American Thought Leaders - How Trump Wields Tariffs as Negotiating Tactic and Instrument of Statecraft: Andrew Hale

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Andrew Hale is a senior trade policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. In this episode, we discuss how Trump is using various trade tools to strengthen alliances and weaken adversaries.“I look upon what he’s trying to do as a negotiating tactic. He’s using tariffs as an instrument of statecraft, and also for economic coercion, to achieve matters that sometimes go well beyond trade policy,” Hale says.Hale says that tariffs should be used against America’s foreign adversaries, but not necessarily against its allies.“Among [those on] the protection side, there’s a knee jerk reaction saying a tariff is the panacea to all of our problems. And actually, a lot of these problems we created right here in Washington. And we can fix them right here in Washington, with dealing with some of the stupid and foolish regulations that we have,” he says. “What we cannot go back to is what we had during the Clinton years, what we had during the Bush years, the Obama years—which was this seamless trade with China, where we treat them as a market economy. They’re a non-market economy. They’re a foreign adversary.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

I look upon what he's trying to do as a negotiating tactic. He's using tariffs as an instrument of statecraft and also for economic coercion to achieve matters that sometimes go well beyond trade policy. Andrew Hale is a senior trade policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. In this episode, we discuss how Trump is using various trade tools to strengthen alliances and weaken adversaries. Amongst the production side, there's a knee-jerk reaction saying a tariff is the panacea to all of our problems. And actually a lot of these problems we created right here in Washington and we can fix them right here in Washington

with dealing with some of the stupid and foolish regulations that we have. What we cannot go back to is what we had during the Clinton years, what we had during the Bush years, the Obama years, which was the seamless trade with China, where we treat them as a market economy. They're a non-market economy. They're a foreign adversary. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Andrew Hale, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Thank you so much for having me on. Trump's first foray into using tariffs was this 10% tariff on Chinese goods. And the reaction of the Chinese Communist Party to this has been described by some as kind of weak and lackluster.

What's your take? You're talking about his second term. In his first term, Trump attempted to actually negotiate with President Xi. And it was only after the president of the People's Republic of China wasn't willing to negotiate that he then resorted to the tariffs that we saw in the first term. And I think that in the second term, the 10 percent tariff that was introduced recently was performative, symbolic in a way, because if you look at the threats of the 25 percent tariff against Canada and Mexico, which is obviously much higher. Well, why was that? It's because he expected, and they have, Canada and Mexico have conceded to his demands for more border security with regards to the fentanyl and the migration crisis.

But the fentanyl is coming from China, so why not put a 25% on China? It's because he rightly understood and understands that China will retaliate with 25% as they have already retaliated with the 10% that he imposed. 25% opposing that on China and having them respond with 25% would be a lot for us to handle and a lot for them. So I think that that was why there was more threatened against Canada and Mexico. I mean, fascinating. But what is the impact of that as of now, or is it too early to tell? It's too early to tell, but remember, it's already on top of already pre-existing tariffs. So it brings those 10% that was already on top of 20, so now it's 30. But it's a much broader issue.

Listen, I come from a free trade background. And I was told by my professors at university, it was all about China, we were gonna invest in China, we were gonna embrace them. And I was told that we were going to be, they were gonna become just like us, that the Chinese Communist Party would fall away, they'd become a liberal democracy.

I remember when I was working on a United Nations Disability Human Rights Award, and China applied for it. And they have actually some very good programs for persons with disabilities. I'm not denying that. But their broader human rights framework is ghastly. And so there were a lot of people, Republicans and Democrats and people in the United Nations who wanted China to get this award because they said, oh, we need to encourage them because we recognize the advances that they're making in the disability inclusion arena then they'll do better in other areas of human rights and I think there was a lot of

naivete and wishful thinking that has now just been exploded and we've created a monster. We've actually empowered our enemy to what degree did we trade freely with the Soviet Union during the Cold War and compare how we've now we're now sort of inextricably linked with the economy of the people's Republic of China. And we do need to decouple from them. And as we decouple, I'm not suggesting that the transition will not be difficult. We obviously have to mitigate the damage from that. But there will be harsh medicine to take.

As much as I believe in free trade, we should not have free trade with foreign adversaries. It can only be free trade if it's free in both directions. Exactly. Right. But from what I understand, and I'd love to get you to tell me more about this, you know, every possible instance at the WTO, for example, China has not fulfilled its obligations. Well, exactly. And they also game the system. So they self-identify at the WTO as a developing country. And we were in a situation at the WTO where the appellate body of the WTO was ruling against, these are foreign judges, ruling against the United States wholly or in part 90% of the time.

Now, President Trump had the wisdom in his first term to just do a blanket rejection of the appointment of new judges. And so there are no longer any judges at the appellate body. So the whole appellate body judicial part of the aspect of the WTO is now neutralized. And President Biden also maintained that blanket ban because I think it would have been politically toxic to start appointing judges again. But do remember the first person to not reappoint a judge for a second term was actually President Obama. But President Trump actually expanded that into a blanket ban. And the WTO was originally intended, as the United States created it

with our allies, to be a form. It's our brainchild. We intended this to be a form to negotiate disputes. And I think that's what the WTO now can be, because we no longer have the appellate body where everyone was just foregoing negotiation and going straight to litigation to these foreign judges who are going to vote against us. There was one case in particular about the online trading platforms. I'll just give this one example.

Antigua and Barbuda sued us and took us to the appellate body. And this is a very small country that has received U.S. aid. They've received money from us. And they sued us because they said it was wrong that we blocked their online trading platforms. The WTO, these foreign judges, ruled against us and told us we had to get rid of all of our gambling laws. That involves federal gambling laws, state gambling laws, but also native territories, native reservations, First Nations, indigenous reservations. And so it's not just, you can't just do that because, of course, with regards to the reservations, they're semi-autonomous. And then, of course, in the United States,

it's not just an issue of a financial or a trade issue. It's an issue of social policy because we actually classify gambling as a disease. That can be an addiction issue. It can have huge societal implications. So to tell us we had to get rid of these laws for a postage stamp country in the Caribbean was, you know, and so we've not paid all those fines and what have you. And I think it was appropriate that President Trump took the action he did to neutralize the appellate body. So you've described these 10% tariffs against China as mainly performative, but what's their real purpose? It leaves the door open, which what President Trump tried to do in his first term, which is to have negotiations. So obviously,

if you just start throwing out hundreds of percents of tariffs, what have you, you kind of mitigate that. So he's leaving the door open for negotiations to take place. And if you look at, for example, the announcement of former Senator Perdue as the new special envoy for China, this is someone who lived in Hong Kong. He did business in China. Yes, he's made very hawkish statements when he was a senator about China, but he also understands business in Asia and how China plays such an important role. And I noticed the announcement wasn't a particularly hawkish statement when they announced him.

And I think that they also want to try negotiating with China first, as President Trump, in his wisdom, tried to do in his first term. But that was rebuffed at the PRC end. But what we cannot go back to is what we had during the Clinton years, what we had during the Bush years, the Obama years, which was this seamless trade with China, where we treat them as a market economy. They're a non-market economy. They're a foreign adversary. And that's very, very important to make that distinction. Because, for example, if you operate a business in China, as all businesses in China, if you're a medium-sized business, and if you employ more than three Communist Party members, you must have a Communist

Party cell. That is a national security threat to us. That's not free market. That's a blurring of the lines between politics, government, and the private sector that we shouldn't be tolerating, and we shouldn't be operating in that system. American companies should not be operating and saying, okay, fine, we'll just allow a Communist Party cell to exist within our company. I came across a fascinating graph recently on X where you've come across all sorts of fascinating things showing basically the reciprocity or lack of reciprocity around tariffs, for example, with the U.S. imposing a lot less tariffs on just about everybody, with China being a very stark example, than in the other direction, those countries imposing tariffs on the U.S.

Is reciprocity something that we should be aiming for? Well, I think it's something we need to look at. So, for example, if you look at the 10% tariffs that the European Union imposes upon our cars, our automobiles, they're allowed to do that under WTO rules. So you could ask the question, why do we do that? Why do we have such small tariffs against them? So I think President Trump raises a very, very important point. I think there are other issues, of course, to address,

which are, of course, regulations and why aren't we manufacturing more at home. And that also has, there's a lot of other factors that play into that. But yes, he said he's coming around to the conclusion that reciprocal tariffs are what we should be looking at as opposed to some of the things he was talking about before what she referred to as the flat rate tariff if you tear of everyone the same irrespective of their unfair practice and the circumstances that it

kind of neutralizes using these tariffs for targeted purposes. And what about these new Section 232 tariffs that were announced on steel and on aluminum, presumably afterwards? Well, he did the same thing in his first term. And of course, they were eventually suspended. And then of course, tariff rate quotas were put in place. In some cases remember they can be implemented as they are and then of course they can also be suspended pending a negotiation. I look upon what he's trying to do as a negotiating tactic. He's using tariffs as an instrument of statecraft and also for economic coercion to achieve matters that sometimes go well beyond trade

policy. Now with regards particularly to the steel and aluminium tariffs that were announced this week, I think we have to also look at some of the problems we've created here in this country. We actually import 40% of our steel from Canada. They use a lot of hydroelectric power to fuel that. And of course Canada is blessed with vast natural resources, so that's in line with their green policies. We've had a raft of EPA environmental policies which have crippled American industry. Just last year, there were more EPA regulations

implemented under the Biden Heritage Administration about the emissions for steel production. And I'm sorry, but EPA regulations and steel production do not mix. If you look at, for example, we now have 11 blast furnaces left in the United States. Some of them were built in the 1950s. And if you look at 1990, we had 57 blast furnaces here in the United States. So over the years, progressively, these have gone out of commission. and we haven't built new ones. Why? Because of the regulations. Just to make the application process, the permitting process to build a new blast furnace, takes so long because of our ESG policies, basically persecuting the fossil industries in favor of new green technology,

which cannot power these industries. And then of course, you have labor regulation, labor rules as well, which make it prohibitively expensive. So we priced ourselves out of the market, but we've also prevented just the ability to build new blast furnaces. So until we address those issues, I don't know if the tariffs are gonna work immediately

because we're gonna be paying more, because we could not just all of a sudden ramp up 40% extra productivity to cover up for the lack of what we're getting from Canada. We'll simply have to purchase Canadian steel and aluminum. And, of course, the other countries after Canada that we most purchase from, of course, would be Brazil, then Mexico, and South Korea. And I don't always think it's advantageous to tariff your allies. We want, for example, to encourage nearshoring and French shoring, production away from China. And if we actually do this, one could argue that we're actually pushing these countries close to China? I mean, obviously, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been effusive in his praise of the PRC regime. The Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated

whole aspects of the Canadian government and system in Canada. And so how can we then go to a country and say, we want you to work with us and decouple and de-risk from China if we're going to tear up your stuff. If we want Australia, for example, to purchase our nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS agreement, we shouldn't tear up their stuff. But again, I see much of this as negotiating tactics on the part of President Trump. So, for example, as soon as he announced these, he said, oh, but today I had a call from Prime Minister Albanese of Australia,

and I'm considering giving them an exemption. So, again, I think that this is largely a negotiating tool because in his first term, we did have steel and aluminum tariffs, and, of course, there were negotiations made, and, of course, there were suspensions of those and then of course there were tariff rate quotas implemented as an alternative. So that could potentially happen again. I think actually we're in a better position with regards to steel and aluminum than Europe is.

They are an example of what we need to fear and never go near. They have destroyed their industry because of these environmental regulations. So, for example, energy is far too expensive in Western Europe and the United Kingdom to the extent that they have effectively outsourced their industry to China. And China's building two new coal-fired power plants a week. And they're building our solar panels and our windmills. You know, how's that helping the environment? So basically, these tariffs are really ruinous because already the energy is so expensive in Europe. And if you add on a tariff and increase the price in Europe on top of that,

then you have totally wiped out the profit margin. So I think it could potentially finish off the steel and aluminum industry in Western Europe, the United Kingdom, or what's left of it that hasn't already been transferred to the People's Republic of China. You said something very interesting that they basically, you know, you said they offshored their manufacturing or exported their manufacturing. I've heard this described to me actually on this show as having offshored or exported, and not just them, that's also America and Canada and so forth, their emissions. Yeah, CO2. So here we say to ourselves, hey, look, look, we have such low emissions,

which in fact we're pretty good at keeping those emissions low, whether it's in the U.S. and Canada. But the products are being made in a place where they don't have any of those restrictions. So really, we haven't really dealt with those emissions, have we? No, we've simply transferred our carbon footprint to the People's Republic of China. They're using not just these new two a week, they're building coal-fired power plants, but also it's dirty coal.

The coal they're using in Mongolia, I mean, you have to just go there and see the atmosphere and see the damage to the environment. We actually have relatively clean coal here in North America. We've got very good quality clean coal. And I'm very pleased that President Trump has said, you know, drill, baby, drill. He's also said in his first term,

and now we can export America's clean coal. It's good quality energy, and I'm all for coal, the coal industry, which was absolutely persecuted under the Biden-Harris administration. The irony with that was that traditionally, that industry and the workers in that industry, the coal industry had historically been Democrats, and they workers in that industry, the coal industry, had historically been Democrats. And they've actually come over to the Republican side because of the fact that the Democrats have turned on that.

But it's even more than that. I mean, Senator Kerry, who was the environmental czar under President Biden, he went to the Department of Agriculture and declared a war on meat production. Now, I'm sorry. I've seen Senator Kerry dine at Cafe Milano here in Georgetown. He's not a vegetarian. And we're not going to become vegetarians overnight. So if you kill the meat-producing industry here in the United States, we're simply going to import meat. And of course, if you see these absurd cullings, the agriculture ministries in, say, the Republic

of Ireland or Belgium or France or the Netherlands basically calling for the culling of their domestic agrarian animals. Cows for example and sheep they say because they're belching and the positive gas that they apparently damage the ozone layer and emit CO2 so apparently we have to you know cull these animals. This is out this is crazy because we're still going to need those animals. We're going to need meat products. The ESG is really a cult. It's a toxic cult. It's poison and it destroys everything it touches as well as DEI. And what it eventually leads to, and I've seen this in Western Europe and in the United Kingdom where I have lived, it leads to system failure. Nothing,

particularly the United Kingdom, nothing works anymore because of their DEI and ESG policies. One thing that just strikes me is the People's Republic of China actually controls a significant portion of the pork production in America. What kind of a risk is that in your mind? I have spoken to congressmen from pork-producing states. I won't mention them by name, but they're very concerned because China needs to consume our pork. Pork is a food that, for example, China consumes in vast quantities, as opposed to, say, a Muslim majority country would be obviously not, but they would obviously consume lots of lamb. And so if you look at, for example, the New Zealand lamb industry,

they've mass produced halal lamb for a Muslim majority market. And this is, I at, for example, the New Zealand lamb industry, they've mass-produced halal lamb for a Muslim-majority market. And this is, I think, a way to innovate to meet those market demands. And we need to export. So, for example, not just pork, but we produce more apples in the state of Washington, let alone Oregon, than we could possibly consume here in the United States. We must export. Canadians purchase our GM cars, the big SUVs, the big Ford trucks for those harsh Canadian winters. That's a huge export market. And also remember, when you look at GM and Ford, a lot of those intermediate goods, those parts, during the processing of them, they pass across the U.S.-Canadian border several

times. You can't tariff them every time they come across the border. We need seamless trade here in North America. And I think that the USMCA, as Bob Lighthizer referred to it in President Trump's first term, as the gold standard in free trade agreements, that, for example, we should actually celebrate, as we have, and we should encourage other countries to join. I mean when I talk for example to representatives of the United Kingdom government and others I say look at this free trade agreement why don't you try to negotiate a brand new one why not just join USMCA and try to maybe negotiate a little bit around the edges. And I think that brings me to the

statement I wanted to make which is about President Trump isn't really an ideological protectionist or a free trader, as many on both sides would like to claim as theirs. He's a dealmaker. You have to remember, as much as there was these barriers to trade that he put up for purposes that often were not even about trade, they were about something else that he wanted to achieve because he's a dealmaker, he also was negotiating a number of free trade agreements at the time he left office. And there was the one with the United Kingdom was in its vault stages and of course the one with Kenya was about to be inked. And so I think we have to remember that there was over here some barriers he put up to trade

but also there was the free trade and the negotiations of that. And of course in his memo that he put out the day after his inauguration was he calls for an investigation about the countries that we should have agreements with and market access with. And I think he's, with regards to reciprocal tariffs, what he's trying to create is market access. President Biden was a traditional protectious in the vein of Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. And he said that we're not going to have any free trade negotiations with any country anywhere and no market access discussions with any country anywhere. It was a classic protectionist. And of course, what they filled the trade space during those four years was just what they called inclusive trade, a lot of ESG and DEI. And I'm so pleased that President Trump is now actually engaging

in trade policy again after a four-year absence under President Biden. Just very briefly about Canada. It's, it's of course a huge trade partner of the U.S., but there's some industries that are just kind of inviolable and are deeply protected. For example, telecom or dairy would be another one that comes to mind. And so, you know, do you actually see that as a possibility to achieve some sort of reciprocity in these areas, which have been, you know, they've been trying, the US has been trying for decades as far as I know. Well, for example, with regards to dairy,

it's Quebec dairy we're looking at primarily. And now, as I discussed recently with some representatives from Quebec, are we really gonna upend this brilliant, you know, gold standard and free trade agreements, the USMCA over milk? We can certainly discuss those. That has been taken to dispute resolution already under USMCA and a decision was made. I would remind people though, there is more dairy produced in the state of Wisconsin than there is in all of Canada. Canada has a very, very,

particularly with arable farming, a very short growing season in parts because, of course, the very long winters. And the more further north you go, the less and less you can do. Obviously, you have to heat barns for animals. So, again, you're looking at really within a small 100 miles of the American border, where most Canadians live within 100 miles of the U.S. border. Also, the other issue, of course, is Canadian softwood lumber. Now, when I talk to American home builders, they want to have the freedom of the market to choose because they prefer to build homes with Canadian softwood lumber. I know we have lots of lumber here in the United States, and I'm not a home builder, but I've spoken to American home builders, and they tell me they

prefer it. They say it's less termite-prone and it's more durable. And if they're given a choice, they will purchase Canadian softwood lumber. I would prefer to let the market decide on those issues. Obviously, the quality of lumber in Arizona will be vastly different from, say, the lumber in British Columbia. How else can these tariffs be wielded? Well, sky's the limit. You know, whether you're on the protectionist side or the free trade side,

not everyone really, like I do, examines these issues on a daily basis. And they'll say, oh, I just love tariffs, or I don't like them. And I'll say, which one? And they can't name one. President Trump, in his first term, actually discovered that the president has exclusive control of the 301, the 21, and 232 tariffs, which he did utilize in his first term. And maybe just very briefly explain

what each one of those is. Okay, very briefly. I mean, your audience can look this up, but very briefly, because we could be here all day. There's some great Congressional Research Service, CRS, reports for each one of these. But there's 301, the unfair practices, and then 201, threats to the U.S. economy, like a large volume coming in. And then, of course, if you look for each one of these, but there's three of them would be unfair practices and then two of them would be threats to the US economy, like a large volume coming

in. And then of course, if you look at the 232 tariffs, you're talking about national security threats. So again, of course, he's used the 232 tariff on the steel and aluminum, but I would argue that's less of a national security concern as opposed to a problem with our environmental regulations, which have stifled us from building new blast furnaces, to use just one example. But he realized he had exclusive control of these three tariffs without checks from Congress. And so he weaponizes them in areas that go well beyond trade policy.

So, for example, with the USMC negotiations, I'm told that he was given a lot of notes to go into his negotiations with Justin Trudeau. But he ended up saying, Justin, I want you to spend more on NATO defense. And that's an important thing. Canada does need to spend more on NATO defense. And there's been some politicians in Canada, like Daniel Smith of Alberta, the premier of Alberta, who said there should be an joint Canadian-American Arctic military base. Canada has relied upon the United States security umbrella. And so, again, often he'll bring in issues that are not related to trade policy

and use trade policy as means to achieve ends in foreign policy and security policy. If you look at the recent tariffs, the 25% tariff threat against Canada and Mexico, that was, of course, not under 301, 201, and 232. I think also because with regards to 301 tariffs in its first term, I'm told that to build a legal case and to go through the process to get them out the door, it took about eight to nine months. It doesn't wait for that. Obviously, under AIPA, then of course, he's using AIPA now, International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Now this was given to the president by Congress in 1977.

A president under that can declare an emergency, and he's declared an appropriate emergency at the southern border over the fentanyl crisis. That's not a trade issue. But he's weaponizing tariffs in that. Now where I think that he's pressing, perhaps pressing the limits limits of presidential power and that would be up to the courts because obviously there are lawyers looking at this right now and no doubt there'll be lawsuits as everything is now being litigated but it's always this case in Washington. We have the best government that money can buy and lawyers are very

active in this process making lots of money about it. I mean whether it's Trump or Biden or whomever is president there's always litigation and so it'd be up to a judge to decide. But what I think is interesting about this is never before has IEPA been used to implement tariffs. And the word tariff does not appear in IEPA, so it's unprecedented. And so a judge could say, yes, you have a legitimate emergency at the southern border, but perhaps there's another tool you can use because tariffs are not the appropriate tool. And when Congress gave this power to the president in 1977, it wasn't the intention that the president would use this to implement tariffs in this way.

Also, there should be a report and a consultation with Congress, and some are concerned that that hasn't happened. But again, I think that they've obviously had four years to think about this. They've hit the ground running. They're getting this out. It's exhausting. We're not going to have much sleep for the next four years as during this presidency because they're doing so much so quickly and getting so much done. But I do think that with regards, they may have pressed limits by using IEP in this circumstance. And I think, of course, as we've seen this week, he's going back to using a 232. But of course, you know, if you saw a couple weeks ago when they made the spending cuts, a judge put a stay on that, then they withdrew them. So they are seeing how far that they can go legally and test the limits of presidential power. So you've written about

extricating America from its Chinese handcuffs. Yes. What are the handcuffs? We're inexorably linked to them. We've put ourselves into the situation where we look at some American companies, some of the companies I advise and have advised, they're 65% exposed to China. I think what we need to do, for example, instead of making legacy chips in China, let's make them in another GSP country. So, for example, when I mention GSP countries, I should mention this. Since 2020, Congress has not renewed the generalized system of preference for developing

countries. As one person put it very crudely, and I wouldn't say this, we'd rather make our cheap plastic toys in a GSP country than we would rather make them in China. We don't want to make that stuff here in the United States. Americans want to have high-tech jobs. I'm not saying some Americans don't, but we're not going to make a rope factory. We would employ Americans to make rope. We would just automate that.

A lot of this stuff we would automate, so it wouldn't create jobs anyway. So I think that we need to transfer a lot of the manufacturing that we're getting. If we're not going to make this stuff ourselves, we have to make it in our friends and allies. Let's make India has a great tech industry. Let's start making legacy chips in India. Since we haven't renewed the GSP program, the Generalized System Program for Developing Countries, our businesses, which would source intermediate goods from GSP countries, are now sourcing them from China. So it's actually increased the trade deficit with China because China just isn't operating under WTO rules. And so this was a trade preference program for developing countries. And, of course, AGOA, which is the Sub-Saharan African program.

So when we didn't renew GSP, a lot of the Sub-Saharan African countries could then just jump onto the AGOA program for Sub-Saharan Africa. And so that's up for renewal this year, as well as the Haiti program as well. So I think it's prudent upon Congress to get its act together and renew those programs. What we had from the Democrat side, I think it was last October, we had like two or three bills, which was about implementing DEI and ESG into the renewal of those programs, which would make them probably expensive because when we operate with China under WTO rules, we don't require them to have ESG and DEI policies. And I think that gender parity in India would be

difficult culturally. I think some of the LGBT stuff in Africa would be difficult. And then, of course, if you inject ESG into it, you'll make it prohibitively expensive. These countries can afford to embrace these ESG policies, these environmental policies, obligations. And we don't require that of China. We trade with them. There are more extreme groups like Coalition for Prosperous America who say, oh, no, we shouldn't renew GSP. It'll kill jobs. We've actually killed jobs. I know of a major iconic American company that I was talking to. They were going to build a new factory. They've closed down a factory in a state in the South. And it's because they lost their GSP markets. They're like, well, do you want us to trade more with China? And that's the message that they were giving right here in Congress

for GSP renewal day. So again, I think that we need to look at some of these trade preference programs. And I know, for example, Ambassador Lighthizer said in his book that he preferred just to have free trade agreements with those, for example, African countries and have each one tailor-made for their economy and ours, as opposed to renewing AGOA. And I understand that, but let's do it. Because we need something, because also we've lost those markets in Africa,

for example, under GSP and AGOA. We're losing them to China. And we're throwing these countries into the arms of China because they come forward with all their Belt and Road infrastructure programs and get these countries into debt. And at least if we can have trade, if we're not gonna have aid, we can have trade, and we can trade with these countries.

I think it's very important. And we need markets for our goods, our exports. We need to sell those apples in Washington state somewhere. So bottom line is, you're saying that we should come up with policies, whether they're multilateral or bilateral or however, with friendly nations and be as reciprocal or as free as possible, but with the adversaries take kind of the opposite position.

Exactly. So, for example, we want to, for example, encourage the Dutch not to sell their advanced chip banking technology to China because if they win the technology war, then they've effectively won. So that's vital that we don't do that. So don't tariff their stuff. You don't make friends and influence people who are going to tariff their stuff. Also, I'll give an example about Australian New Zealand. We want Australia to purchase our nuclear-powered submarines under the new AUKUS agreement. Well, why would they work with us under that if we're going to tariff their lamb? The R-CAF petition is a bad idea. I get people calling me saying, hey, should

my boss, my senator sign on to this? I'm like, let me tell you to talk about this issue. Amongst the protectionist side, there's a knee-jerk reaction saying a tariff is the panacea to all of our problems. And actually, a lot of these problems we created right here in Washington, and we can fix them right here in Washington with dealing with some of the stupid and foolish regulations that we have. And, you know, use these tariffs as a tool of statecraft, as you said earlier. Well, yes, or as I think Trump also said, economic coercion. And for example, I mean, some people around him have talked about using them on matters that are so far moved from trade policy. For example, I remember G.D. Vance put a tweet out last year.

There was a bill going, the hate speech bill that was going through the Irish Dale, the Irish Parliament. And I think it would criminalize parents for trying to intervene with their children if they wanted to change their gender and also criminalize people who question the transgender ideology. And he said we should have economic sanctions against this country for this. There was Bill Ackman, a major donor to Trump, and he put out a tweet saying that because of the covering up of the grooming gangs, the rape of British girls by these grooming gangs in the U.K. by the government, by these Asian grooming gangs, that we should apparently call for economic sanctions.

And I'll finish with this. I've been really pushing for a long time for it. It's the position of the Heritage Foundation that we should have a U.K.-U.S. free trade agreement. Now, I'm not saying we should use trade policy for these sanctions and economic sanctions for all these other non-trade purposes. I'm saying that's what's happening. And when I go to members of Congress and members of the Senate and their staff and I talk about this, often the first thing I hear from them is,

why would we want to have a free trade agreement with a country that threatens to arrest people over Facebook posts and then lets hardened criminals, pedophiles, out of prison? And so I think this is something that's repeatedly coming up to me, is they're concerned about freedom of speech. Elon Musk is very concerned about this. There could potentially be some tariffs and some economic sanction as a result. President Trump has sanctioned the ICC. And you've got the Republic of Ireland. They've recognized the policy authority as a state. They've recognized the ICC arrest warrant. They, you know, as a pillar of their foreign policy is to oppose the

state of Israel. And that's a close alley of the United States. I could see a situation whereby the U.S., you know, sanctions the Republic of Ireland in some way as they've sanctioned the ICC. So again, tariffs are now not just about trade policy. They are instruments of statecraft and economic coercion that go well beyond trade policy into areas that are very, very different. Well, Andrew Hale, it's such a pleasure to have had you on the show. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you so much, Jan. Thank you all for joining Andrew Hale and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek..