Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 10-16-25_THURSDAY_7_and_8AM

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

An abbreviated Conspiracy Theory Thursday show with some open phones than a dive into how the Trump Administration works trade deals. Really interesting talk with Mitchell Silk, author of A SEAT AT THE TABLE, D62 quiz, open phone talk follows.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Klausur Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Hey, you know, it's kind of a conspiracy theory Thursday kind of start to conspiracy theory Thursday. Yeah, indeed, you can check in here. 7705633-770 KMED. Yeah, we had some technical problems this morning, not with KMED per se,

but one of the other radio stations after Pacific Power ended up doing a planned power outage to supposedly replace a telephone pole. This is the way, you know, one power pole, supposedly. And it was off, let's see, 10.30 yesterday morning, and it kept on going. And then the Pacific Power website ended up still saying, still assessing Cruz Noto We're still not exactly sure what happened, but the power was off from 1030 up in the Phoenix Baldy area, which is where, you know, one of our transmitter stations are located. And it was up all day, all night, and then came on between 1.30 and 3.30 in the morning,

so I'm told. And unfortunately, though, one of the radio stations did not come back on had to actually go in and apply some mechanical work to it. No, I wasn't hating it, but I was pretty much wanting to. So that's why we had to call an audible this morning. A lot of people, my text messages are filling up, where are you okay and think, yeah, that's what happened. And so I was in the forerunner out there doing that thing and just kind of, you know, checking into, you know,

heading up the road. It was a beautiful morning. You know, Chris DeGall was talking about on his show about how beautiful it was in D.C. It was beautiful up there, too. You know that early morning kind of smear a sun, which is coming in, a little wet and slippery on the roads. But other than that, fine. But I hope you're doing well. Join in at 770-633, 770 KMED.

We will have one particular guest who's going to be digging into things here. China, this is kind of like my conspiracy theory Thursday, guest, China, TikTok, and also the farmer bailouts. And that is something which is still a big, big deal. talking about some of the challenges that Oregon agriculture is going into. And so we'll have that conversation coming up a little bit. And some of the other people I was going to talk to today, heck, we'll just have them on at another day. Today, though, is one of the things which has been top of my mind has been this Creekside Quarter. And we're going to have folks from the Creekside Quarter Pack on tomorrow.

They're doing a really, really big push, really big push on this. And, you know, this was delivered in my mailbox, you know, the vote yes on 15-238. It is a, you know, that had to cost a whole lot of money. And probably involving the Eugene Emeralds, I imagine that, you know, they're part of the big pack and big contributors to this. And there are other people involved in this, too. And tonight there's going to be a town hall meeting, 530. Now, it's not actually being conducted by the city of Medford, but this is all. over at RCC Higher, SOU, RCC Higher Education in downtown Mevard in those buildings.

And by the way, about two or three hours prior to that, we have Brad Hicks, who is doing his official announcement, going to be given some speeches. I'm looking forward to talking with Brad in the next day or so, too, because Brad Hicks is looking to run for state Senate. And this would be replacing Senator Jeff Golden. And let me tell you, that is huge, could be huge, and could be very welcome here to restore a little bit of balance ideologically in the state government. So I think that is a big deal. I'm looking forward to talking with Brad. He's going to do his big announcement, get together. And then 530 in the same area, Creekside Quarter.

They're going to be talking about that. But it's not actually conducted by the – it's not exactly conducted by the – it's not exactly conducted by the – city it's conducted by the pack people who of course several of the pack people are also on the city council so i guess we could say it's kind of that it's not not a quorum type thing but yeah there are people involved in this and i've made this very plain that um i am not particularly trusting of public private partnerships i would want to make sure that they're very very tightly structured and i'm hoping to get some more questions and There are some questions answered that I don't think they have really answered on their frequently asked questions part of the website.

This is a big deal you'd like to see more development come and some more prosperity to it. I just always get concerned with public-private partnerships, and this is something I've said. I've been saying this for years. Public-private partnership usually has some kind of design in it that, well, socialized costs somehow through the public and privatized profits. for the private side of things, whether it's the Eugene Emeralds and the various hotels and hotels and conference rooms that they wanted to put together. So I have a lot of questions. And looking at some of their predictions seem a little pie in the skyish.

In fact, I recall one of the things in their financials was that for this to pencil out, it would take three quarters hotel occupancy in downtown men. Medford at this new project and something in the neighborhood of $230 a night for the room. And three-fourths of these rooms would have to be occupied all the time. And that just strikes me as very optimistic, very optimistic to have very expensive hotel rooms in downtown Medford, very occupied all the time at three-fourths of the time, all the time. Even in the middle when the baseball stadium is not really doing much, middle of winter or something, what is it? And maybe there is some method of pulling a financial rabbit out of the hat.

I don't know. But I'm happy to take your opinions on that. That's something I was hoping to do a bit. And we'll find out more from the PAC tomorrow, but they're having their meeting today. And I think that is one of the major issues going on here in Southern Oregon. 770563. But of this conspiracy theory Thursday, I'm always happy to let you have your say, too. I know this was kind of a late, ragged start, and my apologies that I couldn't let you know,

hey, I'll be in a little bit later, but sometimes you just got to go fix stuff, you know? This is the Bill Maher's show. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Good morning. This is Jerry. Hey, Jerry. What's in your mind today?

Well, I got a conspiracy thought. Okay. What's that? Back when Trump was running for election, the night he got, or the day he got shot, were told by Dan Bongino that that was the first time on his tour, more or less, that there was a sniper team provided. And I was just thinking, why would they need to spite, why would they wait until that particular day? Maybe they just had to make sure that the guy that shot him didn't survive.

it's an interesting theory I would need a little more evidence on that it's an interesting theory no doubt of course we always have interesting theories I suppose so this may have been one of the first times that he was surrounded by buildings that perhaps made it a more appropriate sniper perch could that be part of the reason why they did that

maybe it was one of the first times he appeared in something like that and not just out in the open where there weren't a lot of buildings very close to the stage I'm just thinking out loud with you Yeah, well, you might be right. I mean, this was just an idea that crossed through my head that, you know, he had the, that sniper couldn't survive because he absolutely knew too much. Hmm. It's amazing how little we've, it's amazing how little we've actually really found out about that particular assassin.

Yeah, there's been nothing. It cremated him, and there's no evidence of anything now. Nothing to see? The phones don't tell us anything, all the out-of-the-country contact. You don't sound like you're very trusting of what you're being told, I guess, is what I'm saying, huh? It's just an odd deal, but, you know, presidential assassinations have always been odd deals. I mean, Kennedy's is still an odd deal. They've got evidence buried that we don't let us see.

Now, revisionist historians and people who have written deeply on the subject, Douglas Horn is one which comes to mind, and I think the book that he wrote was, maybe it was not his book, another book, J.F.K. The Unspeakable. And it does seem pretty clear to me like Tom and others who have called it and said for quite some time that that was really, you know, it does appear that forces within our own government or maybe in cahoots with some other governments ended up wanting him out. And many, many reasons have been given. One of them was that he was not particularly a fan of going into Vietnam. You remember that story back then when we were kids, right? Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, the evidence, they won't let us see it.

It's been stashed away for, what, once it's been now, 50, 60 years. Yeah, and could you tell me what could possibly be a national security issue about presidential assassination supposedly done by the lone wolf nut? It's always a lone wolf nut, right? It has to always be a lone wolf nut. And he was a nut, and you know, look at him with this picture with the rifle. And they always had that ready, it does seem. But I really can't comment more on that particular assassination attempt other than I'm hoping that President Trump will have his people release more sooner rather than later. But I haven't seen much coming, have you?

Yeah, it's just one of them little oddities that almost like designers keep people guessing about. stuff. Yeah, and I guess Charlie Kirk is the next entry in that particular sweepstakes. I appreciate the call. Thanks for your odd note, okay, on conspiracy theory Thursday. This is KMED, KMED HD-1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG Grants Pass. Well, Fox News coming up here next. Happy to take more of your calls. We'll be digging into the trade deals, bailing out the farmers, an important thing, how it's related to the TikTok negotiation with China and all these other things. It's perfect conspiracy Theory Thursday stuff too. By the way, we are also going to have a diner 62 real American quiz

as part of today's abridged Bill Meyer show. That'll be coming up about a half hour. All right. So if you haven't wanted in the last 60 days, let's see if we can take care of business. Now then, here it is October 16th. We are into the Medicare enrollment period. And you're thinking, okay, man, this is so complex. I don't know which plan to have. And it's going to end on December have this annual enrollment. We always have this. And the Medicare Advantage in prescription drug plans, they change every year, usually always getting expensive. I can attest to that as I look at my mother's, you know, coming in there, taking care of her finances. But it's important for you to review your plan for the price and benefit changes. It's good to have an agent doing this,

and it doesn't cost you more to have an agent. So I would suggest make Lynn Barton over at Skypark insurance your agent. It doesn't cost anymore. She'd be honored to help you navigate it. It'd be pretty confusing. She'll help make it easy and non-confusing, and let her take care of the details. Call her up at 541-4-9-0-9-8 or find Lynn at Skypark-ins.com. Once again, 499-9-958, Skyparkins.com. Making Medicare easy with Lynn Barton at Skypark.

They keep... 11 minutes after 8, we continue the conspiracy theory Thursday conversation. I don't know if it's conspiracy theory based or not, but Mitchell Silk joins me. and Mitchell, interesting background, because there's so much talk right now, especially in the second term of President Trump, of trade negotiations, the tariffs, all the rest of it. Well, he was Assistant Secretary for International Markets during the first Trump term, and he literally sat, why I just bring you on here first, Mitchell, morning, welcome to the show. Great to have you on. Thanks so much for having me, though.

Now, you literally sat across from the Chinese vice premier. What was that, Lou, Louie, Lou Hey, right? Liu Hu, yeah. Lehu, okay, well, I'm wondering, do you speak Mandarin, just out of curiosity? I'm actually fluent in two dialects, Mandarin and Cantonese. Good for you. I'm glad you're an underachiever, just teasing, but I... That's in addition to my most favorite language of Yiddish.

It's a great combination. Oh, wonderful. Okay. But anyway, so you were kind of, you know, sitting across from this Chinese vice premier, and you ended up winning concessions back in those days. And as, you know, and we're looking at a time right now where tariff policy is facing the Supreme Court review. I'm not so sure that President Trump will necessarily win that. It's possible. It just depends.

And if the court will almost look at it as being more disruptive to not approve it than to let it just keep going. And then China, of course, is getting sporty with us the other day. Really big restrictions on rare earths. This is a big deal. And you have written a book about your experience dealing with the Chinese, and I think it's worth mentioning right now. What's the name of that again? It's called The Seat at the Table.

Okay. And really what I wanted to get across, what we wanted to get across with the title is a seat at the table at three dimensions, one of which is really relevant to your line of inquiry on what's going on at the beginning of Trump 47. But, you know, at the highest level, a seat at the table to me means that POTUS has secured a seat at the table for the country and for the American people through principled firm policy that puts the United States and its people first. at another level relevant to all of the listeners every person out there can have and should have a seat at the table to input on policy

and then finally a good part of the book talks about me and my personal journey and how I was able to use a personal touch mainly through dinner table diplomacy to realize some highly impactful results in the pursuit of policy relating to trade infrastructure, finance, financial regulation, fintech, and so on. So that's really what the book is about. On the trade front, you know, relevant to what you just said, I'd like to kind of

give you two angles that are relevant, highly relevant to the title of the book. Sure. To kind of zoom out, go up 30,000 feet coming back to your point on what's going to happen at the Supreme Court, I'd like to kind of set the stage. And by looking at where we were in 45 on the trade front and where we are in 47 on the trade front, to provide some really important distinctions and an explanation, I think, to the benefits of where we are sitting today based on the skillful policy of the president. So, you know, right now, we're in a complicated place, as you pointed out.

The stakes are really high, not just with the rare earth's action, but also with the soybean action by the Chinese, basically shutting out and ramping down to zero purchases from the United States. And American farmers are screaming bloody murder right now, aren't they? Absolutely, absolutely. And that is a great example of command and control, central government. of China, weaponizing their economy to the detriment of not just the United States and as farmers, but to the global markets and the global supply chains. But, you know, at its core

essence, what I saw it during 45 and what I'm seeing now is a game of three-dimensional chess. It was 3D chess in 2018, 19, when I was at the table, and it's 3D chess now, and that's a game that President Trump is really, really good at. The only difference, now are the levers or the pressure points. So as you pointed out, you know, today and this week and last week, it's soybeans and critical minerals. And back then, it was specific trade issues, IP, investment security and whatnot. But it's the same game of leverage. But I think what's really brilliant about what we've seen at the beginning of this term is a Trump 2.0 trade policy, which is even more disruptive, even more highly focused, even faster, and even more

strategic than what we saw in Trump 45. And I want to just throw out some statistics at you and some through the achievements that the trade team has realized for the country. And the president inherited a $1.2 trillion trade deficit when he took office on January 20th. And within six months' time, literally, you know, breakneck speed when you're talking about engagements with nearly 100 countries, the trade team has brought back agreements for the country and for the American people that have put a lid on roughly just over 800 billion of that 1.2 trillion, about 67 percent, countries representing around 67% of the trade deficit that the president inherited. So we got deals with, namely, Japan, EU, South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam, which have not only addressed the critical issue of trade imbalances, but on a second and third level, they have brought back, in some instances,

commitments of hundreds of billions of dollars of inbound investment from some of those countries, which will be very good for rebuilding and creating jobs in our manufacturing base. And then thirdly, in furtherance of the President's energy dominance policy, at least with Japan and South Korea, the team secured very large commitments, multi-billion dollar commitments to buy United States liquefied natural gas. And so that, in my view, is a kind of triple whammy in terms of benefits. And so, in a way, I could come back to the point on the Supreme Court. Maybe the law and the court will be on the president's side.

Maybe not. Maybe the tariff revenues will need to go back. Maybe it won't. But even in the worst case scenario of an adverse judgment against the president, we will still have the benefit of the FDA and the energy dominance commitments. We will still have the benefit of the trade imbalance benefits that the president, that the president and the team have brought under those agreements, and the final benefit that it's brought is the ability of the team to really focus on the biggest piece on the table,

which is the China piece. And that's what's confronting us today. And that's basically the seat at the table at which we need to provide the greatest amount of focus. from the outside he would appear to be I think you would agree with me from the outside from a standard person just kind of watching it he appears to be mercurial impetuous and just kind of like okay all right you're doing this to me I'm going to smack you back right I mean would you agree with me that's the way it appears right well the president yeah the president was very very not pleased um with the two actions that

China has taken over the last two weeks, which are soybeans and critical minerals. The critical minerals issue was settled. It was agreed in Stockholm, and the trade team, and we've heard from Secretary Besson done this quite a lot over the past couple of days, feel and believe firmly that China has gone back on its position, which is not surprising, given the manner in which they conduct negotiations. So I think that's really the framing for the issue. I was getting at, though, is the style is the impetuousness and the appearance of, you know, kind of like, you know, the way they used to talk about Russian commanders that would do the crazy Ivan? You know, is he kind of doing a crazy Trump? Is this actually part of the strategy

in your experience having been in the international markets? And it just is keeping everybody off, off-kilter or off-base or a little, you know, off-bounds, not knowing what to expect. Yeah, Bill, I would say the following, that he has been, he is being. being disruptive in a very calculated way. I come back to my three-dimensional chess analogy. The president is playing a very, very strategic game. If he does something, he does it for a purpose. It's not just a, in my view, an off-the-cup purpose.

In the case of the actions and the retaliations that he ordered over the past week, those were in the round in order, in order to maintain the strategy. of leverage to get China to come to the table and stay at the table, us not having any of their monkey business on process. And us sticking to a very, very firm script as we did in Trump 45 when we brought back the phase one trade agreement, which created $200 billion in purchase commitments from the Chinese benefits to protect our intellectual property and so on. You know, So we did have our soybean-type issues during Trump 45. Those were in the form of other types of ag, like, you know, poultry, shrimp, peaches, blueberries, cherries.

But it was the same monkey business then as we're seeing now. Okay. And the president and the team stayed the course. Can we really expect China, though, to ever, well, to ever trade honestly? This is a question a friend of mine just said. I think it's a great one. Does he expect China? Do you expect China will ever honor trade deals?

Honestly, honor trade deals. What do you think in your experience? It's a challenge. It's a really big challenge, Bill. The only concrete test that we have to measure the baseline, litmus test is the phase one trade agreement. We were into implementation. I don't want to say well into implementation,

but we were into implementation and then COVID hit. So we didn't really get a chance to test that one out different time now, five years later. And I think we have no choice but to continue to push our position to bring back an agreement for the country, for the global markets, and for the United States people, and then test the enforcement issue. You know, Bill, enforcement and particularly an effective enforcement mechanism was a really, really key part of our phase one trade negotiations in 18 through early 20. And it's going to be the same now. We're not going to bring back a agree to a flimsy agreement, an agreement with flimsy terms that are not capable of being enforced where there's no mechanism to

enforce. You were talking earlier here, Mitchell. By the way, I'm speaking with Mitchell Silk, who was a assistant secretary for international markets during the first Trump term, his book, which is out now, is called A Seat at the Table, literally talking about being at the table with the communist Chinese. You had mentioned how the trade deficit went down. In other words, we ended up importing less than, well, we started importing less. But what I was wondering about, when we hear about the trade deficit going down, most of the time people are thinking, oh, okay, that just means that there's more expensive stuff coming in from out of

the country that I couldn't afford, I can't afford to buy it now. So are we sending more out now, or is it just that there's less coming in? How do you see it? Could you kind of break that down? Yeah, and that's a really great question, and I can give a pretty simple clarification. Okay. A really key goal of our negotiations, sitting at the table, day in and day out, for months at a time with the Chinese in numerous rounds of negotiation was focused on getting the Chinese to commit to buy more from us. And if they're buying more from us, that means we are producing more, we're manufacturing more, and if we're producing and manufacturing more, then we're creating

more jobs. So a key element is to secure commitments from all of our trading partners, not just China, for them to buy more from us, right? And when they buy more, it's better for our industrial productivity, and it's better for our jobs. Yeah, sure. And then the second dimension of that is, as you will have seen in the couple of agreements that I referred to earlier, where the trade team brought home, like from Japan, I think it was a $400 or $500 billion commitment to invest in the United States.

That's simply what's called onshoreing. We're trying to bring back more manufacturing, more industrial, capacity to the United States so that we produce more. We have a better macro economy. We create more jobs, and we produce more goods that we can sell to our friends and partners abroad. Do you see a change in our dollar policy? Because the dollar value and trade, of course, is quite key. President Trump has made it quite clear that he wants a dollar which is weaker, a weaker dollar in order to help our trade, our ability to be able to sell to the rest of the world. And the other challenge that we've had, though, is that in the past, we've tended to treat the dollar as a baseball bat

with which to whack every other foreign nation over the head that doesn't do things exactly the way we like. And the challenge with that is that then people are starting to de-dollar more. What role is that going to be playing in President Trump's resetting of international trade? There has to be some, you know, effect going on right now. Yeah, it's, Bill, you've raised a really great question. It's so important to trade policy, currency, generally. A weak dollar is not great for the economy. It may be good on a short-term basis to, you know, boost and make prices more attractive,

but generally speaking, a strong dollar is good. And, of course, I'm sure that you're familiar with the Genius Act that factors into this where the president has pushed firmly a fintech policy to ensure that the United States is dominant in the digital currency space, which is also good for the U.S. dollar. You know, the U.S. dollar and dollarization issue is not important just for trade and for growth, but it's also important on the security side because it allows us to effectively implement sanctions against the bad guys in the world. And there are a lot of really bad guys out there that are subject to sanctions to keep them in place. It's a big function that is run by a large piece of the Treasury Department. Yeah. Is it always wise to do the sanctions, though?

I guess as far as I'm concerned, I think that some nation started going for the exit doors on the dollar when they ended up, when the administration ended up seizing Russian assets, you know, here. And then you're not thinking, okay, you want us to invest and you want us to use the dollar, But at the same time, we do something you don't like and you take our money. And, you know, just you see what I'm getting at how naturally not everyone around the world is going to agree with our foreign policy. Yeah. And, you know, Bill, the United States Treasury Department doesn't take a sanctions action easily. There must be a clear and convincing showing of criminal activity.

And so if somebody gets whacked with sanctions and is precluded from using the U.S. dollar system and its payment system and clearing system, There's a pretty darn good reason for the safety of the United States people and globally. But, you know, the currency manipulation issue relevant to trade that you've raised is really a great one because the Treasury Department puts out regularly a currency manipulation report that focuses on countries that actively use the manipulation of their currency to drive down its values. so in order to pump the attract the attractiveness of their exports by basically lowering prices of their goods internationally. I would imagine China is top of that list or very high on that list. Repeated, repeated offender, and that's why I raised it.

I mean, it's just one of those issues that are so central to the negotiations where we're up against an agenda of getting them to buy more, but we really also are very focused. on really large systemic issues that if you want to get at any one of those systemic nuts to crack, it takes a really, really long time. And currency manipulation is certainly at the top of the list. The reports are not happy reading. They're all available on the Treasury website. And I invite all of your listeners to flip through the last couple of reports just to get a little bit of color to understand the monkey business that China and others are playing on this front. Are any of our trading partners helping us out or trying to help us out to box the

Chinese in a bit here or at least rein in their access or are we kind of having to do this alone? Go it alone. What do you think? Bill, you're hitting the strategy right on the head because in 45 we built some really effective coalitions with friendly partners in your Europe and Asia in order to push the issues at the time. Some of them were straight trade issues, call it energy, call it ag, call it whatever. But we had some really, really weighty issues at the time that related to some bad actor behavior by the Chinese through their telecoms companies, namely ZTE and Huawei, where we were able to show through strong and effective coalitions, a united front that was able to push back, and we're seeing a rerun of that movie now with a slight variation

on the theme in the context of critical minerals. You know, the critical minerals export control action that China took recently is not just a direct response to the president and to the United States, but it's, it is disruptive and impact on the whole of the global supply chain. Oh, and it would make it practically impossible to even manufacture chips in many ways with sort of situations. You'd have to get permission from the Chinese on – I was reading an article about this. You have to get the Chinese permission for so many of the technologies that we would be using here. Isn't that right? From what I understand?

You hit it right on the head, and let me throw you – let me throw some numbers out at you. China commands 85% of global processing capacity of critical minerals. and 60% of world bar production. And those numbers say it all. I mean, if that is not economic coercion, then I don't know what it is. And this battle then, which President Trump is fighting, this is existential, really. I mean, more so than one might think. Absolutely the case.

And it might seem like an issue in isolation, but it's all a part of a larger package of issues. of issues that relate to how China conducts itself in the global markets to the detriment of everybody other than China. And that has been the prevailing policy. To push back on that has been the prevailing policy and the driver of Trump 45's China policy. And it continues to this day under Trump 47. And unfortunately, we saw a lot of wind go out of those strong sales that we built during the Biden administration. Sure. I wanted to focus on your book here for a couple of minutes before we take off here.

And by the way, that is called A Seat at the Table. And this is your experience there at these trade tables with the Chinese Vice Premier and others. And I want you to, I want to share that story, or maybe you could share that story when they were working to humiliate the United States of America. What were they doing and what was your response to it? I think it's a fascinating story and kind of an insight into the communist mind trade, so to speak. Well, you know, there's the substantive side of it, Bill, where you got issues on the table that relate to trade, purchase commitments, protection of intellectual property, you know,

aggressive, overly aggressive, industrial policy, unfair export credit subsidies. It's a litany of substantive issues that we were fighting over with the Chinese. And so that was as to substance. On the other side of it, there's the whole arena of process, the manner in which you conduct your negotiations, where you're going to meet, who can attend the meetings, how the meetings are conducted, when you sit down, when you have a break, so on and so forth. And not only were the Chinese the masters, at least based on what I saw, and of course over my 30-year legal career, at obfuscating and blurring the substantive issues in an attempt to deflect attention away from the really less-than-positive behavior, but they were really extraordinary at slow-rolling and confusing the process. And if there were some subtle, and then there were some very not subtle attempts to create confusion and, you know. Well, I was thinking specifically about that time in which they took chairs away. They actually pulled chairs away from the table that the trade talks, right?

I'm going to give you two, I'm going to give you two specific concrete examples. Yeah. And they happened in succession at the same meeting, which was the first plenary session that the United States team went over to China for. We had a delegation of over 100 people. We'd spent weeks preparing. I personally actually prepared the first draft of the agreement that was later socialized and finalized and sent over to the Chinese a couple of weeks in advance of the meetings so that they would be able to review the draft as we had agreed. to use as a basis for the negotiation. So can you imagine, you know, hundreds of people preparing on both sides, position stated, and we're ready to sit down after having flown all the way over

there. And we arrive in Beijing, we huddle in the embassy for a pre-meeting briefing. And the first item of business brought up by the ambassador, our then-embaster, Terry Brandstatt, was that the Chinese at 8 a.m. that morning had delivered a draft of the agreement that they wanted to use for the negotiations in place of the draft that we had sent two weeks prior. The draft that they sent over was 180 degrees from what the starting point that we had agreed, and it was all in Chinese. So I was able to read it. A couple of others on the team were, but 97% of our team could not, right? And so we got in the car. I was instructed to sit with Secretary Manuchin and translate as much of it as I could on the way over. We got to the meetings. It was political

theater as best. A hundred people took their seats, 50 on each side of the table, a couple of different rows on each side. And the vice premier, Liu, welcome us very nicely. He's a very dignified man. And the Secretary Manuchin just really was. wasn't having it. And he very, very graciously responded and thanks the Premier and the whole Chinese team for having us. And he took our agreement and he said, this is the agreement that we sent over and this is the agreement that we're going to be using as the basis of our negotiations. So that's one example. I mean, the chair example happened at the same meetings where we had agreed down to the number of chairs who was sitting where a week in advance of the meeting, we get to

the meeting, everybody files in, comes of, of, you know, nervous energy in the room. And there's one guy on our side that finds himself without a seat. No seat, no name tag. It had been agreed by protocol officials on both sides. And they had done so. We later learned as it means to respond to a slight that they felt the president had showed to their vice premier when the vice premier was in Washington. This was about embarrassing us. essentially, or humiliation, right? You know, kind of tit-for-tat process points meant to confuse and obfuscate. Now, how did you end up, now you ended up actually soothing that or pouring some soothing oil on the boiling water over there, so to speak.

What did you do? I thought it was an interesting story, really. Yeah, so, you know, I went into the room. I had my seat. I sat down dutifully and participated as we had planned. our first break, about two hours in, I went outside to find out what the hell was going on. And I saw our deputy chief of mission at the Beijing embassy in heated discussion, which must have been going on for two hours, with the head of the Protocol Department at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs relating to this chair.

I asked our guy what was going on. They said that they weren't going to budge on the chair. I, in Chinese, spoke directly to the head of protocol at Mofa. I tried to convince him that they should give us the chair. I tried nicely, I tried not so nicely, diplomatically, otherwise. And I saw we weren't getting anywhere at that very moment when I was about to basically call it a day because I saw it as being stonewalled. The former governor, the head of the People's Bank of China, the Central Bank of China fellow named Mr. Yang walk by. He is a good friend, and we've done a lot of work with him at Treasury, Indiana PhD.

And I called him over, and I said, Governor Yi, we have an issue here. I explained the issue to him. And he had a go at his Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and he wasn't able to get anywhere. So I said, you know what? In ear's reach of the protocol guy, I turned to the governor in Chinese and said, Governor E, next time you come to Washington, I would love to host you at my house. I will serve you all of the finest delicacies, some wonderful Israeli red wine, and you know what? You can have all of the seats at my table as you like, and I walked away.

Guess what? That seat showed up after the break. So that statement there, you were, in other words, you weren't showing weakness, but you were showing the desire to cooperate and kind of, but he was kind of calling them on the carpet a little bit, but gently. Is that a fair way of putting it? I was sending a signal to the protocol guy that was directed to illustrate just how very petty he was being. The governor understood it and the protocol guy understood it. And I believe that the protocol fellow from Mofa felt that he had done his. He made his point, and it was becoming beyond petty at that point.

my having called him out in the manner that I did. And so I believe he had no choice other than to concede on the issue. You know, the interesting thing about this, you know, when I read these kind of stories in a seat at the table, it makes you wonder how anything gets agreed upon. You know, when you see the, you know, the jockeying, the complexity, the issues of, I guess, honor and face-saving, all of that, that's a big part of these sort of negotiations. is it not certainly is it is a it is a long and slow slog but i i recall and i recount this quite a bit in the book our most senior negotiator uh from us t r under ambassador lighthizer

was a fellow named steve garr she was the deputy ustr and i remember that that he led the the main the main plenary working group um for all of the negotiations when the most senior negotiators like Leo and Secretary Mnuchin and Ambassador Lighthizer were not at the table. And Steve had his playbook. It was a couple of binders sick. He would sit down in the morning. He wouldn't budge from his chair and he would move page by page by page, point by point, showing very clearly that he was not having any monkey business.

And he didn't leave the table, ultimately, until we were able to get commitments that we felt we're good for the country and good for our people. Wow. There is a lot more going on behind the scenes at this than we will ever hear about, I think, in the news and even in our either whether it's Trump-friendly news or Trump-unfriendly news, et cetera. I appreciate you giving us a, well, a seat at the table, no pun intended, and kind of a look at how this actually works. And I'm going to link to that site so people can find out more about that.

What an interesting time here. Do you believe that ultimately the president's current strategy, the way it's looking, because he was fulminating when China ended up clamping down on the rare earth? So you think he ultimately gets his way on this, Mitchell? What say you? I have a high degree of confidence in the president, Bill. He is the master of the deal. We saw that last week and the couple of weeks leading up to last week, or rather this week, I should say, when we ultimately saw peace in the Middle East and the hostages return, and just think about it for a minute.

That's a set of issues, a very complicated arena, very complicated region, entrenched historical issues that go back, generations, centuries. And I was very encouraged about 10 days ago or two weeks ago when the president was able to deliver support not just from all of our allies, some of whom were and perhaps are still are prepared to recognize Palestine, but we saw support from every single major Arab country, including large Asian Arab countries. You think part of that might be that he's structured so much of this deal as business deals too and not just a peace deal? Might that have something to do with him? Very much so. Very much so, Bill. Again, the art of the deal. He's able to see the value. He's able to see the benefits, he's able to see alignment of interests, and where there are issues

with alignment of interest, he's able to come up with creative mechanisms to align interests and deliver deals on complicated issues and sets of facts. Thanks for shining a light on this with us this morning, Mitchell. And one final question, though, will we have to break with China on trade, or essentially decouple our economy from their economy? Or is that impossible? So, you know, based on the last two weeks, Bill, there's much more talk about decoupling than there has been in as far as I can remember. I am hopeful that the president and the team will be able to come up with creative solutions to keep us at the table. But ultimately, it's China's decision when they want to take decisions as they did with the soybeans.

and particularly as they did striking at global supply chains with critical minerals, then they've got to step up and understand that they are responsible for creating the circumstances in which they find themselves. And ultimately, if there is a decoupling, it's going to, the most pain will be felt in China by China and by the Chinese people. All right. It's good to know, duly noted, and thank you so much for having been on the show. I've learned so much more than I thought I was going to learn, and I appreciate that. You know, we walk away here with a better idea on the process behind the scenes here, too.

Mitchell Silk, once again, was Assistant Secretary for International Markets during the first President Trump term. And the book, by the way, is called A Seat at the Table, available with all the usual suspects and some great stories in there. Thanks for having shared some of it this morning, Mitchell. Be well. Thank you. Thank you so much, Phil. I really appreciate you're having me on. really, really great and energizing conversation. Thank you again. Yeah, the feeling is mutual. It is 846 at KMED. ran a little bit long on this, but you know

something, you just got to let it roll when you have someone like Mitchell talking about it. Hey, I did mention we were going to do the Diner 62 Real American Quiz, and I'm going to keep that promise right now. We'll give you a seat at the Diner 62 table, all right? Like we're talking about these trade issues, right?

770563 to join in. If you haven't one in the last 60 days, try it and win it next. Okay. This hour of the Bill Myers Show is sponsored by Fontana Roofing. For roofing gutters and sheet metal services, visit Fontana Roofing Services.com. One of each K4 VIN, 20292 MSRP, 24-185, Telluride, VIN, 677-258 MSRP, 43580,000,000,000-0-509-29. Do it signing 10K miles per year, zero security deposit, all incentives and discounts to dealer plus 10. For hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED.

Now Bill wants to hear from you. 541-770-5-633. That's 770 KMED. In the eyes of a ranger, the unsuspecting stranger had better know the truth of wrong from right. That's right. Because the eyes of the ranger are upon you. We're talking about the Texas Rangers today on the Diner 62, Real American Quiz. And, yeah, it is more than Walker, Texas Ranger, but I always like that.

I always liked that show. Always liked him, too. But, of course, do you really want to disagree with Chuck Norris? No, nobody wants to get in the fight with him, really. And let us do the Diner 62 Real American Quiz. By the way, they have hot, open-faced sandwiches that are back. You can choose the pot-rose sandwich served with mashed potatoes and brown gravy or the hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce.

It's like their holiday menu is back, along with everything else. And if you want avocado on it, they'll put avocado on anything. Just ask. I don't know if you want avocado on your coffee or whatever, but they're very cooperative, good people, Diner 62. And I just lost the piece of paper where I had all the people who were calling in. So we're just going to have to hit it now. Hi, good morning. Who is this, line one?

Welcome. Chris? Okay, Chris, your first up. Well, it was October 17, 1835. Texas approves a resolution to create the Texas Rangers. It's a corps of 56 armed and mounted lawmen designed to range and guard the frontier. It was a formalization of an earlier group of Rangers in which Stephen Austin, of Austin, Texas had established after he was contracted by Mexico to work on colonization efforts to Texas, mainly settlers from the trans-apalachian South. First 300 families in his colony up to as many as 1,500 people known as the old 300 got land graham.

back then. Boy, getting a land grant in Texas. Wouldn't that have been nice, huh? But they needed protection from attacks by the Native American tribes and bandits. Now, the question is, how many men were in this forerunner group of Texas Rangers? And they were called Rangers by Stephen Austin, of Austin, Texas, right? Now, was it A, 10, B, 20, C, 40, D, 80, or E, was it 160? You know, a lot of problems with the bandits, all that kind of stuff. What do you say? 10. You're going to say 10? You're thinking it's as few as 10? Yes. You're right. You know how seldomly the first person in wins. Well, you did. Yep. Austin hires 10 guys to be Rangers in 1823. Ironically, 12 years later, in the midst of the revolt against Mexico,

the Texan leaders sponsored by Mexico and originally under the protection of the Rangers. which were originally paid for by Mexico. I guess even back then we were trying to get Mexicans to pay for stuff on the border, right? But anyway, they felt they needed a semi-official force of armed men who would defend the isolated frontier against both Santa Ana soldiers and Native Americans and the Texas Rangers filled the role. But after winning the Revolutionary War, Texans decided to keep the Rangers, both to defend against the natives and Mexicans,

and to serve as the principal law enforcement authority. it's a great story and chris you're going to diner 62 hang on we'll make sure and make that happen another diner 62 real american quiz is coming for precision and performance ethos dot com slash mike you're hearing the bill mire's show on 1063 kmED hey sorry about it being an abbreviated conspiracy theory Thursday but that's all right we'll open things up a little bit more for tomorrow so we got four minutes left and we're going to have to make hey well the conspiracy theory Thursday, sun is shining. Hello, Brad. Can you give me a quick one on not all economic activity is equal? What do you say? Go ahead. Yeah, Bill, that's exactly right. So not all economic

prosperity improves livability. You know, when we're talking about civic things, for instance, you know, the big topic about the new stadium and whatnot, and I'm not going to vote for against, but I'll just say this, is just because you have profitability of the businesses, an area, that doesn't necessarily run downstream to the people that live there or the people that are impacted by having these developments built where they live. And that is the big question. I think that a lot of this are running through here. And once again, this is what I'm going to say here, and I'm hoping to talk with those

folks tomorrow, even though they're having their town hall today. But what has bothered me most is that all the economic comparisons of success stories of people doing similar projects like this. are all coming from considerably larger areas, instead of our maybe 250,000, we're looking at areas of 400, 450,000 like Salem Kaiser, over in North Carolina. And I'm just making sure that we don't step ourselves into something where it is not able to pencil, because their economic, their picture is very rosy, I would dare say, in my opinion. Have you read any of that? Just curious. I've read things similar to that, but the thing I think that we just need to realize, Bill, is the best thing that we can do for the economic prospects of the people that live in the community is turn them into homeowners. The average homeowner has a net worth 43 times higher than the average renter.

I know, but everything about local policy is not about homeownership, and that's a big problem. And in fact, it's about creating a whole class of renters. I don't have time to completely explore that with you. We've covered this before, but give me a call tomorrow. Maybe we flesh it out some more, okay? All right? Okay, Bill. All right.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I just can't do it all right now. I wanted to squeeze in. Hello, Steve. Steve and Sunny Valley, fire away. Go ahead. Yeah, last night about 10.30, I had an 18-wheeler, 53-foot trailer, come a mile down my dirt road, windy road, not flat. No turnaround.

And this has happened before. There is a way to get a truck turned around another half mile up the road, but he was trying to back up the mile on the road, almost in the ditch. So I showed him how to turn around. It was very difficult. He doesn't speak English. I thought that was supposed to have ended. Yeah, well, he was headed to Modesto, and I think that's where he was from.

So it was another California CDL who didn't speak English, and I don't speak any of those Indian languages. I speak some Spanish and some German. Yeah. I don't speak Hindi. Yeah. That, interesting. I thought that was all supposed to be over. Apparently that hasn't filtered down to some states. Appreciate the call, Steve. Deplorable, Patrick, you're going to back clean up here on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. 45 seconds. Make your point. Be real quick, the story that we were hearing, this guy that tried to take a, the guy that took a shot at Trump, I was hearing that the FBI had him cremated. That's a red flag to me. Isn't it the family that decides if he's cremated? Well, I don't think the FBI had him cremated. I think

the family did, though. Wasn't that the story? That wasn't what I heard. It should be, but it wasn't what I heard. Okay. Well, I'll tell you what. I'll have to look that up. I thought it was the family that did that. I don't think the FBI would have authority to do that. But No. I'll talk for another day, my friend. Thank you. That's right. All right.

Great. Thank you. Email Bill at Billmire show.com.