Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: I'm now joined in Beijing on the sidelines of this
Speaker 2: summit between President Trump and Shijiping with the United States
Speaker 2: Trade Ambassador Jamis Ingreer. Ambassador gre thank you so much
Speaker 2: for joining us.
Speaker 1: It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: So let's start with some of the trade agreements, potentially
Speaker 2: the purchasing agreements we could see come out of this.
Speaker 2: The President was talking earlier to some of the press
Speaker 2: about Boeing jets, about two hundred of them, a lot
Speaker 2: of report and going into this was maybe they'd get
Speaker 2: as high as five hundred. We saw last night. Maybe
Speaker 2: a sign of goodwill. China renew licenses for beef. Imports
Speaker 2: are there, soybeans are their energy? Can you walk us
Speaker 2: through some of the deliverables.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm happy to do that.
Speaker 3: So remember, we're in a situation where we're trying to
Speaker 3: rebalance our trade with China.
Speaker 1: We've had a lot of success in that. Our trade
Speaker 1: deathsit with.
Speaker 3: China went down by a third last year in one year,
Speaker 3: and so we're trying to manage the trade around the
Speaker 3: kinds of things we want to be selling to China,
Speaker 3: whether it's Boeings or soybeans or other ag or energy
Speaker 3: or devices, and so you can see us bit by
Speaker 3: bit building up this strategy coming out of this week.
Speaker 3: You heard the President today talk about the Boeings and
Speaker 3: hundreds of Boeings being purchased by China. We already have
Speaker 3: a soybean deal with them from our prior meetings of
Speaker 3: twenty five million metric tons a year over the next
Speaker 3: three years, and we expect to also see an agreement
Speaker 3: for double digit billion purchases of ags over the next
Speaker 3: three years per year coming out of this visit. And
Speaker 3: that's more general, that's aggregate, that's not just soybeans, that's
Speaker 3: everything else.
Speaker 2: Are they keeping up with those agreements?
Speaker 1: They have been so on the soybeans.
Speaker 3: You know, last year they needed to fill up twelve
Speaker 3: million metric tons at the end of last year.
Speaker 1: They did that.
Speaker 3: They've now you know, we expect most of the soybean
Speaker 3: sales to go on in the later part of the year,
Speaker 3: but we've seen some there already. We saw, as you noted,
Speaker 3: things related to beef ex sports registrations re upped last night.
Speaker 3: So we're already seeing them start to fulfill some of
Speaker 3: their promises.
Speaker 2: When it comes to the daytant we have this trade
Speaker 2: agreement truce till October. Will that be extended on this trip.
Speaker 1: So we'll see about that. We have, of course the.
Speaker 3: Agreement that goes until this fall. That's all, that's all solid,
Speaker 3: that's all well and good. There's certainly a willingness on
Speaker 3: both sides that if this continues to work out well
Speaker 3: for each country to continue that and to extend this
Speaker 3: ability to make sure we're getting rare earths, that we're
Speaker 3: selling the types of things we should be selling to China,
Speaker 3: and we're trying to manage differences rather than escalate them.
Speaker 2: We hear that some firms China is dragging their feet
Speaker 2: when it comes to licenses on rare earths.
Speaker 1: Was this discussed? We do discuss this. We discussed this
Speaker 1: at all levels.
Speaker 2: So do you think they are dragging their feet?
Speaker 3: So with a couple of things, sometimes they do. I
Speaker 3: would I would give I would give them a passing
Speaker 3: grade on this. We've certainly seen the rare earths come
Speaker 3: back up to better levels. Sometimes it's slow. There are
Speaker 3: times when we have to go and make our point.
Speaker 3: You may have seen a couple of weeks ago there
Speaker 3: were some big shipments of virture that came across that
Speaker 3: was after advocacy from the US government. So whenever we
Speaker 3: see an issue or we hear from specific companies, we
Speaker 3: engage with our Chinese counterparts and we find them to
Speaker 3: be constructive.
Speaker 2: Where does this leave the three oh one tariffs? Does
Speaker 2: well China view this as retaliatory given the fact that
Speaker 2: it seems like the relationship right now is stable and
Speaker 2: you're in the middle of the state tunt So.
Speaker 3: I haven't yet met a country where we've imposed tariffs
Speaker 3: and said thank you, we love these tariffs. So no
Speaker 3: one really likes that other than our workers in our industries.
Speaker 3: What Chinese know and what we've agreed that there's going
Speaker 3: to be a certain level of tariff on the Chinese.
Speaker 3: So I think as we're rolling out and concluding different
Speaker 3: investigations under Section three oh one, which again don't just
Speaker 3: target China, they cover other countries as well, I think
Speaker 3: the Chinese are going to be looking at what we're
Speaker 3: doing there compared to agreements we've had in the past
Speaker 3: on certain tariff levels, and we'll just have to try
Speaker 3: to manage that.
Speaker 2: Will you get to the rate that the United States
Speaker 2: was at on China before the Supreme Court struck down
Speaker 2: IEP and the funtional ten percent.
Speaker 3: Well, I can't prejudge the outcome of these investigations. They
Speaker 3: are a legal process. They're ongoing right now. We've received comment,
Speaker 3: We've had hearings. We'll release the findings of these investigations
Speaker 3: within the next several weeks, and we'll propose action if
Speaker 3: we think we need to take action. And so if
Speaker 3: tariffs are part of that action, you know the world
Speaker 3: will see them, will be very transparent in public and
Speaker 3: people will be able to comment on that as well.
Speaker 3: So I can't really commit to a given rate or
Speaker 3: not at this point. We have to go through the investigation.
Speaker 2: We have did a discussion on the Board of Trade.
Speaker 2: When does that begin. There's a lot of reporting. It's
Speaker 2: about thirty billion dollars of goods on both sides. Is
Speaker 2: this all accurate?
Speaker 1: That's right?
Speaker 3: And so at the end of this meeting we'll go
Speaker 3: back to the US and the Chinese will be here.
Speaker 3: What we intend to do on the US side is
Speaker 3: is put out a call for public comment first and
Speaker 3: foremost and saying, hey, we're trying to manage this trade
Speaker 3: with China. We want to focus on nonsensitive goods we
Speaker 3: think we should be selling them things we think we
Speaker 3: should be buying from them, trying to facilitate trade in
Speaker 3: that area, and then we'll from there we'll be able
Speaker 3: to interact with our Chinese colleagues and negotiate with them
Speaker 3: over where we think we have the strongest mutually beneficial
Speaker 3: trade with our countries.
Speaker 2: Is there a chance though, that with this Board of
Speaker 2: Trade there'll be some goods coming from China that are
Speaker 2: a lower tariff rate than maybe an ally of the
Speaker 2: United States.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think we're comparing it necessarily to allies.
Speaker 3: And if you look at the President's tariff program over
Speaker 3: the past year, are there as certain things that never
Speaker 3: have really been subject to tariff? You know, energy, energy goods,
Speaker 3: you know, certain foods, you know, fertilizers, things like that
Speaker 3: have never been subject to tariffs. There are certain things
Speaker 3: that we should be buying from China, I think, just
Speaker 3: like there are other countries or we should be buying things.
Speaker 3: You saw the President a week ago he told the
Speaker 3: UK We're not going to have a tariff on whiskey
Speaker 3: from the UK. So it's not out of the norm
Speaker 3: of what this administration is doing to have nuance and
Speaker 3: how we're approaching it, kind of picking and choosing how
Speaker 3: we want to trade with countries.
Speaker 2: When it comes to Nvidia and Chips, I bring this
Speaker 2: up because a lot of talk about Jensen Wong. You
Speaker 2: were on Air Force one, I mean, were you surprised
Speaker 2: to see him in Alaska at the refuel stop and
Speaker 2: getting on board. And there's a lot of speculation that
Speaker 2: something would be done here with chips. When it comes
Speaker 2: to the H two hundreds in January of the United
Speaker 2: States greenlit Chinese firms to be able to buy them,
Speaker 2: Will China allow their companies to buy them?
Speaker 3: Well, obviously that's going to be a software decision for China.
Speaker 3: With export controls, they're fluid, right, they change over time.
Speaker 3: It depends on what threats you see, what's commercially available worldwide,
Speaker 3: what the Chinese can already do, and so you want
Speaker 3: to make sure you strike a balance between national security,
Speaker 3: protecting high tech, but also making sure that we're benefiting
Speaker 3: from overseas markets. And so those are the kinds of
Speaker 3: things that went into the H two hundred decision as
Speaker 3: to whether the Chinese are going to buy or not. Again,
Speaker 3: they're making their own determinations. They're very committed to domestic production.
Speaker 3: They often see US high tech as it sometimes as
Speaker 3: a threat to them because we're if we're ahead of
Speaker 3: the game like we are on AI chips, sometimes they
Speaker 3: feel that that can stop their own growth. Obviously, we
Speaker 3: think it can be helpful to them in the long run,
Speaker 3: but they'll just have to make their decision on them.
Speaker 2: But there's a lot of speculation that this would be
Speaker 2: a tangible talking point at the table because of the
Speaker 2: presence of the Nvidia boss. Did this come up Semiconductors?
Speaker 3: Well, so we have fifteen to seventeen American business leaders here,
Speaker 3: and they had actually the opportunity yesterday in a meeting
Speaker 3: with President Trump and President Sheet to come in talk
Speaker 3: a little bit about their company. So Jensen was there.
Speaker 3: He spoke about Nvidia. We also had a variety of
Speaker 3: other folks there, you know, Cargil, Brian Sykes, and a
Speaker 3: variety of other companies.
Speaker 1: So all these things come up.
Speaker 3: This was not a major topic of discussion at the
Speaker 3: bilateral meeting. We did not talk about chipexport controls at
Speaker 3: the meeting.
Speaker 2: When it comes to the Bussan deal, you're really building
Speaker 2: on that. But since then, what we've seen China do
Speaker 2: is they've put in a lot of regulations and laws
Speaker 2: that actually make it difficult for American companies to get
Speaker 2: a foothold here, and some of them are even contradictory
Speaker 2: to some US laws, mean that doing business here in
Speaker 2: China they'd be against US law.
Speaker 1: Did this come up?
Speaker 2: Do you find it harder or easier for American businesses
Speaker 2: to gain access to this market?
Speaker 1: Well, we have raised this with our counterparts.
Speaker 3: The Chinese in the past couple of weeks put into
Speaker 3: place supply chain rules that when I read them, it
Speaker 3: looks to me like they're saying if you're trying to
Speaker 3: reshuffle your supply chain or get closer to the United
Speaker 3: States or something like that, they might.
Speaker 1: Punish you, which a lot of firms are doing.
Speaker 3: So that's a strong concern for me. The thing to
Speaker 3: remember is with the Boosan Agreement what we're doing now.
Speaker 3: They build on each other, but they're not comprehensive. They
Speaker 3: don't solve every problem in the relationship. That's why something
Speaker 3: like the Board of Trade were focused on nonsensitive trade,
Speaker 3: because we know we're going to have differences in these
Speaker 3: other areas.
Speaker 1: Whether it's export controls.
Speaker 3: Or high tech or critical infrastructure or things like that.
Speaker 3: So those are issues that we raise and we talk about,
Speaker 3: but we also try to be constructive.
Speaker 2: But I do wonder you, as a critical individual on
Speaker 2: China in the past, the rules, regulations, the subsidies they
Speaker 2: give to their companies, do you actually welcome that in
Speaker 2: a sense that you can say to us businesses, this
Speaker 2: is what I've been telling you, this is why it
Speaker 2: is hard to do business in China, and these are
Speaker 2: some of the traps that are set in place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess what I would say is I am
Speaker 3: clear out on these things, and I think it's helpful
Speaker 3: for our companies to be clear eyed as well. And
Speaker 3: I think they are a lot more realistic about their
Speaker 3: expectations about operating in China's market and selling into this
Speaker 3: market than they were three years ago, certainly more than
Speaker 3: they were five years ago. So when these things happen,
Speaker 3: it's good for our companies to realize the objectives of
Speaker 3: the Chinese government the Chinese economy. They're just different than
Speaker 3: the objectives we have. We're trying to make money and
Speaker 3: be capitalists and flow that money down to workers and
Speaker 3: families in China, there's just a political element to their
Speaker 3: economy that doesn't exist in the US.
Speaker 2: The other political element to all of us, of course,
Speaker 2: is while you were in this bilateral meeting with the
Speaker 2: President and Shijhiping, we had the Chinese readout come out
Speaker 2: where they need it clear that Taiwan is the biggest
Speaker 2: issue for them. At the same time, the White House
Speaker 2: read out didn't mention Taiwan at all.
Speaker 1: How much is this.
Speaker 2: Going to be the biggest hurdle between this relationship and
Speaker 2: setting up potentially some of the broader discussions like Board
Speaker 2: of Trade.
Speaker 3: Well again, well, I don't expect the Taiwan issue to
Speaker 3: bleed into Board of Trade.
Speaker 1: I just don't.
Speaker 3: We've known for a long time that the Taiwan issue
Speaker 3: is of key importance to the Chinese. The Chinese know
Speaker 3: that for us, we're interested in US companies and US
Speaker 3: workers being successful and leveling the playing field. So it's
Speaker 3: normal for different countries to have different key objectives, and
Speaker 3: so it's normal for them to raise that. It's normal
Speaker 3: for us to talk about want to have access to
Speaker 3: their market.
Speaker 2: But in twenty seventeen, you were actually here. I think
Speaker 2: you might be the only individual part of the President's cabinet.
Speaker 2: Now that was here in twenty seventeen. You were then
Speaker 2: the chiefest staff of Ambassador Leithheiser. Do you think she's
Speaker 2: warning was the sharpest you've heard on Taiwan?
Speaker 3: So, I would say no, right, there's a difference between
Speaker 3: the way we talk and the bilateral meeting and the
Speaker 3: statements that go out from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Speaker 3: which is famously it takes a wolf warrior approach. I
Speaker 3: would say that the meetings here between President Trump and
Speaker 3: President She they were quite candid. You know, with the
Speaker 3: Chinese when you meet with them, they always have a
Speaker 3: script and typewritten points, and they're certainly with some of that.
Speaker 3: But there was a lot of candid discussion, a lot
Speaker 3: of offscript discussion, which I think is really helpful where
Speaker 3: you're talking about the two leaders of the world's biggest economies.
Speaker 2: Well, she opened the bilateral talking about the Ciddy's trap,
Speaker 2: basically saying America is the established, more existing power, we
Speaker 2: are the rising one, and the conflicts could emerge and
Speaker 2: brew from this sort of tension, and the President called
Speaker 2: the relationship fantastic. The two gave a toast to each
Speaker 2: other yesterday. It does feel like there is a warmness here.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like the relationship has changed from twenty.
Speaker 3: Seventeen, Well, certainly it's developed more. I mean it's been
Speaker 3: nine years, and during those nine years, you know, obviously
Speaker 3: when President Trump wasn't in office, they didn't have communication,
Speaker 3: but they have met regularly during that time, maybe more
Speaker 3: so than some of the other leaders that President Trump
Speaker 3: has interacted with. So it's President Trump is the most
Speaker 3: powerful leader in the world, and President She is right
Speaker 3: up there with them. So I think it's natural for
Speaker 3: them to have a relationship. It doesn't mean there are
Speaker 3: no problems. It doesn't mean that there are serious challenges
Speaker 3: we have to face. It doesn't mean there are things
Speaker 3: we're trying to deal with to protect our workers and
Speaker 3: protect our industries. But it does mean that we have
Speaker 3: to have a constructive relationship.
Speaker 2: It just felt like the images in the rhetoric coming
Speaker 2: out of yesterday potentially what we're going to see today
Speaker 2: another bilateral meeting, didn't match the trade war that we
Speaker 2: were in a year ago. Are you happy with the
Speaker 2: direction of travel with this relationship?
Speaker 3: Well, for me, as the trade representative, I'm looking at
Speaker 3: outcomes and one year in our trade deathsit with China
Speaker 3: has dropped by thirty three percent. That's incredible, went down
Speaker 3: by one hundred and thirty billion dollars last year. That's
Speaker 3: what we want to see. That means we're diversifying from China.
Speaker 3: We're making more stuff here. We're seeing the manufacturing indicators
Speaker 3: and manufacturing labor indicators increase in the United States.
Speaker 1: That's what we're locking at.
Speaker 3: It's less, you know, it's not this issue of China
Speaker 3: VERSUS America as much as it is. We're pro America
Speaker 3: and we want our domestic economy to do really well,
Speaker 3: and we have to kind of manage and control our
Speaker 3: economic relationship with China to make sure we can achieve
Speaker 3: our domestic economic goals.
Speaker 2: And just finally, on Iran, this was the major talking
Speaker 2: point on the White House readout, Do you believe shijiping
Speaker 2: is going to help the United States and potentially reopening
Speaker 2: the strait up formos putting the pressure on the running
Speaker 2: regime and also at home telling their firms they need
Speaker 2: to abide by US sanctions.
Speaker 3: So, first of all, it's really important for China to
Speaker 3: have the Straits of horror moves open, no tolling, no
Speaker 3: military control. That was clear from the meeting, so we
Speaker 3: welcome that. With respect to Chinese involvement with Iran, our
Speaker 3: view is that Chinese are being very pragmatic. They don't
Speaker 3: want to be on the wrong side of this. They
Speaker 3: want to see peace in that area. President Trump wants
Speaker 3: to see peace in that area. So we have a
Speaker 3: lot of confidence that they will do what they can
Speaker 3: to limit any kind of material support for Iran.
Speaker 2: Am bestor Grea, thank you so much for your time today.