The Daily Signal - What You Need to Know About New US-China Trade Deal

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

Will the new deal boost the American economy? Is it normal for a trade deal to demand one party spend a certain amount? Will it curb China's theft of intellectual property from U.S. companies? Riley Walters, a policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation who focuses on Asia's economy and technology, has answers. Plus: Thaleigha Rampersad and Jarrett Stepman discuss the new hit movie, "1917". We also cover the following stories: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces the seven impeachment managers. Rep. Jerry Nadler, one of the impeachment managers, dismisses calling Hunter Biden as a witness. As Vladimir Putin makes moves to secure his control after 2024, the prime minister and entire cabinet resign The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, January 16th. I'm Jared Stepman. And I'm Kate Trinco. The U.S. and China have a new deal, but is it good for Americans? The Heritage Foundation's Riley Walters joins us to discuss what you need to know about the deal. We'll also talk to Thalia Rampersad about the hit new movie, 1917. She's seen it, and we'll hear whether she gives it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Don't forget.

If you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Well, the House has finally sent over the impeachment articles to the Senate, voting, largely along party lines on Wednesday. One Democrat, Representative Colin Peterson of Minnesota, broke with his party and voted against sending over the impeachment articles.

In remarks on the House floor Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi discussed the impeachment. via CBS. So we have a situation that is very sad. Don't talk to me about my timing. For a long time, I resisted the calls from across the country for impeachment of the president, for obvious violations of the Constitution that he had committed. But recognizing the divisiveness of impeachment, I held back. Frankly, I said this president isn't worth it. But when he acted the way he did in relationship to withholding funds from Ukraine and return for a benefit to him that was personal and political, he crossed a threshold. He gave us no choice. He gave us no choice. House Speaker Pelosi announced Wednesday the seven impeachment managers

who make the case to convict President Donald Trump in a Senate impeachment trial. The managers act as prosecutors in the impeachment trial, but the Senate decides how it is run. The list of managers includes Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who is selected as the lead manager and has been one of the leading advocates of impeachment. It also included representatives Jerry Nadler and Akeem Jeffries of New York and Zoe Lofgren of California. All seven of the managers are Democrats. Representative Jerry Nadler was a pivotal figure in the impeachment process due to his role as chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Now, as Jared mentioned,

he's one of the impeachment managers. And he was quick to put the kibosh on Hunter Biden appearing as a witness in the Senate trial. Via ABC, here's what Nadler had to say. In any trial, you call witnesses who have information about the allegations, about the charges. The allegations, which is a mountain of evidence, are that the president betrayed his country by trying to extort Ukraine by withholding $391 million in military aid that Congress had voted in order to get Ukraine to announce an investigation of a domestic political opponent. That's the allegation. Any witness who has information about whether that is true or not true is a relevant witness.

Anybody like Hunter Biden who has no information about any of that, It's not a relevant witness. Any trial judge in this country would rule such a witness as irrelevant and inadmissible. If someone is accused of robbing a bank, witnesses who say we saw him run into the bank, we saw him someplace else, are relevant. A witness who says he committed forgery on some other document is not relevant to the bank robbery charge. That's the distinction. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that the Senate would not follow the House's path on impeachment and called it a, quote, kind of anti-democratic recall measure.

McConnell specifically criticized the process by which the House conducted its impeachment inquiry. Speaker Pelosi and the House have taken our nation down a dangerous road. If the Senate blessed is this unprecedented and dangerous House process by agreeing that an incomplete case and, and a subjective basis are enough to impeach a president, we will almost guarantee the impeachment of every future president of either party when the House doesn't like that person. It will take 67 Senate votes to convict President Trump in the impeachment trial and remove him from office.

More political turmoil in Russia, where Vladimir Putin appears to be trying to find a way to remain in power after 2024. After Putin proposed changes to Russia's governance, current Prime Minister Dmitri Medviv said he was leaving, and the entire cabinet was as well. Putin quickly announced the new Prime Minister, Mikhail Mashushhten, a government official who worked on taxes. Next up, we'll have my interview with Riley Walters to discuss the trade deal. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda.

agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed a new trade deal with China. Here's part of what Trump had to say via ABC News. Today we take a momentous step, one that has never been taken before with China, toward a future of fair and reciprocal trade as we signed phase one of the historic trade deal between the United States and China. Together we are writing the wrongs of the past and delivering a future of economic justice and security for American workers, farmers, and families. So, joining me to discuss this deal today is writing.

Riley Walters, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation who focuses on Asia's economy and technology. Riley, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. Okay. So before we get into the new trade deal, I actually want to roll back the clock a little bit. We've seen a lot of tension between President Trump and China over trade during his presidency. How intense have the negotiations and the fights been and does that color how we should look at this new deal? I think if you look at the last couple years of negotiations between Washington and Beijing, you see a lot of back and forth.

There were certainly some times when it seemed like negotiations were going well. Both sides seemed to have been making progress, but there were clearly some times where things fell out of line. And so during those turbulent times, you'd see escalatory efforts on both sides by imposing new tariffs and such like that. Last year, I think it was last year in around May, we saw probably the biggest dispute between the two sides. And it almost seemed like negotiations fell apart completely, almost as if they weren't going to go anywhere from there. So this is, I think what we saw today is a complete 180. We're definitely, I mean, we have a deal now, right? And so this, I think, marks the point where we sort of returned to some sort of level of normalcy between the United States and China on economic and trade issue.

And so I think it's good. Obviously, this is just phase one of two-phase deal. And so over the next year, we should hopefully see a lot more progress. Okay. So our listeners won't know this. But when Riley came to the studio, he had a huge sheath of papers with all the details. So obviously, this trade deal is very complicated. But could you break down for us?

What are some of the highlights and key things that people should know about the trade deal? So, you know, it's almost 100-page document. It gets into some very technical trade and legalese issues. It touches on a variety of issues. I mean, there are roughly eight chapters in this text going and touching on everything from the protection of intellectual property and trade secrets, reducing technology transfers from American companies to Chinese entities. it touches on exchange rates and increase in trade efforts.

It touches on a whole variety of things. And so throughout the document, there are new metrics, you know, dates by which, you know, certain government officials need to have certain reports. There are certain trade measures. For example, China needs to purchase over the next two years, an additional $200 billion worth of a variety of American goods. And of course, there are communications that are set up dialogues that are making sure that this agreement goes into force, that every part of the agreement is disputable to some extent. And of course, you know, this has been agreed to on both sides.

So what is in this document right now is the new policy. You know, I would actually say this is probably the most comprehensive trade agreement we've had with China since they're joining of the government. be TO 20 years ago. So this is pretty significant. So you mentioned that the deal requires China to buy $200 billion worth of additional goods over the next couple of years. I am not an expert on trade deals. Is it normal for a deal to include this kind of mandatory buy with it? And what do you think about this provision? This is not normal. This is certainly something new generally. So what the agreement, you know, I think this is actually probably one of the few things that's covered regularly in the news is this $200 billion in additional purchases by China over the next two years.

So what they're supposed to do is buy $200 billion in addition to what they bought in 2017, which was roughly $190 billion worth of goods and services from the United States. So for the rest of this year and all the next year, they need to buy roughly $390 billion worth of goods and services. And those break down by industries, manufactured goods, agricultural energy, et cetera. But again, this is not normal. This is not something you usually find in trade agreements because trade agreements are usually about removing barriers. It's about removing the tariffs or taxes on imports that countries maintain.

It's about removing regulatory barriers. So specific, for example, biochemical. restrictions or chemical or scientific restrictions on, you know, agricultural products, removing those so that the goods that we trade are free from restriction. This is different. This sets up sort of a mandatory you must buy. And there are going to be a lot of questions about how China does this. Who in China is actually going to start buying these goods, right?

Is it through state-on-enterprises? Is it, you know, quote-unquote private Chinese companies? at the behest of the Chinese government. And of course, the question of whether the United States can actually provide these goods. There's going to be a lot of, I think, questions about just the way that this is actually implemented. The deal reduced some tariffs. It also eliminated some other potential tariffs. It could have been coming down the pipeline.

Overall, did you think what the deal did for tariffs made sense or didn't? And if so, why? As a part of this deal, there will be some tariffs that remain in. place by this administration. They are going to keep a 25% additional tariff or import tax on roughly 250 billion worth of goods and a 7.5 tariff tax on roughly 120 billion worth of imports from China. So all those will roughly remain. The president said he's more than willing to get rid of those as part of a phase two deal. We don't know when the phase two deal could happen. Some suggest 10 months. It could be longer. Especially things could change.

if the election outcome changes. And so those will remain in place for at least the next year or so. There's been no reports about how China will be decreasing its import taxes. Obviously, they too have been implementing their own tariffs over the last couple of years in retaliation to the United States. But that's going to be, I think, what to expect for the least the next year. Okay. So how did this deal address intellectual property concern?

at all. Obviously, there's been a lot of concern that China is taking intellectual property from U.S. companies. Does this address that? It does. So the first two chapters are 21 pages long. They address intellectual property protection or trade secret protections and technology transfer. Basically, not to get too much into detail, but basically it says China will protect these intellectual property, American intellectual property, are trade secrets. the things that actually make, you know, companies profitable and want to invest and do business. And they won't require American companies or entities to transfer their sensitive technology to Chinese entities for any reason. Sometimes in China you hear stories of American companies who want to get into China.

they are by law sometimes required to enter into a joint venture with a Chinese company. And then the Chinese company says, well, if you want to make the deal, we need to have access to your intellectual property. And so that's supposed to no longer happen. We will see, of course, over the next year or so, whether that's true or not. And there's some other interesting changes in how American companies can sort of fight their legal case in China when they feel that their intellectual property has been stolen. So some real interesting stuff there. Again, we'll have to see whether it actually produces anything of substance, but I think on paper at least it's a positive step.

So I know you don't have a crystal ball to see America's economic future, but how would you guess this deal would or wouldn't affect the U.S. economy? You know, I think one of the couple things that are a drag on the U.S. economy right now, not, of course, pushing us into recession. I mean, there's a lot of positive economic activities that the Trump administration has helped with over the last couple of years. But a couple of the drags are, you know, the fact that terrorists will be remaining on over 300 billion worth of goods. The silver lining is that, you know, U.S. trade with China only makes up roughly 3% of our GDP. So it's not, it's not that significant. I mean, it is, you know, hundreds of billions dollars worth of goods. Trump administration has collected roughly 43 billion in new taxes from Americans who import

from China. So that is a cost. But I think one of the biggest gains from this, and it's going to be harder to actually quantify, is the uncertainty it removes. I think the trade deal today brings back a lot of certainty. I think anyone who thought the Trump administration's goal is to decouple from China, I think with this deal, I think that idea is dead, right? This deal is building a new U.S.-China economic relationship, I think, for a good, you know, for good cause, too.

And so this will bring a lot of certainty back to our economic relationship. And how do you think it might affect China's economy? Again, same way. I think perhaps marginally, a positive marginal. they themselves have a lot of domestic issues that they need to take care of. Looking forward toward the way that debt is accumulated in China, the way that their demographics are shaping up, the fact that, you know, as a part of phase two, we're going to have to negotiate a lot of sensitive issues like state-owned enterprises and the support that they get from the government and how those not just affect the U.S. economy, but how they negatively affect the Chinese economy as well.

Okay. Riley Walters, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. It's because of support from listeners like you that we can continue to produce podcasts like Heritage Explains and SCOTUS 101. And you can help us keep it going by visiting www.org.org slash podcast today to make your tax deductible gift. We are now joined by Talia Ramperset, who is a producer for the Daily Signal podcast to talk about the new movie, 1917, which is now in theaters. Thank you, Thalia, for joining us. Glad to be here. Well, first of all, Thalia, I mean, before, of course, we give the final thumbs up, thumbs down of this movie, which you're going to give at the end of the segment, talk to us about the movie.

You know, what parts did you like? What did you think of this movie? which of course is based very much around the Western Front in World War I British soldiers. Yeah, so I just want to say I'm glad you're here, Jared, because I am in no way, shape, or form a history savant. So I went into this film really not knowing what the storyline was going to be. That's kind of my favorite thing to do, though, when I go to the movies, not truly understanding what the story is and kind of being surprised by it. So I went in just solely on all of the hot takes and all of the, the whole. of the critics saying this was a really great film and everyone should go see it.

So it went in kind of with that perspective. And cinematically, I was not disappointed. The cinematography in this film is stunning. Sam Mendez is director, producer, and writer on this movie. And he does an incredible job with just the visuals alone. I mean, sound design is also incredible. But what you're watching is a one-shot film. And so what it is, it's very immersive when you're watching it, especially on a big screen.

And IMAX, I would recommend. So you're really in the trenches with these guys. And you're kind of going through almost all of the emotions that they would, the emotions as well, that they go through throughout the course of this film. So very interesting. It is definitely a journey. But in terms of the story itself, I don't know. I was almost kind of let down by the story just because it was very simple. simplistic in what the objective was for these guys.

So if you haven't seen it yet, basically what it is is these two men are tasked with the objective of sending a message to, I believe it's a commander of sorts to tell them to pull back on a battle that they're going to engage in because it's a trap by the opposing forces. So that's kind of the scene that's been set for you in the beginning. and then you just follow these guys through the film and the big mission that they've been tasked with. It really is interesting. Of course, this comes out kind of on the heels of a documentary that came out in 2019. They Shall Not Grow Old, which is this honestly is phenomenal documentary by Peter Jackson, where they used actual footage from World War I British soldiers during that time. And then, of course, clean them up for a modern audience.

The documentary did phenomenally well. and I think that was kind of the inspiration for this. It's interesting to see World War I kind of get its own take. I'd say actually the storyline of this, I mean, if you have seen Saving Private Ryan, is somewhat derivative of Saving Private Ryan. I would say it's probably one of the best movies since that time. The story is, I guess you could say, somewhat simplistic for my perspective, but there was an actual story.

I mean, you do follow a set of characters to this. I would say quite different in many ways from another movie that came out a few years ago, Dunkirk, which was another, of course, British, that one was a World War II movie that really you didn't follow. I mean, there were characters in that movie, but there wasn't a whole lot of development. The cinematography was phenomenal, but you're kind of left without an actual storyline. I think that's something that I actually appreciated about this movie. It wasn't the most elaborate story. It wasn't necessarily the best, but I think it got the job done in this movie and allowed you to engage with these characters emotionally. Yeah, absolutely. And what did you think about the visuals of the film? Because that's kind of what it's both story as well as, okay, like take a look at this film because it's stunning. What did you think about that? I thought they were excellent.

In some ways, they were almost reminiscent of Lord of the Rings and that kind of thing. There are some scenes, especially some night scenes. Incredible doing this in one shot that are very evocative, very powerful, especially for what is a war movie. I mean, you're dealing with life and death and violence. And I think one of my favorite scenes of the movie is. not to give away too much, has the soldiers singing Wayfaring Stranger, which is a very classic, interesting to see it in a movie about British soldiers, a very classic 19th century American folk song, I think was very beautifully done in how they created that scene and made an emotional impact of

what these men were really going through on these battlefields, because there's something that anybody who's spent time to study World War I are some of the most horrifying in human history. I mean, truly, if there's a battlefield anywhere at any time you don't want to be on, it's in the trenches in World War I. And I do think the movie conveyed some of the horror, some of the horror of going through these trenches, going through no man's land and what these people really experience, which I think is what brings kind of the power in this movie. It is a very, the visuals in this movie are very impactful when you see them. Yeah, definitely. So, like, going back to that one-shot technique that Sam Mendez uses, it is very immersive. And like you mentioned, as I was watching the film, I'm sitting there thinking, man, like, I did not want to be a soldier back then.

Like the things that they went through and having now a perspective of modern warfare, like I understand it as like that time, that period of time was almost a transition period from, you know, that type of warfare to modern warfare. And they were going through it and it was painful to watch, let alone even think about being involved in. And so, yeah, that part of the film and that aspect of the film really, I think, came through on screen, which I loved. But there were some portions of it where I was like, you know, I'm not sure if the practicality of this or this actually happening would really play out this way in history. And I am going to give a spoiler alert. There's a spoiler alert coming. I want to get your take on the scene of pretty pivotal scene of one of the main actors done. What did you think about that?

It was a little bit ridiculous in how they set it up. I mean, obviously, the emotional impact of one of the characters dying is very intense in how they did. And, of course, it sets up one of the other characters to kind of have this kind of heroic, I guess you could say, finish. Again, there's a kind of saving private Ryan. There's a story of two brothers and things like this. And I do think that the scene was set up in a rather ridiculous way. But it did show kind of, look, war is how ugly war is. It's a scene in which one man was trying to help an enemy in this situation and ultimately, you know,

paid the ultimate price for that. I think that shows the kind of ugliness of war that while the scene itself was maybe a little bit, a little bit over the top and how it was conducted, it does show the kind of decisions people have to make sometimes on a battlefield when, you know, look, a lot of times moral clarity really isn't there. you want to do the right thing and you end up paying this kind of price. And I understand that the people who ultimately go out and fight our wars are people who, young people 18, 19 years old. These are, in many ways you look at them, they're young boys making these decisions and showing that, you know, in these incredible conditions that they do make those decisions, people act sometimes heroically in many cases and, you know, what it takes to get to that point through all this horror. So I do, yeah, not every part of this movie to me was perfect.

But it was a very good war story and certainly one of the better ones I've seen in recent years. So, Thalia, would you ultimately give this movie a thumbs up or thumbs down? So in terms of, I can't grade it all in one fail swoop. I think in terms of cinematography, thumbs up for sure. In terms of story structure and maybe more of my like true engagement, I would give it almost a not a thumbs down but not a thumbs up. Kind of in the middle. So a sideways thumb. Exactly.

That's exactly. A clivering side. Exactly. But I definitely think the critics would disagree with me on that because it has racked up 10 Oscar nominations. So that's kind of a big deal. We'll see what happens there. Everyone's saying that it is going to win Best Picture. We don't know yet. But I really think Sam Mendez is in the top four best director. Yeah, definitely. One more thing I can add is I do hope there are more movies like this in the future one way or another. I would like to see some treatment of the American doughboys as well because many of the British soldiers have had this treatment now. It would be nice to see something, you know, a war that America was involved in as well that many Americans don't even think about today. I would like to see something like that in the future. So it's good to see that these movies are in the theaters and, you know, definitely take a watch if you have a chance. Well, Thalia, thank you so much for joining us on the show.

Always a pleasure, Jared. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify, and please leave us a review or a rating on Apple Podcasts to give us any feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis.

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