 Thank you for coming. Welcome. I'm Michael Green from CSIS, and together with our co-hosts for this event, Jack Pritchard and the Korea Economic Institute, and Professor Carl Jackson and CICE, U.S. Korea Institute. I want to say what a pleasure it is to welcome Lail Brainerd, the Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, for a report on the G20 and the economic aspects of the President's visit to Korea. I will introduce Lail, and then we're going to ask Carl to open with the first question, and Ambassador Pritchard will wrap up. I've known Lail for some time, and I've thought that if Marvel Comics ever decided to make an action movie about international finance, the superhero character would have to be based on Lail. Now, Lail's brother-in-law works in Hollywood and knows there's not a lot of demand for action movies about Sherpa and negotiating joint statements and currency accountants, surplus issues, and so forth. But her resume is truly impressive, and she has had hand in all the major international economic policy issues in two of the last three administrations. She was tenured at MIT and the economics faculty after getting her Ph.D. at Harvard and served as the Deputy National Economic Advisor and Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for international economics. That's not me. And turn off your cell phones if you don't mind. And at Brookings started a major program on international development, finance, and trade, and now serves as the undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs. We are hosting this with KEI and with SICE, in part because this is such a remarkable moment for the Republic of Korea. This is the first G20 hosted by a non-G7 country. Koreans often describe themselves as shrimp among whales in Northeast Asia, and here there were 19 other whales, and President Lee Mung Bok pulled off quite a successful summit meeting. I think it's not unfair to say President Obama's taken a few lumps in the press over aspects of the G20, and I know from experience in government, I'm sure Carl does, that the narrative the media builds is often not the narrative of what happened in the room and where you actually stand on building an agenda on issues, and I think we'll all look forward to hearing Lail's report on where we stand on some of the contentious issues like currency, some of the issues that didn't, in my view, get enough play like the development agenda. And I can guarantee you'll get questions on the Korea Free Trade Agreement. So it's a rich menu. Lail will serve us the first course, then we'll turn to Carl. Thank you for joining us. It's a real privilege and a pleasure for us. Thank you. Well, it's wonderful to be here, to be back at CSIS, and it's great to be here with Mike, and I think I just wanted to congratulate him. He is the proud father of a four-week-old baby girl in addition to his three-year-old son. So congratulations to Mike. And it's delightful to be here. Thank you to CSIS, to KEI, and to SICE for hosting all of us here today. All three institutes, I think your efforts to advance the policy debate here in Washington and more broadly around the world are vital to furthering policy innovation and leadership. I will focus my comments today on the outcomes and the accomplishments of the past few weeks of international economic engagement, focusing on the President's trip to Indonesia, India, South Korea, and Japan, of course the G20. But let me start by just recounting one of my own recent experiences here. On a recent tour of a plant near Albany, a plant manager of more than 30 years, described his company's efforts to look for new ways to make their processes and products better so they can compete in the most highly competitive markets around the world. He had incredible enthusiasm and optimism and energy. And essentially, he said, we want to be number one, and we are constantly looking for new ideas that will help put us there and keep us there. And that captures, I think, for me in a nutshell why we are working so hard to put in place a policy framework that will move the U.S. economy from recovery to renewal that will get Americans back to work and that will get businesses back to investing here at home. As President Obama said on his way back from Asia, we should feel confident about our ability to compete, but we need to step up our game. Exports lie at the heart of our efforts to step up our game. The President's goal of doubling exports in five years provides a very clear prism to ensure that all of our policies remain relentlessly focused on expanding opportunities for American businesses and American workers. Our engagement in the G20 and APEC and ASEAN as well as bilaterally with key partners such as Korea and China are core components of that effort to revitalize America's innovative edge and renew our competitiveness. Let me quickly touch on the three key elements of this effort with reference to the President's trip to Asia and then be delighted to have a conversation answer some questions. So first, let me just talk about the broad growth agenda, which really centrally involves our efforts at the G20. Going into the crisis, our growth was unhealthy and unbalanced. It was fueled by cheap credit and it fueled in turn massive export surplus as a broad. Looking forward, we all need to find more sustainable sources of dynamism in our economy and around the world. Sources of dynamism that will enable jobs to return and businesses to reinvest. Helping to put growth on that sounder footing was the very core of our discussions at APEC and the G20. As advanced economies like the U.S. continue repairing balance sheets and deleveraging and putting public finances on a sounder footing, we're going to have to work with other major economies to support new engines of growth for the global economy. In turn, countries that previously relied on the American consumer to fuel their economic expansion will need to identify new sources of growth. Fortunately, there's ample opportunity to do so, particularly in the emerging markets, where consumer needs and infrastructure needs can provide those new engines of growth for the world economy. In Seoul, we went in with an agenda for rebalancing global demand and for a policy agenda to support it. We came out of Seoul with unanimity around that plan, around that growth agenda. With agreement that strengthening global growth is the primary goal and that the imperative is to shift demand in order to lift overall growth. The G20 leaders committed to a new framework to curb excessive imbalances and noted that all economies surplus no less than deficit have a shared responsibility to engage in this rebalancing effort. To take action, the G20 will work in the coming months to develop a set of indicators that will serve as an early warning system to ensure preventive and corrective actions. We will now work closely on a timeframe agreed by G20 leaders in the G20 and the international, with the support of the International Monetary Fund to agree those indicators and to assess country policy trajectories against them. And of course, there was agreement that exchange rate policies will be a central focus of those discussions. The G20 recognized the important role of market-determined exchange rates in helping to facilitate rebalancing. And of course, we are working hard to ensure that China in particular makes progress in allowing its exchange rate to appreciate in response to market forces as Chinese officials reaffirmed their commitment to do. We have noted the accelerated pace of appreciation in recent months, which, if sustained, would make a material difference to correcting the undervaluation of the currency. So in Seoul, we essentially came in trying to set a forward growth agenda, one that would provide a cooperative path forward for countries that are currently engaging on very different growth paths. And we felt that we came out with not only a commitment around that basic proposition, but a framework for action and timelines to ensure that it moves forward. Secondly, we were very focused throughout the trip on expanding export opportunities. As the president traveled through the fast growing markets of Asia, he emphasized the key role of opening new markets to support growth and jobs. In 2009, exports made up only 12% of U.S. GDP, the smallest percentage of leading economies. If we want to create broad based and sustainable growth here in the U.S., we have to expand export opportunities by strengthening trade rules and key markets by enforcing the rules that we have, and of course, by supporting our exporters from the largest multinationals to the newest startups. The administration is providing support for small and medium-sized businesses through EXIM and through finding and removing obstacles to exporting. We have heard stories going across the country from many small businesses on how critically important those programs are to getting into growth markets abroad. And commerce's advocacy on behalf of America's exporters is also yielding important gains that we saw as President Obama traveled through Asia, where we saw the finalization of nearly $15 billion in export contracts. Trade agreements are likewise important. On the bilateral side, President Obama noted that he is committed to completing negotiations with South Korea on the free trade agreement as quickly as possible. Progress has been made, but USTR will keep working to improve chorus so it is beneficial to American industry and workers. If done right, this agreement could increase the annual exports of American goods by some $10 billion and even more in services. And of course, the President also reiterated his commitment to complete the pending agreements with Columbia and Panama. Regionally at the APEC Summit, the President discussed progress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which can serve as a platform for economic integration in the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region and a model for a world-class 21st century trade agreement. Multilateral USTR is continuing to seek a successful conclusion to the Doha Round and in particular expanded market access commitments from dynamic emerging economies. But of course, as we move forward on these efforts to strengthen trade rules, we also need to make sure that we enforce the very important trade rules we have. And we are vigorously pursuing a number of WTO cases and investigating Section 301 Petition in particular. And then the final piece of the agenda, which is really about our strengthening our capacity here at home, is the President's commitment to strengthen our economy. And again, as we look around the world, it should be an invitation to us to step up our game. The President's innovation strategy is one of our key efforts to harness the ingenuity of American workers and industry, focusing on the building blocks of innovation, education, infrastructure, advanced communications technologies, and of course R&D. As the President traveled in Asia, he also observed that countries were investing in infrastructure while the United States is still living off our investments from decades ago, noting that it's past time to upgrade our roads, railways, and runways the President has proposed a $50 billion infrastructure fund to bolster our competitiveness through infrastructure investments. We should learn from the efforts of other nations as we pursue these investments. And finally, of course, tax initiatives are another area where we can provide incentives to invest today for the future. We have proposed an expanded R&D tax credit and 100% expensing of capital investments as several of our broader initiatives to spur investment. It is also critically important that we strengthen our financial system, that we make it more resilient, and that we bring other countries along in that effort so that we're engaged in a race to the top, not a race to the bottom. At the G20, leaders embrace the new bank capital and liquidity standards that are part of Basel III. This was an effort that we put on the agenda. The President put on the agenda in Pittsburgh and we have delivered on it in record time. In Seoul, leaders agreed, like in the Dodd-Frank legislation here, that no firm is too big to fail, that all countries need robust resolution regimes similar to the one we have here and that the world needs to ensure that the largest, most interconnected firms have greater loss of absorbency so that taxpayers need never bear those burdens again. The G20 also addressed the need to move forward together to strengthen regulation of derivatives markets. And finally, of course, there were very important agreement was put on the table to ensure that the IMF would be stronger, more and better equipped to deal with crises of the future and more representative, recognizing that as the dynamic emerging markets are playing a greater role in the system, so too they have greater responsibilities in the system. The G20 summit and the full scope of the trip to Asia showcased an America that's committed to working hard to remain innovative, competitive and strong. We came away with strong agreement among our G20 partners on the core growth challenge that we faced and on a process and a timetable for delivering on it. Of course, the task before us now is to take the hard steps of action and implementation. And as we go forward, we feel that the efforts that we are undertaking here at home are of a piece with those efforts that we're undertaking with our trade partners, both bilaterally, regionally, and of course, multilaterally through the G20. So with that, let me conclude and look forward to the discussion and taking your questions. Thank you. Thank you, Lail. You've given us an excellent introduction to where we are coming out of the G20 and APEC and what to look for in the months ahead and listening to you. I think we can all be very thankful you're on the job and on the case. I'll call on people from up here. There's a microphone. I'd ask that you identify yourself briefly, keep questions short, and we'll begin the process by turning to my colleague from CICE, Carl Jackson, in the front. Thank you very much. I'm Carl Jackson from CICE, Chairman of Asian Studies. I was thinking, as you were talking, about a fellow named Toshiki Kaifu, who was Prime Minister of Japan when I had certain responsibilities in the American government. I remember him very clearly turning to me, looking me in the eye and promising me that Japan would become an import superpower. I'm still waiting. And with regard to the appreciation of the Renminbi, I think it's very important, important not only the United States, but to the world. And I'm wondering what the benchmarks are that we should be looking for concerning whether or not we're succeeding or falling behind on that particular initiative. I think the the important thing to recognize is that the crisis made clear to reformers in China, to policymakers in China more generally. The view that their growth model was no longer a particular good growth model for them any more than it is for the world. And in particular, I think there was a recognition, and we're seeing this play out a little bit in their policy debate, that they have a tremendous internal capacity to promote domestically driven growth that is healthier growth, that their growth model was excessively dependent on an overextended American consumer. So one of the things I think that we can see playing out in this dynamic is there is actually a recognition coming out of the crisis that this growth model needs to change and that more broadly there needs to be a shift in global demand. The second thing I would say with regard to that is the exchange rate is we think very important to this rebalancing effort in China and a number of other countries that have been cautious on allowing their exchange rate to reflect economic fundamentals and market forces. And so we're going to be working bilaterally through the S&ED, multilaterally through the G20 and other mechanisms. And as we've looked at the exchange rate, we have noted that the pace of appreciation since September 1st has picked up and that this pace of appreciation that we've seen in the recent weeks has actually been a pace that if sustained would make a material difference to the undervaluation of the currency. But I think the third piece that I would point out is that as we engage in this broader rebalancing, it is also important and part of the policy trajectory within China to also see a number of supporting economic reforms to help promote the role of domestic consumption in driving growth. And so these policy reforms are complementary to each other. It's not just the exchange rate, it's also supporting the role of the consumer and reducing the perceived need for precautionary savings. We think these things work together. And the framework that was agreed and embraced at the G20 in Seoul recognizes that it is that complex of policies that countries like China, not China alone, need to undertake structural as well as exchange rate policies that will help shift the broader growth model to one that has more engines of growth and that we think will be more sustainable for the world economy as we repair our balance sheets. Hi, thank you. Casey Farrell with the Center for Global Development. The G20 development action plan included language to expand market access for the least developed countries, but this commitment did not come to fruition during the summit. What is the administration's position on providing full duty free quota free market access to the world's poorest countries, particularly in the context of this global collective growth in the absence of the Doha round? Let me just step back for one second and just give a nod to President Lee and to the Korean team more generally for the really outstanding effort that they undertook. I think as Mike said earlier, this was the first time that a country who had not previously been part of the G8 undertook to lead the G20. And so I think it was quite a test of their leadership and their vision. And I must say they put a very ambitious agenda on the table and they delivered on it across the board. One of the areas that they put on the table, which reflected their own growth experience, was a very robust development agenda, as you said, the development action plan that reflected their own experience of growth being at the center of their efforts and the important role of trade, the important role of infrastructure and a host of other factors in their own successful development story. With regard to the discussions about market access for the poorest, those conversations will continue in the context of the Doha round. I think the leaders gave renewed impetus to the Doha round. Discussions made very clear what additional needs to be on the table to take that forward. But I'll also say that as you know, our efforts here in the U.S., in particular through Agoa, are widely acknowledged to provide some of the best access in the world. And in fact, there have been calls for other countries to emulate the extent of access that we provide through Agoa and to reflect that more broadly. Thank you very much. I'm John Luthorov. I'm Director of International Advocacy and Interaction Alliance of 200 U.S. NGOs. We are very pleased of the extension that so the government led on the development side. One area that is growing is the financial inclusion area. And the Malia Action Plan describes the global partnership for financial inclusion that's being set up and it lists three organizations that are part of that all-policy level or World Bank connected. I was wondering one, how that's going to happen, but also how the civil society input will be taken into account in terms of the design and implementation of it. Yeah, so one of the areas that certainly at Treasury we were most excited about was this financial inclusion agenda. I would say that expanding access to financial services both for poor communities as well as for the small enterprises is something that is a widely shared policy goal throughout the G20 including of course in the U.S. and also well beyond the G20. And one of the great things about the financial inclusion agenda within the G20 is it goes beyond the G20 membership and it has key developing countries that have done some very innovative things in terms of banking the unbanked using mobile telephony as mechanism for expanding access. And as we take that forward, we'll use some of the existing mechanisms multilaterally. Of course, CGAP will be very involved in those work in that work. And I think there will be a desire to include the very important players in civil society who have made a lot of innovations. And in fact, I just want to highlight one piece, the president Lee and President Obama presided over an award ceremony for a number of SME small and medium sized enterprise financing groups that had all been engaged in a an innovation prize that was run on behalf of the G20 by civil society. And these were of course groups out in civil society who were being recognized for pioneering some of the most innovative mechanisms to scale up and leverage financing. And so you could see right there that there was an integral role for civil society to play in that both in innovation and also in implementation. Thank you very much, Raghupir Gaur from India Globe and Asia today. Madam President stripped of India was a billions of dollar deal with the Indian companies and with the government of India. Now as far as the India's investment in the U.S. is concerned, already creating thousands of jobs here. But the new deal will create more than 50 or 60,000 jobs in the U.S. Now there is a much demand in India for made in USA. What do you think are you going to export to India made in USA that this new deal is going to bring? There were a variety of different kinds of products that were that were actually finalized in the transactions that were announced in India. But we already have a very broad set of exporting relationships with India. And there's tremendous opportunity there as you know in particular the government is very focused on infrastructure investments. And of course American companies have huge amounts of innovative products to bring to bear there, you know ranging from transport to clean energy. So I think there's a lot of opportunity the president spoke to this met with CEOs from both the U.S. and India. And of course, you know what's so great about the relationship between the U.S. and India is it's really very driven by the two dynamic private sectors of both countries. You in both cases you have these very dynamic private sectors and very engaged in a whole set of transactions, investments and exports. So I think the you know the future there has a lot of promise. I'm going to jump in queue and ask a question that shifts a bit from content to structure. And you in the Clinton administration had experience managing G7, G8 meetings G20 is exponentially more complicated politically, geometrically and in terms of diversity of government types and development levels. What if you could say something about how it felt mechanically and there are people out there who say the G20 can't survive it was basically created in a crisis and it's just too big. And if you could you know give us your impressions about what you see as the structural viability of the G20 going into the future that would be helpful. Yeah so I think this is a really important dimension that we all need to be highly aware of. You know we are constantly comparing I think the G20 with the G7, G8 you know which had a 25 year history. A number of countries that were at similar levels of economic development and who had developed over decades deep habits of economic cooperation and of working through challenges together. So as we have moved it is critically important as President Obama said at Pittsburgh when we moved decisively the G20 as the premier forum it is critically important that the Indians and the Chinas and the Koreas be at the table because of their role in the system. But it is there are both more countries at the table and of course more different growth trajectories. And I think that was in many respects what we saw as the backdrop coming into this meeting is you know we were moving from a period of crisis response which characterized the first two years of this organization where policy challenges and policy responses were much more uniform across the countries in the room to a period where we are now experiencing quite different growth trajectories and challenges. Many of the emerging markets are coping with the rather good challenge of very rapid growth and a lot of interest in investing in those economies and some of the advanced economies are still working through repair of their financial systems, repair of their balance sheets, the deleveraging process. That's why we thought it was so important coming into this meeting that we bring a new agenda that we reset the agenda going forward to bring those disparate countries together around a common growth path, a cooperative growth path with different policy prescriptions for different types of countries but that together those policy trajectories would be a win-win. And so I think that is what we saw in Seoul but you're right this is a work in progress and it's going to require continued engagement and very complicated diplomacy. Gentlemen in the back. On this side here. Scott Ottoman with Inside U.S. China Trade. In the interim between the finance ministers meeting of the G20 and the leaders meeting I believe a senior treasury official said that it was a time to put meat on the bones of the framework that the finance minister had come out. I'd like to get your idea of what meat has been put on the bones. It seems like there's no number involved with the indicative guidelines with respect to current accounting balances and there was a discussion on whether to differentiate between currencies undervalued currencies being subject to certain disciplines or just currency devaluation in general and it seemed like the more generic term ended up being used. I mean could not one reading from the press reports think this might be a step backwards in terms of getting action on the China currency issue. In fact with Germany seeming to join China's side when it got expanded to current account imbalances given its current account situation and the QE2 timing announcement seemed to rally a number of countries in the complaining about U.S. policy. So I think you know you you know there's always a lot of noise in terms of statements to the press countries have reasons to address their domestic political audiences in different ways. But of course the test is in what was agreed. Where did you get consensus and that of course is the communicate document and I think what you will see there and the reality in the room was that we had unanimous support for the framework which did put important meat on the bones of the rebalancing framework in a number of different ways. Perhaps most importantly we got commitment to action very important. Big big step beyond what finance ministers and central bank governors had agreed and of course we had commitment at the political level which is the most important thing. We got a timeline. This is going to happen very concretely develop indicators that will serve as an early warning mechanism in the first half of the year. Develop the assessment of whether policy trajectories are consistent within the first year under the French presidency. Very clear that the indicators would serve as an early warning mechanism they would identify imbalances that would require. This is just the words on the page. So I'm just quoting directly preventive and corrective actions. Very clear that surplus economies and deficit economies have shared obligations. Very clear that exchange rate policies are part of the policies that will be assessed to see their consistency with the commitments that were made. And there is very clear just differentiation if you look at the exchange rate language between countries that have obligations to move their currencies in line with market forces. Advanced economies that need to continue to be vigilant against exchange rate volatility. And those countries that have been essentially had policies of flexible exchange rates and have been subject to undue adjustment burdens because some of the other emerging markets have not been adjusting as much. So there's clear differentiation there and there's a clear connection between the assessment framework and the need for corrective policies. Thank you. Dong Hu Yu with the China press. And the G20 and the ad pack were regarded as the very important opportunity to push China to make more progress in currency issue. And right now the two meetings are over. I just wonder if your expectation before the meeting has been met or will be your next expectation or certain goal for the R&B appreciation before the visit by President Hu towards Washington DC in January. Thank you. So let me state differently what we thought our objectives were, particularly the G20. Our objective at the G20 was to work with China to reach agreement with China and other dynamic emerging market economies around an agenda that we thought was important, which would provide a cooperative growth path forward that would lead to a orderly adjustment of demand and a shifting of demand from deficit economies to surplus economies so that we would see higher growth overall and that exchange rates were an important part of that adjustment mechanism, in particular allowing exchange rates to move in accordance with market forces. And we felt coming out of that that there was agreement that all the leaders signed up for that framework. And it gives us a very good agenda going forward for making progress on these key issues. Now, with regard to the bilateral discussions, I think President Hu and President Obama in their meeting, President Hu reaffirmed strong resolve to China's flexible exchange rate regime and also reported on the progress that had been made on that since they had last met. So good discussions bilaterally about that issue and again a cooperative framework with all the members of the G20 to try to address these issues in a way that we think is win-win going forward. Charles Chung from Korea International Trade Association. You mentioned that the cross FDA and going into G20 summit, there are high hopes and the expectations for the conclusion of their discussions. But it was somewhat disappointing and there are some reports for the other reasons ranging from autos and beef. So what in your mind was the essential deal breaker and how can both sides come up with a solution in the future? Thank you. Well, let me refer you to USTR for any discussion about the specifics of the negotiations. But simply say that both presidents are very committed, stated their commitment to reaching a good deal. They've asked their negotiators to go back to work towards that end. We have confidence that we can get there, that we can get a good deal. And we weren't there yet in Seoul and what's most important, of course, is that we get a good deal. And it is worth doing that little extra bit of work to get to a place where it's a strong deal where we think it's going to make a material difference to our workers, to our businesses, to our trade relationship. Lail, thank you. Let me invite Jack Pritchard to the podium for a wrap-up. That was excellent. You've been generous with your time. Jack? Well, ladies and gentlemen, this has been a terrific short but compact with information. Now, Mike started by talking about the potential of a superhero role for Lail. And as I was sitting here taking notes, she disqualified herself. She is far too articulate. Wouldn't fit well in that role. So we've got to come up with a new category to justly reward her actions and her capabilities. But let me, on behalf of CSIS and Mike, thank you for a terrific job as moderating Carl Jackson for leading off the questions on behalf of the USKI and SICE and for my organization, you'll see the banner here, the Korea Economic Institute. We have very much appreciated Lail. You're taking the time to report so promptly on the economic implications of what occurred in Seoul and the path forward. But more importantly, even after your presentation, you entered into a conversation with people who are very interested in this. And you can tell by the type of question that they very much appreciated the fact that you were here. So on behalf of everyone, we want to thank you very much. I have one request. It's going to be an administrative request. Undersecretary Bahrainert has another appointment she has got to go to. So please don't cut her off at the pass as we get her into an elevator. I know she'd love to continue the conversation, but we'll have to do it at a different time. So please join me in thanking Undersecretary Bahrainert.