>> watched c-span as congress continues work to finalize the republicans tax reform bill. a house-senate conference policy.e to work on live coverage wednesday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. president trump speaks at the treasury department on tax reform. watch live coverage on the c-span networks and c-span.org. listen live with the free c-span radio app. watch c-span3 thursday at 10:30 a.m. eastern for live coverage of the fcc vote on net neutrality. the vote was to roll back at neutrality rules passed during the obama administration. 10:00 a.m.ay at eastern best at 10:30 a.m.

eastern. listen to it live with the free c-span cap. ofnext, a look at the future u.s. global leadership from the aspen institute. this portion includes senator dan sullivan. and a discussion on trade. it is an hour 10 minutes. >> good morning everyone. thank you for your patience. i'm nick burns, director of the aspen strategy group. this session on american global leadership in the 21st century. i want to thank all of you for being here, members of our strategy group, dan sullivan of alaska who i am to introduce in a minute. let me tell you about our program. we at the aspen strategy group are 35 years old.

we have this radical notion that even in washington there can be an organization that is resolutely nonpartisan. resolutely nonpartisan for 35 years. founders are bill perry much own ., rents go cross we meet to discuss and debate the big ideas about american foreign-policy. each year we prepare a book based on our proceedings for publication. this year's book is available today. the book we are discussing today . the world turned upside down, maintaining american leadership in a dangerous age. we will discuss the book beginning with senator sullivan and continuing with steve egan will talk about major changes in how america looks at its global trade. impact of technology on america's global military leadership will continue with

conversation that i will moderate between former secretary of defense bill cohan and former secretary of state madeleine albright about these issues that will culminate in a ignatius.red by david we've got a full morning. here's the issue that's at stake. we took on this summer in our conversation. focuses on the major question republicans and democrats have a better future, will the united states maintain its leadership in the world in the decades ahead? because that leadership is being assaulted by a combination of factors. populistof right wing movements. even in some ally countries, poland, hungary, and the czech republic. all members of nato veering in a dance i democratic -- veering in an anti-democratic direction.

, anrise of marine le pen alternative for busch lent in deutschland in germany. some of them financed by the kremlin, some of them designed to hollow out the european union and nato from the inside. that is one big factor we are contending with. in second is the rise power of china and russia. china following xi jinping's speech to the party conference, challenging the united states for leadership in the asia-pacific region in the future. china, pushing out, violating the sovereignty of five other countries, in the south china sea bank, challenging japanese sovereignty and administrative control over islands in the east makingea, china

extravagant legal claims to the space in the south china sea. the only combination of powers contain manage this, china's ambitions, are the united states and japan, and india. all democratic countries aligned with each other. in europe, we face an equally tough problem. vladimir putin, whose invaded georgia and eastern ukraine, pressured the baltic states over the last nine years the intelligence communities of the united states said about a year ago that vladimir putin interfered in our 2016 elections. there's no question but the russian government is trying to cut the united states down to size and limit our power in the world. a second factor. we will also examine technology, because the technological military edge we've had is being narrowed, not just by powers like china, but also by the fact

that countries like north korea now have the ability to look through cyber technology, to penetrate deep into the heart of the sony corporation, and to the databases of the united states government. this challenge the u.s. global leadership is from within. we have a major debate in the united states that was reflected in our conversation the summer. resident crop came to office with an america first point of view. we were happy to have a national security advisor h. r. mcmaster with us and four other officials and they talked about the need for a stronger defense, the need to have more hard-nosed attitude on trade, the need to demand more of our allies. on the other side, you have critics. saying president trump is too ambivalent toward allies.

that he is a pending 60 years of american policy on trade that the immigration and refugee issues are hurting the credibility of the united states in the crackdown on refugees. and that there has been a withdrawal of american leadership on climate, the trade issue and you and agencies. we look at both sides of the issue in our effort to be fair to both sides, to listen to both sides. i was struck in the public session we had the summer when former secretary of state condoleezza rice said she felt the united states had lost its self-confidence in the world as the global leader. so we should look at that again this morning. do we have strategic direction that most americans and both of our political parties can agree on? those are the issues for this morning are you looking forward to a good conversation. i want to start with senator dan sullivan. a rather busy week for the

senate and the house. i want to thank senator sullivan for being with us. he spent five days with us this summer in aspen. he is someone we know quite well. as assistant secretary of state for economic affairs and the george w. bush administration and he was the lead person on terrorist financing, and did a great job for that administration. i had the pleasure to work with dan during those years. dan was also attorney general of the state of alaska. he is senator from the state of alaska, member of the armed services committee and plays a leading role in that committee. a recognized expert in the asia pacific region. i did not realize until preparing for this session, he is also a lieutenant colonel in the u.s. marine corps reserves, has spent 23 years in the marine conductedrves as he

his career at the state department, the national security council, for the state of alaska and now for all of us at the u.s. senate. i want to invite senator sullivan to ask all of you -- and ask all of you to join me in welcoming him. [applause] nick.nk you, it's a pleasure to be back. i want to thank my wife julie. when you are the senator from alaska, you don't get home much. having her in town has been a treat for me. my staff, jason and liz, are also here. i had not been to aspen before in terms of this summer. nick mentioned we worked together. . worked for secretary rice

when you get asked by condoleezza rice to swing by the conference she is cohosting, pre-much always say yes ma'am and salute and do that. she such an incredible, important figure for our country . i had a wonderful time at the event. bit of bonding. julie and i have three teenage daughters. our youngest two are in college, our youngest is in high school. .he went with me to aspen she went to all of the events. we flew to denver and drove out to aspen. sheets are like millions of high school kids across the country, is a huge fan of hamilton i have .ot heard much about hamilton the aspenof you at

meeting this summer, in the meetings there were these numerous -- others were inadvertent references to hamilton. every time that happened, my daughter was sitting in the row and she and i would look over and be like -- [laughter] >> so there is the theme of the conference, world turned upside down. there is another one where we're these bigre, all of ,hots, madeleine albright condoleezza rice, mcmaster. i looked at my daughter. there was even a reference -- how h. r.ad mentioned mcmaster was the right hand man to somebody. we were having a lot of fun.

did not knowbably all of these hamilton references were going on. thankfully invite this summer. what i wanted to do was address nick's opening question, which is, will the u.s. remain the predominant global power despite the challenges everybody in the room recognizes. yes,swer to that is, probably. but we need to focus on key things. the three key i wanted to highlight today are returning to robust levels of economic growth , strengthening and deepening our network of alliances nick talked about. something i've been focused on, i have a birds eye view on right now as a u.s. senator, a legislaturecutive

cooperation, in terms of foreign policy. let me hit on these each in turn . i would love to take any questions or comments. first, economic growth. my team has passed out eight chart that you are hopefully taking a look at. this was the biggest surprise to me as a u.s. senator. i've been in a little under three years and when i came here , i thought the idea of growth, maybe with the exception of national security, that growing our economy strong traditional levels of robust u.s. growth, was most important thing congress should focus on. so many of our challenges get better if we are growing. so many challenges get worse if we are not very my biggest surprise is a u.s. senator was nobody talked about it. obama administration did not talk about it. democrats in the senate did not.

republicans did not either. in my conference, i used to get up, how come no one is talking about growth? i've been going down to senate with this chart and other tricks -- other charts. i feel like ross perot. the same speech, look at this chart. this explains a lot from my perspective do. this is very bipartisan. we have focused our country on strong growth. the red line is 3%, which is good, not great. it's a good target to shoot for. we have not hit 3% gdp growth andally in almost 13 years nobody was talking about it.

a lot of discussion about making america great. .his is what made america great almost 4% gdp growth annually. the average with the recession since world war ii. since the founding of the republic, it is about 4%. we had a decade starting at the end of the bush administration, the obama administration that never hit 3%. it.dy was talking about you want to understand what happened in the party 16 election, boom -- in the 2016 election, boom. back to strong levels of economic growth. a little biased. i was assistant secretary for the economic, energy and business bureau under secretary rice. i think this is more important than military power.

this hints military power, and yet we have not been focused on it. what happened was, if you listen to the narrative, people saw this and were like, how do i explain that. started making excuses in my view. calling this the new normal. 1.5% gdp growth is america hitting on all its economic cylinders. to me it is one of the most dangerous narratives there is. iswe think that 1.5% to 2% it for the country, we will have enormous challenges and we will not be positioned for global leadership. my view is different. i don't think that is the future . i don't believe in the new normal. one of the privileges of being in the u.s. senate is you reject a smart people like many in this

room, who have time on their hands and you say i would like to talk to you about an issue next time you're in washington. i reached out to dozens of people with one question, is this the future? do you believe in the new normal 1.5%? if not, how to we get back to robust levels of gdp growth that have made this country great and foreign policy strong? nobody believes in the new normal, which is why the narrative is dangerous. here's the good news, we are finally starting to focus on this. starting to focus on getting back to robust levels of growth area democrats, republicans, the white house. i think the policies that you -- andertake, tax reform lot of the ideas in our current tax reform bill you don't hear about in the press. the bomb had these ideas, presie ideas, chuck schumer had these ideas.

the rethink these are good ideas in terms of competitiveness for america. regulatory permit reform and the one i'm focusing on, energy. energy, energy, energy. the u.s. is on the verge of superpowerorlds again. largest producer of natural gas. .argest producer of renewables to me, that is an enormous .pportunity to grow the economy scratchinghen we are the surface on. a win-win on so many fronts, jobs, energy security, foreign .olicy, and the environment the last administration did not like to talk about hydrocarbons. i was in charge of producing hydrocarbons in alaska. the high just -- the highest standards in the world on arctic development in alaska. you drive it to russia or

kazakhstan or brazil, iran, places that don't have the focus on protecting the environment we do. issue of strong robust growth goes to the issue that nick mentioned in his opening remarks. this also goes back to the issue of american confidence, which we need to regain. so many smart foreign policy practitioners recognize that we are best at developing confident, long-term foreign policy when the american people and the country feels confident. there's nothing like the confidence of a growing economy, versus something that's not growing. h. r. mcmaster focused on this

-- one of my messed this one of my mentors. someone who has a lot of respect in this room, when he gave his well-known responsible stakeholder speech about u.s./china foreign policy, he talks about american confidence and having to deal with china from a position of strength. to me it's about the economy. second is with regard to strengthening our position with our allies. as all of you know, as nick mentioned, democrats and republicans have focused on that. to me, even stronger than our military, this is probably the most important should you to have as a nation. an ally rich nation and most of our adversaries or potential

adversaries are ally poor treatment many countries looking to join the iran or north korea team or even the russia or china team. in my experience, they are still countries who really want to be part of the u.s. alliance system. so we need to deepen current alliances and expand them. how are we doing on that? i think it's a mixed assessment. last year, i thought we had a , to such a degree that i went on the senate floor and gave speeches on the importance of a alliances. you had at the time a presidential candidate, donald trump, talking about nato being obsolete, questioning korea, japan alliances. the other thing that was going on that did not get as much press, there was a big article

in the atlantic by jeffrey goldberg about the obama doctrine. it may what donald trump was saying on the campaign trail pale in comparison to how dismissive president obama was allies.l of our pretty remarkable that a sitting president was smacking pretty much everybody but angela merkel. an article that millions of people would read. that is what prompted a number -- presidento come obama, possibly president trump, you guys need to remember our allies are critically important to us. my susman on this come how are we doing? going back to this issue of strong economic growth, that kind of power from the united totes binds us closer

allies. a strong u.s. economy and many ways much more important than our military presence versus china cost strong economy. i think we can start turning that around, using new insurance of power like energy, that can help us with our allies. startingi think we are to do well. the president has put together a , secretarytary matus tillerson, mcmaster, dunford, the vice president, who is spent a lot of time in asia already. you may have seen on the last trip, launching the quad consultations between the u.s., japan, australia and india, to me was a smart strategic move that hopefully we can deepen. athink we need to look at stronger trilateral security arrangement between korea, japan, and the united states which has a lot of potential. despite some news

last week in the middle east with regard to opportunities for alliances, we have an opportunity with regard to -- gulf arab allies and israel are working more closely together because we see and view our common interest with regard to pushing back against hegemonic aspirations and terrorist activities in iran. in terms of allies, there's some positive things happening. europe, there continues to be skepticism of this administration. i will touch on that in a minute . but also, strategic communications. meansg our allies disciplined strategic calls. i think foreign policy is by

definition not strategic. -- i think foreign policy by tweet is not strategic. hundreds can play an important role which brings me to my third and final point. in terms of setting the united for continued leadership i think we have to do a better job of getting back to the difficult work -- because it is difficult, of better executive legislative cooperation and working together in the area foreign policy and national security. you look at history, all of you know because you are experts on it, the united states is strongest in the world when the executive branch and congress are working together, speaking with one voice. often it is hard. i think people look back on history and say that was easy getting the nato alliance the senate. no it wasn't. but it is hard work.

.t is durable steve is going to talk about trade. one of the things we worked on when republicans retook power in the senate after the 2014 election, the class i came in with, we started working with the obama administration on trade promotion authority. the president could not get it when his own party was in power. when republicans came back, took the senate, that's when discussions happened. the secretary of treasury, secretary of commerce for the obama administration to make sure we got to be a past. passed with 60 votes. i think it's an opportunity now that we have that. .hat is in the law but with regard to the iranian nuclear deal, with regard to the paris climate accords, i can

tell you from my experience and my class of senators, there was zero engagement from the white house. no one ever came over and said senator, this is what we're trying to do, this is why this is good for america. were going to bring this to the senate. they did everything they could senate ratification of these important agreements. so i think it is difficult to that a president who actually campaigned against these agreements, because they weren't ratified by the senate it would have taken hard work, and then when he came in and did it is now being criticized. criticism should have been on the previous administration that never came to the senate and said this iran nuclear deal is important. ite's why you should ratify

and here is how we are going to work hard to make sure you understand it and can do it. when you don't do that you get dramatic swings in foreign policy. this is even predicted by our founding fathers. as you look at the federalist by james madison, he lays out a critical role the u.s. senate plays with regard to , particularly given its long tenure and stagger relations, with regard to our relations and steady foreign policy. when you avoid that, and both parties are guilty of doing that, you have these swings. my view is we need to get back to doing that. but there is good news on that front. there is a lots more bipartisanship, from my

perspective, that goes on in the congress and in the senate and you read about. i'm not one who loves to get up and bash the media, but i would say, in this area, the media loves to have stories about conflict, about how the partisanship in the senate -- i was reading a couple years ago, a very smart observer of the american foreign-policy scene in "the financial times," he said, "the partisanship in the senate hasn't been so high since the civil war." no offense to this writer, but that is a ridiculous statement. on,e's a lot more that goes it just doesn't get reported. let me give you some examples, they get small. the national defense authorization act, a very serious, important piece of legislation. i sit on the armed services committee. this year's ndaa dramatically pluses up the military.

it passed out of committee unanimously. unanimously. did you read that in the paper? you didn't. i didn't. and yet, when it went to conference with the house, came back to the senate for a vote, it passed by unanimous consent. that means 100 u.s. senators voted for the ndaa, which the president will sign this week. that is very significant. that is about as bipartisan as it gets. you didn't read about it and that is an important bill for our national security. one that i talked about at aspen, joe kennedy and i had an opportunity to sit in a panel, talking about bipartisanship, the domestic homefront. he and i have a bill that has already passed the senate. he is working hard to get it passed in the house. a topic that all of a sudden is

very timely, to bring much more resources to the victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. attorneys to represent, mostly seeingwho as you are across different parts of american society, have been abused. bill, but i huge think it is important bill, and joe's the lead guy in the house, i'm the lead guy in the senate, it has already passed the senate. and on the were personal front, tomorrow night, julienned i will go have dinner with one of my colleagues who i consider a good friend, sheldon whitehouse. do you know sheldon whitehouse's politics and dan sullivan's politics? i can't believe these guys are going to dinner. but that happens. sheldon whitehouse and i have a bill that has already pass the senate call the save our seas

act about cleaning of the ocean, trying to get it passed in the house. so there is a lot more that goes on. in terms of that, foreign policy and national security, to position ourselves from a strong perspective in the future, we need to have that kind of cooperation in the congress. strong growth, imperative. the strengthening, deepening our alliances, imperative. better cooperation on the foreign-policy national security issues between the congress and the executive branch set us up for the next several decades of leading the world during challenging times. thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.

visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] >> the senator will take your questions, let me know who would like to ask the first question. --an call on people ambassador, welcome, sir. good morning, ambassador. yes. thatwas wondering, given it has been in the news lately whether you might want to comment on your views in the work of your caucus. >> sure. honor to even be asked the question by one of the deans of the foreign service and great leaders of american diplomacy over the last generation. i also had an opportunity to serve him. --n i got to the senate,

there are caucuses, right, that show demonstrations of support in the senate. there's a caucus on a lot of different issues. but where the caucuses in my view are very strong, there is an army caucus, marine corps caucus, navy caucus, air force, coast guard. really strong constituencies in the congress for these very important aspects of american life, and for those of you who don't believe that, julie and i just spent a saturday in philadelphia at the army/navy there's atrust me, lot of strong support for our troops in the wonderful young men and women in those world-class institutions. but what was interesting to me, and for those of you who have served in the foreign service, there was not any kind of caucus, any kind of established group supporting our career foreign service officers. and as somebody who led the

a group of them as an got tont secretary, i know what a great group of professionals our foreign service officers are, who in many ways like the military deploy overseas, dangerous places, some have been killed in action, families sacrifice and risk. and to be honest, as a republican, i thought some of a, to there was kind of use a diplomatic term, a sense that a lot of the foreign myvice was left-leaning, but experience was very professional, they do great work. so i went to senator chris van hollen, whose father was very

will note in the foreign service and said, hey, we should get a foreign service officers caucus going in the senate to support the men and women in the foreign service. those of youe way, who are part of the foreign service, there is also a culture that they hate coming up to the hill. most of them. so this was a little bit more of a, hey, it won't be tv just come in meat and let us show our support for you. so we launched that about six months ago. the deputy secretary of state comes in to our caucus this wednesday on the senate side to meet with senators who just want to show their support, have questions and concerns. i think making sure our foreign service officers know that they have strong support in the congress and a constituency that supports them is really important, and it gets to this issue of executive/legislative corporation.

that are kind of things breed that kind of cooperation. when we first launched the caucus, we had senators like orrin hatch, jim risch, really strong, very well respected. chris murphy on the democratic side, catherine cortez masto. we had a good group, 10 senators, and hopefully we will grow that. it's an important element of that strengthening executive/legislative cooperation, making sure we on the senate understand the hard work, sacrifice that our foreign service officers do for our country every day. >> senator, can i just follow up. the ambassador and i both served in the career foreign service. the administration's proposal is a 31% budget reduction, to take the officer down by 8%. it's no secret morale is very

low, and there's a dismantling of the foreign service. can the congress intervening to defend the foreign service? >> i have concerns, too. some of it is what you are reading in the paper. you have to get to the truth. let me give you an example. there was an article recently that said applications for the foreign service are down by 50%. i don't know the truth of that, i'm assuming they are correctly reporting, but to me that should be a cause for enormous concern. think about it. the marine corps's recruiting was down by 50%, guarantee we'll be having hearings on the armed services committee. hey, what's happening in the marine corps? so nick, your question on the budget, i don't think that third ora cut by one

related aid programs are going to see that in the appropriations process. but again, part of this goes to a broader issue of getting the congress to understand, to know the great work that the men and women and their expertise in the foreign service have, head when people seeverseas, it, but do it on a regular basis is what we are trying to do in the senate. >> i think we have time for one or two more questions. congressman harman, member of our group, welcome. >> thank you. delighted to be here. dan, you are a great credit to the senate. wonderful to hear you on many topics, including the arctic, which we didn't get to today. my question is about congress's role in authorizing the use of military force, something you know i am passionate about.

i was there in 2001 when we passed with all but one vote the authorization to use military force against those who attacked us on 9/11. is still thecument basis for most of the u.s. activity in the middle east and elsewhere, at least seven wars have been justified under that. the state department and the defense department recently testified that they don't need more authority, they testified for john mccain's committee. do you think that is true, or do you think, as i do, that there ought to be a robust debate in the senate in the house about the use of military force, the strategy behind it, so that the american people can have a chance to consider and buy into military activities we have underway? i'll address that in two parts. there was a debate, recently.

rand paul had an amendment -- it was a double today debate, -- a multi-day debate, it was when we were marking it up on the senate floor. his amendment essentially said what you were saying. hey, we have authorized the 2001 authorization and a whole host of other ways. we need to either reauthorize it or cut it off. that was what his amendment essentially did. i have a lot of respect for rand paul on a whole host of issues. i voted against that. but we did debate it, came to the floor. the main reason i voted against that was that -- i'll just give you an example. alaska has a group of incredibly young men and women going off the fourth right now, for grade -- fourth brigade, and

they are in afghanistan right now. i spoke at their deployment ceremony. one thing i said to these guys and women before they left is, to doi am going everything i can to make sure you are supported back at home. i'mer of fact, this weekend trying to go visit them in afghanistan, and my wife is hosting a party back in anchorage for the spouses of the deployed soldiers. we mean that seriously. and i thought having a debate on this, where we might cut off the authorization of their mission, mid-mission, was not how we should be addressing this. there's elements of -- it is an important topic, but there are realities on the ground. we have soldiers and marines and many others on the ground now, and the last thing i think we should be doing is having some kind of debate where we are saying we are not sure you are authorized to do what you doing

right now as you risk your lives. that was a commitment i made to rightly those soldiers at their deployment ceremony, so that is why i voted no. in many ways, a related topic, north korea. i've been very involved in the senate and also with the administration, publicly but also privately, because i have a lot of respect -- i think the president has put together a strong national security team. i think what they have been trying to do now, and obviously it is a tough issue, very tough. it has been deviled numerous administration. but this administration has really been faced with stark challenge, because it is very likely kim jong-un will have the capability for intercontinental ballistic missiles, chicago, new york. i think their diplomacy right now as -- with the sanctions,

with the un security council in, has been very strong. one element i have been trying to lean on, and we have made progress in the congress with the president and his team of our strategy with regards to north korea, we need a much more robust missile defense system. and by the way, that's another good news story. i have a bill that is now part of the ndaa, 28 senators, democrats and republicans, supporting a really strong missile-defense system for america. that has never happened before, it has always been partisan. now it is bipartisan. that is important, a key element of our strategy. and i also support secretary , talking.r. mcmaster about the development of credible military options. as everybody here knows, when you have serious credible military options, it makes your diplomacy more effective. but what i said publicly and

privately to them is part of your credible military options i s a preventative or preemptive ground war on the korean peninsula launched by the united states. they need the authorization from congress to do that. a couple ofct, prominent senators, right now we are working on not the resolution for that, but a senate resolution that says we support what they are doing but if they move forward preemptive, preventative, like the gulf war is the or 2003, that article one power, and i don't think there shouldn'd be any debate. i have asked during confirmation hearings of members of the administration, i would ask this question a dozen times, do you believe you need to come to the congress for the authorization

to do this? pretty much all of them, including the reauthorization for the reconfirmation of general dunford just a couple weeks ago, they have all said yes. thee, that's where i think aumf issue is going to come to a head. not all my senate colleagues agree with me on this, by the way, and i respect their views, but i think they haven't read the constitution of federalist papers in a while. it's a great question, and in terms of north korea, it is one that i am looking out from one angle versus afghanistan deployments and other war on terror authorizations, which, again, still very valid, i just think there are some ways different from a contextual standpoint. busy,ator, i know you are but i think we have to ask a follow-up question, this is such an important issue. twofold question.

number one, on the merits of the issue, it seems that secretary tillerson and secretary mattis would like to move to maintain deterrence over north korea, but possibly move if it is going to happen to some kind of diplomatic negotiation that would involve the north koreans, that would stop their program. but there are other people in the administration who ought to think seriously about preemptive action. what do you think is the right step for the united states, and question two, on your point about congressional authorization, where is the republican party leadership in the senate on that, and what kind of signals are you getting from the white house, from president trump, from the national security adviser? >> well, nick, i think they are both good questions, but i think they are interrelated. i think your diplomacy, as i mentioned, is much more adversaries your

m, leave it is a continualu and that credible military options are part of that continuum. wase were a lot of things i supportive of in the last administration's foreign policy, but by the end of the obama administration, nobody, because of a whole series of events like syria and other things, russia, none of our potential adversaries in the world thought that administration had the will or desire to possibly use military force, and i think it made their diplomacy a lot more ineffective. having credible military options on the table i think is important, particularly given this regime and how unstable and unpredictable they are. i think the focus of our diplomacy is not necessarily negotiations with north korea,

who decade after decade proves partnervery unreliable to negotiate with. i don't think they have ever kept one end of any bargain they have agreed to in the united states ever, and i don't think that will change. you can't trust them, you can trust the iranians. the key should be, with regards to china. that is where our focus with diplomacy -- both public and i hope private -- discusses with regard to china on how to solve this problem. but i think making it all about north korea, u.s. negotiations, i wouldn't say that is a waste of time, but it is a sideshow. they can't be trusted. they have never shown they can be trusted. but china has, i think, hopefully, converging interests with us on resolving this, and they have the power and the ability to do it.

that is where i think our focus with regard to diplomacy -- with regard to your question on the amf on the republican side, like i said, i have voiced this very publicly in confirmation hearings. most of the senior administration officials i have asked the question of believe and have stated that they believe a preemptive or preventative ground war on the korean peninsula needs the authorization of congress. senate -- isblican the republican senate completely unified? no. there are some prominent senators who i am good friends with who don't necessarily believe that article one touires the administration come get the authority from us. i just happen to think they are wrong. see, think you will hopefully soon, we will have a

resolution out with some well-known senators that say we are being supportive -- we are not trying to do this aggressively. there are senators on the democratic side who are saying, it's all a disaster. we are trying to be supportive. i think an au mf, if they can get it, brings more credibility to the diplomacy. but that would be a very serious debate, a very serious debate in congress, and i think if it comes to that -- we are not calling for it right now -- but if it comes to that, we should have it. >> please join me in thanking senator dan sullivan. [applause] >> thank you, senator sullivan.

we are going to move this podium offstage. jonathan? are we ready to go on to the next batch? we are. ok. let me call up to the podium, then, my friends steve and richard. so we looked at two issues this summer that are both important factors in whether or not the united states is going to maintain its global leadership role. the first is trade, where i think we have seen the most significant departure from republican and democratic policy over the last half-century in the trump administration, the rejection of the transpacific partnership, the idea of a free trade agreement, and also perhaps even some fundamental changes to nafta.

the second is technology, where the united states needs to maintain its qualitative military and scientific r&d edge. we have two people here to talk about those subjects. the first is steve beagen, a veteran of several mostistrations, wils recently the george w. bush administration, where he was on the national security council. he's now vice president of the ford motor company, who took the lead on trade with mike from an. is, sonot here but steve the podium is yours. >> ok. good morning. thank you all for coming out today. mentioned, i work for a major u.s. company. we manufacture in 25 countries around the world and we trade can or miss volumes of

commodities -- we trade enormous volumes of commodities and parts. when i look at this trade issue, i approach it more from the viewpoint of a practitioner than an ideologue or philosopher. i think too much of our trade debate here in washington, d.c. is about philosophy and ideology, and quite honestly, not enough of it is about the practice of trade. if you reduce it to a simplest movementders the of goods and services across borders. if you want free trade, you are achieving a less constrained movement of goods and services across borders. yet we find ourselves in these confounding and poisonous political debates in washington that we see manifesting themselves even today across our institutions of government. like many of you, i was stunned in watching one of the

candidates from a major political party, running for the presidency of the united states, not only to announce the north american free trade agreement but also threatened to withdraw from it outright. like many of you, i was surprised when then-senator obama said that, and i was equally surprised when the n-senator clinton endorsed it in the 2008 campaign, in the debate in cleveland. yes, it was that presidential candidate that proposed to withdraw from nafta within six the mexicans and canadians didn't agree to comprehensively renegotiate the treaty. i think many thought it was empty rhetoric, and in fact it was, although to his credit, president obama in office sought to make some improvements to

nafta in the course of the transpacific partnership agreement. but still, it underlines the fact that the political expedience of attacking free trade agreements predates the trump administration by a long time. interesting to study the politics of trade. pew does an enormous amount of pulling on these issues, and they found some fairly interesting results last year. of selfhat 67% identified democratic voters believe that free trade agreements make america stronger. interestingly, 36% of republican voters endorse free trade agreements as making the united states stronger. the politics are confounding article ofse it's an faith that free trade agreements will not pass the united states congress unless they gain the support of every single republican member and a small handful of democrats

willing to support free trade agreements, yet each of those in fact, the only major political figure who is in step with their political base is president trump. among self identified trump voters, 27% believe free-trade agreements are good for america. the president is not only is speaking with and for his political base, but he's actually in greater synergy and greater harmony with the american public as well. of all the issues that have generated controversy among establishment political and foreign policy leaders, free-trade may be one of the biggest. and yet, it's the one where the president really does reflect , to a significant degree the , sentiment of the country. i was asked in the course of we did theproject summer, and you'll see a chapter in the book, to do a bit of a diagnostic and analyze why this

is and perhaps forecast some steps forward. let me just quickly say on transpacific partnership, i understand the distress it's caused any and the confusion it cause the pacific about america's role in the world and what role america will play in the asia-pacific, but i have to say that agreement didn't die january 23 this year when the president signed an executive order to withdraw the u.s. from the agreement. it died a year earlier when it was signed. it did not have the support of the congress, it did not have the support of the american public, and it most definitely didn't have the unified support of the business community. that agreement was too big, too ambitious, and the return was too small to justify locking into place the status quo, which is largely what it did in u.s. economic relations and asia-pacific. and it fell victim to primarily a geopolitical aim. one of the things i've learned since i left government and came into the private sector 15 years

ago is that geopolitics makes for lousy free-trade agreements, but good free-trade agreements make for great geopolitics. you have got to get the economics right first. if you simply paper over deep differences and competing views on trade in order to get to "yes" on an agreement, you are embedding, in u.s. relations with major trading partners, tensions that will ultimately culminate in a manner that we are seeing today. whether it's u.s.-korea free-trade agreement or many of the other issues of controversy. on nafta, it's a different take. in nafta, the challenge, quite simply, is that the economics don't work for the united states in terms of producing a trade balance that would excite political support in the united states. i would argue nafta works white well in making the united states

more competitive in building unity across north american space, but it's indisputable that we have more than a $60 billion trade deficit with mexico. this is what the president is focused on. the problem with fixing nafta is fix the $60not billion plus trade deficit by growing u.s. exports to mexico. as beneficial as nafta is, the reality is the economics will prevent us from balancing trade with mexico on the revenue side. so, the only tool available to fix the perceived problems of nafta are going to be trade limiting, which is not part of a -- which is antithetical to a free-trade agreement. so i have a early gloomy expectation of the ability of the u.s. trade representative to truly achieve the goal that they want nafta, which is to balance out u.s. trade. there's many economists who would argue that trade surplus

and trade deficits are not indicators of the quality of free-trade agreements. i tend to completely endorse that point of view. however, as a caveat, large trade deficits may indicate problems in a trading relationship as well. that's what i think we see with many of our asia-pacific trading partners. let me finish by, in the interest of time, by highlighting, very briefly, the ten steps that i think that we should consider as we look forward in trade and how to take the trade agenda forward in a constructive way. let me say i completely agree with senator sullivan's point of view, that this is a holistic picture. it's not just about trade. it is about regulation and tax reform and, certainly, it's about growth. as i posit in my paper, i have to believe that a couple quarters or much less a full year 4% economic growth will go

a long way towards alleviating a lot of the trade tensions in the debate, but we don't have that yet. we have to deal with trade issues now. ironically, that kind of growth will probably balloon our trade deficit but will also, at the same time, treat the dissatisfaction in the public that has produced this poisonous political environment. so very quickly, my ten priorities for our trade debate. first, the who. you have to pick the right partners. we should reengage in with -- we should be engaging with partners who agree and support free-trade at the same level we do. this was the original premise of the transpacific partnership, to tie together a handful of countries who all had a high level of support for free-trade. but in the course of the geopolitical ambitions of that agreement, we began to bring parties into the agreement who don't support free-trade by any measure of their records. second, we should pursue trade agreements with mercantile powers, but they should be on a bilateral basis, so we can

more effectively focus on the challenges in those economies. and we can craft the necessary tools in order to force open those economies. multilaterals are for free trade partners. bilaterals is for mercantilists. third, let me give you the what. we should adjust currency manipulation, which, according to the peterson institute, is adding $250 billion $500 billion to the american trade deficit on an annual basis, and yet, hereto for, has not been addressed by trade negotiators. corruption, a big issue that undermines comparable -- comparative advantage in free-trade. we have to use the tools of anticorruption, and we have to tie that to our trade agreement. regulation. harmonizing global regulation removes the cover the countries used to put nontariff barriers in place. and then enforcement, , enforcement, enforcement.

finally, the how. first, our trade negotiations, unfortunately, generate a lot of skepticism among the public and the critics. while there are some consultative tools, we need to do better. there are some ideas on capitol hill, such as requiring each negotiating session to be shared in detail with members of congress. one that is a bit of a stretch, but i like, is doing free-trade negotiations in public. it would completely dismiss the notion that anything is being hidden here. i actually think the reason why negotiators meet in private in free-trade negotiations is because they are advocating positions that are relatively indefensible in the public. put it out in the open. it is the easiest way to get support. i think we have to trust the market. where we have a free-trade partner -- a trade partner that's not really willing to embrace the model of free trade, we can wait them out. give them some time. i wish i had a dollar for every

time i heard that in the long not bercantilists would able to sustain that or it will be a competitive disadvantage. let's play for the long run. if a country is unwilling to make the steps to open their economy to the free trade of goods and services, then it's okay to say no. finally, as i said a moment ago, geopolitics have to be subordinate to the economics. free-trade has to be driven by the economics first and the geopolitics have to follow. so that's it. if you want to do questions -- either way. thank you. [applause] nick: steve, thank you very much. trade is obviously an issue where our two parties are divided, but the public is divided. and before we hear from richard danvig, i think it's only fair, because i saw our friend mike froman walk in. mike, you are here, right? there he is.

when we had our meeting in aspen this summer, steve and mike made the major presentation on trade. i thought it was one of the most interesting, most vital, but it's also where we see a lot of conceptual differences. will put you on the spot. you don't mind. we will get the microphone to you. you just heard the tail end of steve's presentation. but you have both written papers on this. can i give you a two-minute right of reply? mike: it is unfair to steve, since i just caught the last end of his speech. i assume he's completely changed his views since he read my chapter in the book and is finally seeing the light. [laughter] i agree with steve on a lot of things. we disagree on certain things. if you take the transpacific partnership as an example, it was not ever to actually bring countries into a free-trade area under a high standard set of rules. it's not about geopolitics versus economics.

economics do have to be the dominant factor. we cannot justify a free-trade agreement other than how it benefits our economy. but it's about who gets to write the economic rules of the road. what we are simply out right now is a we what we have warned. if the u.s. did not form ttd, other parties would move forward and define the rules of the road that would reflect their interest in values rather than ours and would carve up market access that benefited their producers at the expense of ours and that's exactly what we are over the last nine months. even since the time we spent in aspen over the past four months. just last week, china hosted a conference on internet governance. moving ahead with its view of "balanced" internet governance. we all know what "balance" means from the chinese perspective, and i guess the question is would you rather have a digital economy chapter of tpp that allowed for free flow of data and information across borders , the nontax ability of digital

products, etc. or would you like , the chinese write the rules of the road with the great firewall as their model? our withdrawal from leadership and our retreat from asia has opened up the door for others to put forward their vision and that will be seen as one of the greatest strategic blunders that the united states has engaged in. finally, purely from a market access perspective, as we've seen as recently as last week, the rest of the world is not standing still. whether it's the e.u. finalizing its agreement with japan, so its pork producers in denmark get the access our pork producers fought so hard for, or if it's australia's beef producers getting access to japan instead of our beef producers, that's happening in real-time. we are losing market share, losing jobs, because people prefer to sit on the sideline rather than move ahead with the deal that would have raised standards in open markets and would have eliminated about 90% of all tariffs.

nick: mike, could you stay with the mic? i will give steve a two-minute right of reply. one of the big issues is the resumption of nafta talks between the u.s., canada, and mexico. there is some speculation, but you would be both better informed than me, that the trump administration might even be considering ending nafta in trying to build up some kind of bilateral arrangement. u.s.-canada, u.s.-mexico. this would be a significant point of departure for republicans and democrats over the past 23 years. what is your view on that? what is your sense of where the administration is going? steve: clearly, i'm not a spokesman for the administration, so i don't pretend to have any great insight into what's in the heart. i think they put on the table -- first of all, we should step back. about 95% of what's been put on the table in the nafta renegotiation is tpp.

so for all the criticism of the administration for tpp, 95% of the text tracks tpp. it's the last 5% that matters the most. things like sunsetting the agreement after five years or changing the rule of origin. which would have a significant , andt on the auto sector other sectors. those will determine whether moves forward or not. i think their first best option is to reach a renegotiated agreement along the lines that they have tabled without much room for compromise, but i think they're perfectly prepared to trigger the withdrawal notice and potentially withdraw from the agreement with all the disruptive effects that that would have. steve: thanks, mike. nothing new in my arguments that you missed. mike and i do agree on quite a bit. and let me emphasize two issues in particular that we do agree upon. first that it is absolutely critical that the united states play a strong leadership role in the act asia-pacific, whether it's through trade negotiations

or whether it is through other means. it is absolutely critical to the interest of the united states in the course of the next century. the second thing that might surprise mike to hear me say, but i think if he listened carefully, he may have heard me say it during the debate on tpp is that i certainly personally , and, in my company, for that matter, did not want the united states to withdraw from tpp. in fact we regret that tpp didn't move forward. but we don't have any regrets that it didn't move forward in its current form, because the reality from the perspective of many of us in the private sector is as good as some of the details of that agreement were it still fundamentally failed to , change the economic model that doesn't work for the united states and the asia-pacific region. and you don't have to take my point of view for this. the international trade commission does an exhaustive analysis of every free-trade agreement to try to understand what the consequences of that

are and produce that analysis for the united states congress before it considers it. the consequences of tpp in terms of impacting the flow of american goods in the asia-pacific region was negligible. in fact, in the manufacturing sector, the international trade , an independent body, a quasi-government agency, a government agency found that there would be a net loss in manufacturing exports and manufacturing employment in the united states as a consequence of tpp. it's not that that the agreement was bad, it just didn't do enough. there were some key issues that were left unaddressed. mike knows my hobbyhorse, which is currency manipulation. this is one of the most pernicious trade barriers used by our trading partners around the world. currency manipulation is a simple supply and demand manipulation. if you have a lot of your currency, you pour that into the global marketplace, and you buy up somebody else's, and you put

it in your bank, in your reserves. supply and demand -- there's a lot more of your currency out there, so it's worth less. there's a lot less of our currency out there, so it's worth more. very simplistic -- probably over simplistic -- explanation. but this hugely impacts trade flows. on an automobile that cost $30,000 in an export price, a 25% manipulation is probably 400% of the profit margin on that product. you can't produce, in the united states, profitably an export to markets like japan when the japanese government is actively intervening in the value of the yen relative to the dollar, which they have done 170 times in the last 15 years. now, they haven't done it in the past three or four years. in fact, they haven't done it since about 2011 or 2012. but the reason is because it using other instruments, currently, to produce domestic

consumption, not with the intention, but the effective of weakening their currency with a massive quantitative program that dwarfs quantitative easing done in the united states during the great recession. and so, i would argue tpp was a good start. and i complement -- compliment the administration for taking pieces of that and making it part of their trade agenda. but deep -- tpp fell short of addressing some of the biggest challenges in our asia-pacific trading relationships. and, as a consequence, i think it would've been just as possible that it became a source of irritation and even friction in our trading relationships. i think it would be better separate out the sheep and the wolves in the tpp group, the ones that support free trade, let's move forward with a tpp agreement. those who do not support free trade let's bring them on one at , a time and deal with the

issues they are using to subvert global trade. because it is indisputable that global trade has been subverted by tactics like this in a manner that makes participants in the american economy ask the obvious question. "i'm doing everything right. i'm working hard. we're building great products. and yet we are falling behind and losing." you will never get those people to support free trade if they're doing everything right and still the wind is blowing in the face. this is clearly going to be one -- nick: this is clearly going to be one of the most it important issues as we think about the future of our country. for those of you watching on c-span, this is called "the world turned upside down, maintaining american leadership in a dangerous age." it's being published today. mike and steve have complementary chapters with different points of view on these important issues. i recommend it to you. here's the order of battle. at 11:00 a.m. we will turn to a conversation with former secretary of state madeleine

albright and former secretary of defense bill cohen. until then, i will give my friend richard danzig eight minutes to tell us why the technology tsunami in the liberal world order ought to be something on our radar screens. richard. richard: when steve said we were falling behind in winning and losing in trade, i have the feeling we are falling behind on this agenda but we're winning in terms of the richness of what's being described. i'm a bit of a loser in this in terms of limited time, but i want to hit on a very big topic that i think stands alongside the kind of classical analyses of international relations that are naturally triggered by our public about the liberal world order and what may upset it. alongside this also, is the economic analysis that you've just been treated to. but it seems to me the most fundamental thing in many respects, underlying all of this, is the technology tsunami

that we are all experiencing. you see this reflected when mike immediately talks about china and the internet and internet governance. we are all richly aware of the i.t. revolution i just want to underscore to you that we should not treat i.t., which is the technology of the moment as the , end of technological history. we are seeing dramatic innovations in biology, robotics, new materials, space, manufacturing, data analysis, et cetera. artificial intelligence -- i could go on with the list, but i would require more than the eight minutes nick has given me. i'd suggest that these are fundamentally affecting our notions of the liberal world order. it shouldn't surprise us that they do. if you look back at the great changes in history, you see to allergy -- the printing press and galileo and the telescope -- overturning the status quo in

world order as the church has it. you see, in the 19th century, the effects of the industrial revolution on our notions of state power and state control. more recently, i believe the invention of birth control is one of the most fundamental changes technologically and undergirds much of the dramatic revolution that we call feminism that's occurring in our time. so we should recognize the technological change, this tsunami, is not something that simply exists in its own realm. it fundamentally affects all realms. i think, to switch metaphors from tsunami to something else, it's an underlying change in the tectonic plates that produces all kinds of what appeared to be disparate earthquakes, whether, if you look at this morning's newspaper, it is the proliferation of ideology to north korea.

or the carpenter case in the supreme court about the ability of the state to seize cell phones and the like. in the book, i sketch three things i will not talk about now. i will just briefly mention the fourth. one is that the way in which this proliferation empowers groups, nonstate entities, is a familiar song, but i think there are some interesting new things that can be said about it. as technology competes with the state, in effect, by setting up these nonstate enterprises and empowering them, not just in weapons, but also in the equivalent of what any state would've regarded as an astonishing intelligence agency by virtue of what they can harvest from commercial data and the like. the second thing is the way of this proliferation balances out u.s. power. totechnology that we used eminent and dominate in spreads to other countries and enable them to compete with us, this changes the world order in

important ways. the third, which is much less recognized, is the risk of accidents and emergent effects as these very complex, opaque novel systems are developed and interact with one another, particularly in the military context, in ways that we can't fully anticipate. i think there are grave risks of unintended effects for us in that arena that i think are also worthy of discussion. the point i want to focus on, though, in conclusion, is a more radical one. which is the way in which these technologies challenge our very notions of the liberal order. we see how authoritarian states can use technologies to restrict privacy, to monitor individuals and the like. very striking how we all leave trails of dna, dna dust -- you will have left your dna when you depart. we also leave trails of digital dust. everyone will know, from monitoring your cell phone,

etc., that you were here. i doubt you're in the singular minority that didn't bring a cell phone to this event. these things are -- and power not only authoritarian states but in our own state in ways that erode our privacy and the like. they also pose very fundamental challenges to us as different states develop different norms for dealing with these technologies. i can anticipate, in the united states, very dramatic issues associated with, for example, how we manipulate our bodies, embryos and the like. we are used to the abortion debate and how deeply it has affected us here. what happens when people try to choose amongst embryos, for example to maximize the intelligence of their offspring, not simply to avoid diseases and the like. what happens when china begins to make a different choice in that regard? suppose they decide intelligence as something to be optimized in

the embryos of their population, and americans make different decisions? for 200 babies are born every day in america today that were conceived in test tubes. where are we going from here? and i have a set of issues associated with that. but most fundamentally, and finally, i would just put to you the idea that the very liberal notions of what it means to be an individual, have individual choice, of how, in a democracy, we put together majorities to make choices or challenge by technology, we tend to ascribe this to things like the russian interference with facebook and the like, and we marvel at the technological attributes of that. facebook takes 3 million ads every day. let's not be too simplistic about how they might string these things. but think, also, about the way data analysis combines with the earlier observation about digital tracking that i made. in terms of political persuasion, it's been

demonstrated that, with ten facebook likes, information about that, people -- a machine using artificial intelligence can predict your preferences more accurately than your colleagues in the workplace. with 70 facebook likes, they can predict this information more accurately than your friends can about what you will choose to do. with 150 facebook likes, they can predict more accurately than your family members can. with 300, more accurately than your spouse. while i'm not amazed that others preferences more accurately than my spouse, think about what this means in terms of political action because when you link this capability with our ability to reach individual targets en masse, now, as a politician, i can select your particular preference in some sub area and target you individually in that sub area. now that may seem to you to be okay, but what i can do is

create highly differentiated messages. i no longer have to put together majorities. i can begin to put together, in effect, a dominant group of people spliced together from a whole lot of individual things instead of speaking broadside to the group. this changes the fundamental premise of democracy associated with what political speech is, with what electoral processes look like, and, ultimately, with what it means to be an individual and the way in which we are subject all to manipulation when we are well understood. much more could be said about this, but the one thing i will understand is my time is up. so i will stop and yield the floor. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> this morning, a hearing on the printing process -- the senate energy and natural resources is the representatives of interior department and the federal energy repertory

commission. that is life beginning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 3 you can also follow along on c-span.org or our free c-span radio app. alabama voters go to the polls today in a special election to fill the u.s. senate vacated attorney general jeff sessions. democrat doug jones is running against republican roy moore. we have live coverage as the results come in, starting at 9:30 p.m. eastern on c-span 2. you can also follow live on c-span.org and our free c-span radio app. the c-span bus is traveling across the country on our fifth the capitals tour. -- 50 capitals tour. we recently stopped in tallahassee, asking people what is the most important issue in their state? >> funding. a lot of times, we talk about the lack of resources and the lack of the quality of education, but it all starts at

of source -- the board governors, everything. the money they give us. it is important that we rallied to get funding, but it also has to do with the amount of students attending our institutions. it is important for us to start at home, where we are telling students to come -- it starts from their. -- from there. >> the most important issue to me in the state of florida is education. if we do not give our kids the skills they need to get a great job in the future, i do not know what our society holds. >> the most important issue in florida is the education of opportunity access. as a first generation student and a little income student, i pride myself in the importance of being able to afford the opportunity for students to be able to participate in educational opportunities across america. i understand that funding is not always available, but there

needs to be an ongoing push for those considered underserved. >> my issue, my concern, is the quality of life. not the quantity, but the quality of life. in my humble opinion, i believe that developers are over developing nice communities that -- they do not make it as pleasant as it could be. onvoices from the state tuesday. -- on c-span. "washingtonc-span, journal," is next. at noon, the house takes of coming up in anarding