should we take away from that
meeting and what are you doing with your equivalence over in Beijing?
Sure. Well, Leo, who is the vice premier in
charge of the economic profile, so he's Janet's counterpart.
He's also mine. Our schedules did not intersect.
Things being what they are. But after Bali last fall and the G.
20 meeting between the presidents of both presidents turn to their teams and
instructed us to engage. And so that's what you see Janet doing.
I will do the same. With respect to trade, I think that
expectations for everyone, workers, families, businesses in America, in
China, around the world should be that President Biden is committed to bringing
a thoughtful, deliberate, strategic and ultimately effective approach to the
challenges that we have, as well as the opportunities that we have in this
profoundly consequential trade relations deliberates a terribly important word.
Part of the backdrop to the relationship right now between RTS to try to section
three or one sanctions that are now under review.
Press a button NIKKEI one for you. You thought you might address that last
summer. Didn't you got comments?
Now you have a sense of when you may be ruling in the 3 or 1.
So it's a statutory requirement. So we'll have statutory parameters.
But we are committed at USTR to carry out President Biden's vision.
The spirit of his approach to economic leadership, including in this area.
We are going to bring a disciplined approach to the feedback that our public
has provided us. There is no more important aspect of our
work, especially in the management of this relationship.
We're here in Switzerland, very near the EU.
There's a lot of issues over here and are being talked about, frankly, at
Davos coming out of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act and particularly
some of the electric vehicle tax credits that are seen as some as precious.
Actually, we have a member of the British cabinet today actually saying
that he thinks they're dangerous because they really smack of protectionism.
What's your response? I've had a lot of conversations with our
friends and allies around these provisions, and I understand that they
have concerns. Our conversations which are being built
on with our engagements here at Davos are
constructive. They're honest.
But I do want to draw everyone's attention to the fact that in public and
also in private, all of them have been clear that they absolutely share the
goal of addressing the climate crisis and that they see this legislation as a
significant accomplishment on the part of President Biden in making America's
contribution. So
I have every confidence, given the track record we've had in working with our
partners and allies and working through issues and every confidence that given
the shared values that we have, that we will be able to find a way to work
together to address the challenge that, frankly, we are all also being affected
by together. We talked earlier today, actually with
the director general of the WTO, and she said she is hopeful that it will be
resolved through negotiations and discussions rather than through a
dispute resolution mechanism, WTO. Is there room under the statute, though,
to do that? Is there room under the statute to do
that? Look, there is always room to have that
political conversation. There is always, always room to
understand each other better and to map out a path ahead where we can be
working together cooperatively on something that is so important to all of
us. So as you think about implementing this.
Is it possible that, in fact, a competition between the United States
and Europe on subsidizing green energy might be a good thing?
Might that be a good thing, actually, to have a little bit of old Cold War?
But at least the competition, you know, coming from these open market
systems, we put a lot of faith in competition, on the ability of
competition to make us better, to motivate our market participants.
So in that sense, healthy competition is always welcome and is a part of the
logic of the economies that we have. I have heard people, you know, very
concerned say, well, what we don't want is the subsidies rates.
No one disagrees with that. And so I think that if we focus on what
healthy competition looks like, where cooperation is required, again,
our track record has demonstrated our ability time and again to work through
thorny issues. We tend to focus in the media and try
right now on China and Europe. And we talk about trade with sub-Saharan
Africa wonderfully because President Biden traveled over there.
There is. Statute right now that allows some
countries understand to act duty free with a strict United States need to be
renewed. There's also some investment in digital.
Give us your sense of the blind restriction approach to sub-Saharan
Africa. Some of the countries that need the help
the most. For so.
President Biden hosted the African leaders at a summit in December in
Washington, D.C. And I think it came at just the right
time. The message that we wanted to send
across the board, across the administration, was that America is
ready to partner with Africa, to work for Africa, with Africa on trade.
We've got our baseline trade program. It's a preference program.
It's called the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
It is set to be reauthorized in 2025.
Now is exactly the right time to be reviewing what performance has been
like. How effective has this been in
stimulating and fostering development, economic development and investment in
our partner economies? And then also to start thinking how do
we make this better and more effective? It is very clear from all of the
engagement that we had last December in Washington, D.C., including my trip to
Nairobi for President Ruto, his inauguration in September.
The future really is Africa. The resources in Africa, whether they
are in the ground or that they are the human beings, the people of Africa, the
potential is tremendous. If we can find the way through trade,
economics, investment, finance to unlock the potential of Africa and its people.
Africa could be the engine that drives economic growth and prosperity for the
next phase of globalization. But it is going to require us to think
big and to be creative, because the tools that we have so far haven't done
what we know we need to do in this next phase.
President Obama also just recently traveled to Mexico City for a North
American summit meeting with the head of Canada and Mexico, as well as president.
But there are trade issues pending under the UFC as USMC and other places
involving energy. Where do those stand?
Are they being resolved? What's the timetable?
So there is an energy consultation that we are engaged in right now.
Both the United States and Canada have requested consultations with with
Mexico. Those consultations are ongoing.
We have certainly gotten Mexico's
attention. They know we care deeply about this.
Our economies are and have been inextricably linked for many decades
now. And we are the cleaned of partners.
We are neighbors. Geography is never going to change.
We are going to be neighbors forever. So these are really important
conversations. They are about energy policy.
They are about our vision for a competitive North
American future. We are still in consultations and we are
committed to finding a solution here using whatever tools are available,
including the ones under the USMC. One last one, if I could.
You obviously been very busy. You have a lot on your plate.
Not a lot of free trade agreement negotiations, at least I picked up on.
And I wonder about that as an overall policy matter.
I talked to actually, as I said to the director general of WTO, and she
expressed some concern about global growth and economic growth.
If we move away from a globalized system of trade in the more of blocs.
Is that a concern for the Bush administration?
And if so, how do we avoid it? So if we're looking at regionalization,
this is actually a natural outgrowth of the analysis and diagnosis that we've
done around supply chain fragility. And I know this is something that
everyone here in Davos, but also everybody at the kitchen table is
talking about these days, which is supply chains and how they impact our
daily lives, our livelihoods. And our experience is just being normal
human beings. So we're all trying to think about how
we can change the incentives, change firm behavior, change
parameters and rules to incentivize resilience.
And I think that a part of the solution is to look at how concentrated some
supply chains have become, how far flung certain lengths and supply chains are.
And to think about whether or not there is a solution in regionalization, not to
not to beggar any of our farther flung neighbors, but to produce more options
and more diversification so that when the next shock happens, whatever source
that shock may come from, that our global economy will not meet with a
catastrophic halt that we will. Have systems that create resilience and
allow us a cushion to continue on.