 Hi, good morning. My name is Murray Hebert of the Southeast Asia chair here at CSIS. Delighted to see so many of you here in person, and I know there's a lot of people following us online as well. Today's program is a joint venture between the Shoal Chair and International Business that Scott Miller heads up and the Symmetro Chair on Southeast Asia, where I work. We're very pleased to welcome two founding members of the Friends of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Congressional Caucus, which was formed in late October. Representative Charles Bustani of Louisiana and Representative David Reichert of Washington State. Unfortunately, Congressman Meeks, Gregory Meeks of New York, a Democratic member of the co-chair and founding member of the TPP Caucus, had an unavoidable conflict this morning and was not able to come. However, CSIS very much appreciates and applauds the bipartisan nature of the TPP Caucus, and so we will schedule another event with Congressman Meeks and one of maybe his co-chair or another Democratic colleague very soon. CSIS launched a TPP initiative two years ago because we believe that the TPP has a lot of potential for boosting U.S. trade with the most dynamic economic region of the world. We also believe that it provides an opportunity to boost the U.S. rebounds toward Asia, which was launched by the administration two or three years ago. Before turning over the program to my colleague Scott Miller, just say a word of introduction about our speakers. Congressman Charles Bustani is a medical doctor and a Republican representative from Louisiana 3rd Congressional District covering southern Louisiana. He serves as a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee and is also on the Committee's trade subcommittee. Congressman David Reichert is a Republican representative from the 8th Congressional District of Washington. He also serves on the Ways and Means Committee and is on the trade subcommittee. This program is being webcast and you can also follow the event on Twitter at Southeast Asia, D.C., at CSIS, at Shoal Chair, and at hashtag CSIS Live. I'm now going to turn the program over to my colleague Scott Miller, who is the Shoal Chair for International Business at CSIS, and he's going to moderate to this event. Scott. Great. Thank you, Murray, and let me add my welcome to those of you here and those of you viewing online. We're delighted you could join us this morning for what will be a brief event, but a look into the view from the Congress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. You've been introduced to Mr. Bustani and Mr. Reichert. I'm going to offer them an opportunity to make opening remarks and then we'll turn to a few questions that I have for them, then we'll turn to questions from the audience. So, Mr. Bustani. Thank you, Scott. I want to thank CSIS for hosting this event, and thank you all for coming this morning. It's a great turnout, and it's a very important topic for discussion today. Let me start by saying that, and I've used this line several times, the United States is a Pacific country. Pacific in that way border the Pacific, and we're going to be engaged in the Pacific in every possible way, economically, diplomatically, and so forth, but also Pacific in the other meaning of the term, and that is peace. And I think I firmly believe that economic integration through trade is a surest way to achieve security in the long run. So, if we step back and look at the importance of TPP, it will certainly help expand existing trade relations we have with six current countries that we have free trade agreements with. But also it will expand trade with countries that currently we do not have existing free trade agreements. But also, if you look at the magnitude of this, it's now grown to involve two of the three largest national economies. And with South Korea's recent expression of interest, it continues to grow. And in some discussions I've had with Chinese government, there is an interest in China, clearly as to what this means. But there's also an interest brewing in China about participating at some point in TPP. In 2011, trade exports and imports of goods and services with TPP countries supported an estimated 14.9 million American jobs. So from a growth potential and something that we desperately need in the US economy, this is a good thing. Of those 14.9 million jobs, 207,000 were in Louisiana in my home state. So I have a domestic interest in this as well as a national interest in seeing this agreement done. We also know that the high standards that are going to be set in this agreement will set a new bar for the 21st century for trade, rules-based trade. And with the situation with WTO still teetering, wondering whether we're going to get there, a lot of progress has been made with TPP. And we think this is the next big step in trade internationally, which could set the stage going forward in the 21st century. But these high standards will help create a global standard to allow us to move forward. I know, let me touch a little bit on Congress, and then Dave can give his remarks. A lot's been going on, a lot of discussion. There have been some letters circulated both on the Democratic side of the aisle, Republican side of the aisle, expressing negativity toward TPP, to a trade promotion authority. This is going to require all hands on deck to make sure we get trade promotion authority in place. You all know it's essential in our system of government to finalizing this agreement. So I can tell you that my experience with USTR has been excellent. They're on the hill, they're working very hard, they're meeting with Congressional offices, but we're going to need the other elements in the administration to get fully engaged. Treasury, agriculture, commerce, to use their assets. The President's going to have to expend capital, and this is going to take all hands on deck to get trade promotion authority completed. My understanding Ways and Means is very close to getting a package together with Senate Finance that we agree upon on trade promotion authority. But to get the votes is going to be a challenge, because we're going to have to work, and we're going to need the business community, we're going to need the think tanks, we're going to need everybody involved in this. Just one quick statistic on it. The last time that trade promotion authority was passed in Congress was 2002. Of the 270 members of the Congress in the House who voted for it, only 53 remain in Congress. We have a very new Congress, so we have to embark on a very strong educational process to get this done. So I'm very pleased to join Dave, my colleague on the Ways and Means Committee, a fellow Republican, but also Greg Meeks and Ron Kind in putting together the Friends of the TPP caucus. This is a bipartisan effort, but it goes beyond that because we represent different geographic areas of the country, West Coast, East Coast, South, and the interior. We're going to devote a lot of our time and effort to building the consensus to make this happen. It's critically important for the United States in terms of its engagement in Asia, for growth purposes, and basically to enhance our position globally at this point in the 21st century. So with that, I'd be happy to turn over to my esteemed colleague. Thank you. Mr. Reichert. Thank you. Well, thanks for having this this morning, and I know Charles and I are both excited about the turnout this morning. We were told it was going to be a large crowd, but this is impressive. You all got up early, drove through the traffic, and to listen to the two of us speak. Maybe you need to see a doctor. So you know what Charles did before Congress? I was a cop for 33 years before I came to Congress, so we need doctors and cops in Congress, I think. Maybe more cops than doctors, I don't know sometimes. I was a hostage negotiator, so that comes in handy too, but I was also a SWAT commander. So you got to know when to negotiate and kick the door in. And you know when it comes to trade, we might have to kick the door in somewhere along the line here at TPA, we might have to kick the door in. But right now, you know, we're in, don't get excited, we're in the negotiating stage and stuff like that. We're working with people. You know, I tell people that I might look like I've been in Congress for 40 years, but I've only been here nine. And I had my previous career, as I said, but I'm excited about being here. Charles and I came in in the same class nine years ago. Doesn't seem like that long ago, but time flies as they say when you're having fun. Some days it's fun. But I come from a state where trade is critical. We are in Louisiana too, but Washington state is the most trade dependent state in the country. One out of every three jobs are directly related to trade. And out of the 380,000 plus or minus jobs in Washington state directly related to trade, I think 326,000 of those jobs are directly related to those currently, those countries who are the negotiating TPP countries. So for us, it's critically important in Washington state. And I, you know, can't ban that to the entire country obviously. But just representing my district, my state, you may know that of course there's a small airplane company in Washington state that's excited about trade. There's a small tech company in Washington state that's excited about trade. But we have a huge agricultural community in Washington state that is very excited about TPP. We watched as the Korean, Columbia, and Panama agreements were finalized, our exports to those countries have increased tremendously. And our relationship with those countries have become closer. Now there are some of you know who might have been engaged in that and those efforts, that wasn't the easiest process to go through either. The administration had to be pushed along a little bit. Ambassador Kirk was great to deal with when they cutler has become a great friend and just I was really very impressed with her ability to negotiate such a complicated contract. But this is even more complicated. And they, as Charles said, USDR is fully engaged with all of the outside entities that need to be engaged. And especially with Congress, we have a great relationship with them and in close communication. I'm a member of the President's Export Council and have been since its inception. Pat T. Berry and I were the first to Republican members asked to join the President's Export Council. So the goal was double exports in five years. And our point was as we progressed in those meetings point out we can't do that unless we have trade agreements. Because the last time we did that, I think, was between 97 and 2007. We passed nine trade agreements and more than doubled our exports. So we need to get TPP moving. All of us in this room will benefit from that effort and as a result of being engaged with trade because of the importance to Washington State, as a result of being a member of the President's Export Council, when the Korean, I've been on the trade subcommittee since joining Ways and Means as I think, no you came later, but both Charles and I on the trade committee were part of a group called the working group, the chorus working group and that was specifically related to for us in Washington State, South Korea, and working hard to get that agreement pushed through. And it was focused on gathering members of Congress together to support that agreement. And we were successful because when the administration sees that you have members of Congress supporting an effort, it pulls the administration along too. And so what we did, Charles and I and Greg and Ron got together and we said, you know what, we're going to create a similar organization called Friends of TPP. And our mission with the Friends of TPP is to gather as much support as we can in Congress. Not only for TPA as Charles has spoken about, which is critical obviously, but also to get them on board with TPP because some will have issues about agricultural issues. How does this affect my district services? Some districts might be more interested in services, some might be more interested in machine shops and those products produced. But we've got to get those members on board and interested in supporting and vocal in supporting TPP and all of you in this room hopefully become, if you aren't already great supporters of TPP and you become a voice in support of that, ensuring your knowledge and information with friends because that really is where the help is needed. Especially any of you in here who may be planning on visiting members of Congress in the near future, you might want to share a little bit of your wisdom about how important TPP is to you and the people that you represent. So I'm excited to be here today and looking forward to working with all of you. We don't have all the answers yet, but having gone through, of course, Korea, South Korea, Columbia, Panama, we have some idea of what we need to do, where we need to go, how that process works and yes there's more countries involved and yes there are some other issues associated with some of the countries involved in the negotiations, but I really believe that that can all be worked out and it's such a benefit for us to have relationships with other countries, not only as Charles said from the security point of view, national security of each country involved in these negotiations, but really this is it to me and this is again an old cop who has really worked on building relationships with people because if you don't sometimes during your career, if you're not good at talking with people and engaging with people and sharing and listening, you can get hurt. We need to be sharing and engaging and visiting and building friendships with other countries. We can learn from other countries, but those who are concerned about human rights issues and the fair treatment of employees, we can have a huge impact on influencing positive behaviors in those areas versus hands off, we don't want anything to do with you because you don't treat people fairly, at least from our perception, we don't have all the information, but I really believe that it's more important for us to build relationships than it is to shun certain countries for whatever perception we might be holding about a certain people or country. So again, I thank you for being here and thank you for allowing me to make a few comments this morning. Thank you, Mr. Agat. Let me start with a question about what you're hearing from constituents. One of the things that I learned very quickly when I came to Washington is of all the institutions in Washington the House of Representatives is exquisitely sensitive to public opinion. It's uniquely so, partly because members stand for election every two years and so there's always members of Congress always have the pulse of their constituents if they intend to stick around. And so to start the conversation today, you come from very different districts. The Washington State obviously trade dependent Pacific Rim district and one where there's an obvious connection, Louisiana, Gulf Coast, but also with a newer, wider Panama Canal, the Gulf Coast is going to become a Pacific port pretty soon. So I'd like to have each of you talk about what specifically you're hearing, pro and con from your constituents. Okay, well first of all Louisiana is a state that's engaged in international trade. If you take the top three export destinations they are basically China, Japan, Mexico. So we're already exporting to Asia and you rightfully point out the Panama Canal expansion. Louisiana is a maritime state. We have a number of ports including the port of New Orleans and that system up the Mississippi River. So we're poised to engage in trade not only with South America but also Asia and Europe because of our geographic location and the great gift of the Mississippi River, its tributaries at our ports along the Gulf Coast. Like Washington I think ranks first in exports if I remember correctly. Louisiana typically ranks fifth or sixth in exports. So for a small state trade is very important. And we also have a very vibrant energy sector and so that gives us international connectivity in the energy sector. So my constituents, while there is some anti-trade sentiment, it's largely pro trade and they're seeing opportunity growth opportunity with this. I think last year we had statistics for $12.4 billion in goods mainly petroleum and chemical products were exported to six countries within TPP and that's currently so as we expand this, this is going to create more opportunity, more jobs more opportunity for export especially for small and mid-sized firms because a lot of our exports are being conducted by small and mid-sized firms and this is a tremendous area for growth going forward. Thank you. Mr. Reichert, you mentioned the small start-up software company and the small airline producer in your district what else are you hearing? Well, you know, Washington State is, so just to get a little bit political it leads a little bit to the left. I don't know if you guys knew that enough. So, you know, as a Republican I'm sort of an anomaly from the Northwest but the good news here, and I mentioned that in a humorous way obviously, the good news here is that even though the West side of the Washington State, the West of the Cascades pretty much run on the Democratic side of the political spectrum on the East side of the Cascades it runs heavily on the Republican side. I haven't had a district that crosses the you know, it's a new redesigned district so I'm the first congressman in the history of the state in recent history anyway that we know of to represent both Western Washington and the West of the Cascades and East. So that's important because you have different products that are available to export and they have different interests in import products also. So obviously on the East side some of you might be familiar with Washington Apples. It's a pretty famous thing, you know, not as famous as New York Apples back here. Yes, they are. Washington Apples, cherries, pears. We sell a lot of hay, potatoes. And so on the East side that's very critical. On the West side obviously the high tech, the aerospace industry, but we're also very big in the services arena which was an important aspect of the Korean agreement for Washington State. That was a little bit of a hiccup for South Korea. It was a hard thing for them to let us have a little bit of a niche in. But you know, again it worked out. So Washington State has those different interests and it is a strong supporter of trade. Even though you have the Democrat-Republican conflict there, a little more than so than Louisiana, they're on board with trade, which is good news too because we have bipartisan support for TPP. Now one of the, you may have recently read an article in the Seattle Times that talked about transparency. Positive comments about what I said regarding TPP and the creation of jobs in Washington State and the opportunities for further exports. But great concern about transparency and both Charles and I have touched on that. We feel like, of course, there's not a, you know, there isn't an agreement out there for us to read and I think that's part of the frustration. But we know that USTR is reaching out. We know they're reaching out to us. We're reaching out to them. We've got a great relationship as I said earlier. In Washington State, a little different than even California, for example, in their large port in LA Long Beach. In California, they keep 30% of what they import and they ship 30% across the country. Washington, we call ourselves the port of Chicago because we only keep about 30% and the rest goes across the country. And so we are critical, I think, in accepting imports from around the world and moving those products across the country. And in fact, I don't know if the Canadian contingent is represented today, they probably are, but we're in competition right now with Canada on those import, export ports. So we want to be friends with Canada, too. My heritage is Canada. I'm part Canadian, by the way. Who's Canadian? Where are the Canadians? Okay, good. Hi. Hi, Dad. It could be my brother. That was an insult. Thank you. That's very helpful. One of the things both of you mentioned in your comments was trade promotion authority. And for those in the audience who don't follow US trade politics, since 1974, there has always been an executive congressional agreement which now we call trade promotion authority, which provides for it's an agreement about how a trade agreement will be ratified by the Congress, how the implementing bill will be treated. Trade promotion authority has been essential to getting agreements through. The last time we did this was in 2001-2002 and Mr. Bustani you mentioned how few members of Congress are still here. And so you have this interesting challenge of communicating what this procedural tool is and to a group of people who never cast a vote on this and don't really understand it. So if the two of you could comment, and I know Mr. Riker, you've mentioned in your membership in the President's Export Council you made a statement of the President's Export Council expressing your personal willingness to lead on this. Maybe you could start by talking about what you see as the path forward to secure trade promotion authority. Yes, and when I made that statement at the Export Council there was an immediate response by the ambassador and his response was you're absolutely right and we're going to make that a priority. The administration has made that a priority also. So for us we know that as the friends of TPP it's critical for us to first be successful in TPA and we had some discussions earlier this week with other folks. We recognize that we have a huge educational responsibility right now and a high sort of mountain decline to educate other members of Congress. Both Republican and Democrat because as Charles pointed out, most members that are in office today have not had to vote for TPA. So there's a real lack of understanding of what that really means. So our effort in Congress is going to be reaching out to all the members that we can and listening to help of our friends of TPP caucus to help us in that effort. Great. Mr. Bustani you're both on the committee but what's happening and the ways in which the committee will originate the bill, what should we expect to see? Well those negotiations are still ongoing and let me back up just a moment and point out that this education process is essential. There's a lot of misinformation being circulated among members of Congress about what trade promotion authority really is. Some think it may be an abridgment of Congress's authority. There's some who think there's sovereignty issues so there's a lot of various misinformation out there that we have to educate members, bring them forward on what this really means. We have a shared responsibility in trade policy between the legislative branch and the executive branch. And the last thing we want are 435 members of the House and 100 senators trying to negotiate separately a trade deal especially something as complex as TPP. So getting trade promotion authority in place is essential to completing the deal so that USTR has the leverage behind it knowing that the legislative branch is not going to chop the legs out from under them when we get close to finalizing the deal. Now one of the things that we need to make clear to our colleagues in Congress is that there is an ongoing consultative approach that's being taken. Dave mentioned earlier that USTR is in daily negotiations with Ways and Means and I'm sure with Senate Finance as to the status of the negotiations. In fact two Ways and Means staff are leaving today to go to Singapore. They're going to be in Singapore conferring with USTR step by step. This consultative process is ongoing and then it's going to be incumbent upon Dave and myself and others who have a strong interest in moving us forward to get that information to the members. It's hard right now because we don't have legislative text for trade promotion authority nor do we have the text for TPP. Things will get easier in some respects, harder in others once that's available. So we have to be prepared but the key is to educate the members now on the basic points that trade promotion authority is basically the opportunity for Congress to assert its authority legally in this process, through a consultative process making sure that our negotiating objectives as we represent districts that are very diverse, making sure that those negotiating objectives are looked after by USTR in the midst of these negotiations. If we don't have TPA it's going to be very difficult to get TPP done. Thank you. One more question before we open it up for me at least and that has to do with sort of the geopolitics of TPP. Most of the arguments that get made for trade promotion or for event specific partnership are commercial in nature. They're about the benefits of trade and those are important and valid arguments but there's a bigger picture and the bigger picture is the United States and its relationship with Asia and the long standing US goal of deepening economic integration with the Asia Pacific. It goes back several administrations, back to founding of APEC and perhaps even before that but the I'm curious to know from each of you, what is the level of conversation among your colleagues on the geopolitics? It's a natural thing for business people to wonder about because trade agreements are great but I worked for a big company with operations around the world before I came here and what I found was in a lot of cases our business was better where the US was deeply engaged where there was sort of US style rules and US influence in the region that led to better business results so we like it from a commercial standpoint but there's more here in terms of the US role in the world. I'm curious to know how that plays in the Congress. Well I think first of all it's very important in my mind to consider the fact that if you create economic connectivity and integration there's going to be less ultimately with agreed upon rules of the road obviously to me it's going to be a better security environment in the long run but as the United States and I mentioned earlier we're a Pacific power as we deepen our engagement the easiest way to do it is at the economic level. We don't have multilateral security arrangements in Asia we have an enduring relationship with Japan and with other countries in the region but we're going to deepen that security environment maybe even ultimately figure out how to link what's happening currently through ASEAN through the East Asia Summit. TPP's a great starting point to expand on that figuring out how we integrate that into what's happened with ASEAN East Asia Summit and more enduring security arrangements that are multilateral where we have agreed upon rules of the road is what I see over the horizon that's going to be a long term project but if you go back and think about trade the one thing that seems to cut across all cultures no matter where they are in development is the idea of transaction simple economic transaction and when there are rules agreed upon it becomes easier and then you can expand from there. I think one of the important aspects of TPP that doesn't get a lot of conversation is how do we look at trade capacity building how do we link that into our trade agenda and that's an important topic that needs more work in Congress more work and attention by the executive branch because as we embark on trade especially with rising economic powers helping to build trade capacity to better create an environment for commerce to occur I think ultimately will give us a more secure environment. With regard to China last thing I'd point out Japan and the US are involved in this these negotiations we're into it very deeply now with the other countries involved South Korea is looking at it I want to emphasize this is not an effort to contain or to exclude China this is an effort to set high standards to invite China into this to get back to a truly rules based trading system where we agree upon the rules and we can have fair trade fair commerce. Great thank you Well I really want to agree with the last comment that I agree with everything that Charles said but the last point I think is really critical and that's the high standards setting as we enter into negotiations but the high standards is one piece of it. The high standards should create a fair level playing field and opportunity for all countries involved so that everyone in each country has the opportunity to grow and create jobs and provide better lives for their citizens so I always refer back to my old career you know world leaders make things so complicated don't they? but if you bring it down to the neighborhood level you know if you think about your relationships just with people it's just common sense that you'd reach out to someone else right to shake a hand to make a friend it's common sense that we would help our neighbors or help someone across the street or these are the things that we do every day but yet we're for some reason when it comes to extending a hand to another country all these political issues that are swirling around in the world complicate just the simple act of extending a hand I want to be your partner I want to sell you a dodge pickup truck you don't look like you would want to buy a dodge pickup truck but maybe you would maybe you want a Porsche instead but you know it's just to me you really have to just it has to boil down to that and I mentioned it in my opening comments that the opportunity here to really have an impact worldwide if we think we're living in a world that's I think most people feel right now is upside down wouldn't you agree you feel like and I know my kids have said my oldest is 40 years old and my youngest is 36 but they are they're telling me dad what's going on the world's turned upside down well it is turned upside down and we have an opportunity through trade agreements I think to turn this thing right side up to reach out to build relationships make the world a more secure place and also give opportunities to those folks living in all the countries that we're talking about today to raise their level of economic success which provides them with hope and a positive outlook on life and how does that change the rest of the world I know that you can imagine how that might change the rest of the world and that's really what we're trying to do I believe with these trade agreements yes it's about the economy yes it's about security yes it's about jobs but it's about personal relationships and opportunities and hope for the future and really making a difference and a change I think in this upside down world thank you it's a wonderful wonderful piece of perspective is that what it really comes down to is free exchange for mutual benefit that's what that's what all commerce is and that's what all trade agreements are accomplishing so it's better for all of us so thank you for that let me open it to audience questions at this point before I recognize anybody I want to let you know there are three rules for questions here at CSIS the first rule is wait for the microphone we have an online audience which is probably at least the size of the audience here and they won't be able to hear you without the microphone second when you get the microphone introduce yourself and announce your organization and then the third I call the Alex Turek rule which is make sure your question is in the form of a question no statements please so with that yes ma'am does that mean us too? we're not very good at that thank you my name is Jinning Nguyen with Voice of Vietnamese Americans I thank you congressman Riker and congressman Bustani it's the concern to us with the position of Vietnam as Vietnamese Americans I am very much would like to see it concluded successfully and Vietnam would be successful in the TPP with the US and all members to that point since you from their house I'm going to ask you about HR 1897 that's the Vietnamese Vietnam Human Rights Act and it has been voted passed in the house now it's now to the Senate with all the concern that you put forth the high standards geopolitical concerns and also mutual benefit from both the US and Vietnam I know that you from Louisiana and you from Washington State both states have a high number of Vietnamese Americans so where do you see the ways and means would vote in helping Vietnam to navigate itself to be a successful level would Vietnam have any troubles with the TPP this time thank you well I think I mentioned trade capacity building and if we in going through this if TPP is finalized high standards Vietnam is part of it we hope to see small and mid-sized companies engaged in transactions we think ultimately that will help with the human rights side of it as the economic standards go up per capita income goes up in Vietnam as a result and we know this happens with trade agreements we think that the high standards that are set the granular level of engagement that will occur as Dave really eloquently put forth will help that environment and nothing will be solved overnight but I think we'll see significant progress over time thank you we do have a large contingent of Vietnamese citizens and they are some of the most productive energetic hardworking people and they provide so much to our community enriches our community in Washington state and so I know if we carried that relationship just from our own little area in the northwest across the waters to Vietnam wouldn't that be great for us to be able to do that and I think that just to put your mind at ease a little bit and you're obviously for the agreement your hope is that your people can be engaged and gain more opportunities for employment and the ways and means folks are supportive of course again as Charles said a fair agreement that is a high standard agreement that all countries can meet and I have no doubt that Vietnam will be able to reach those high standards and also recognize the fair level playing field and benefit from a TPP agreement yes sir you have a question Bill Tucker we do a lot of trade work my question is what is the hold up in including Taiwan what are the objections in including Taiwan and the TPP well I can take a shot at that the TPP is a 12 party agreement at this point it would take consensus among the 12 parties only one of which is the United States to include new partners of any sort there is no exclusion of anyone the statements that have been made by leaders including President Obama have been that the intent is for TPP to be the free trade agreement of the Asia Pacific so that would include all 21 APEC members of which Taiwan or Chinese Taipei is an APEC member so there is always an issue of readiness as New Zealand trade minister Tim Grocer once said TPP has a dress code and you have got to be ready and willing to meet the dress code to be a part of the agreement at any stage so the high standards is a factor but to this point and chronologically Taiwan has not requested membership Taiwan is engaging in free trade agreements with two TPP partners and so who knows how this will phase out but they are concluding agreements with New Zealand and Singapore do you have? I agree my understanding was Taiwan had not requested participation as of this point that's true yes ma'am my name is Contessa Bourbon from the New York Times others are losing job in the U.S. how can TPP bring back jobs and to increase employment for the manufacturing sector? Well I think again it probably will TPP I think as we've discovered in Washington state create additional jobs in the manufacturing sector because there will be more demand 95% of our market the United States market is outside of the United States so we can't sell all of our manufactured goods here in the U.S. we have to sell them outside of this country and 95% of the market is outside the country so I know that from just in my own family I have a son who has a small manufacturing company in Washington state currently he ships all across the country and I think these trade agreements will allow him to be more engaged he's not only got 12, 13, 14 employees but his product is worldwide so I think that the trade agreement really allows him a little bit more latitude in reaching out to other countries and more access to other countries and I think that would hold true with other manufacturing companies to generate more customers you have to generate more products if you're generating more products you have to hire people and there are the jobs supply chain TPP will allow companies from small to mid-sized all the way to large companies to take advantage of global supply chains to engage in trade but as I think about small and mid-sized firms having a robust agreement with strong investor state provisions so that we can alleviate the concerns that small and mid-sized firms have in going into new markets where it may be prohibited from whether it's cultural barriers the cost the concern about the legal framework having a good investor state chapter in this program will be really helpful and if these small firms get access to 95% of consumers around the world well they're going to grow and they're going to create jobs and the greatest potential for job growth is with these small and mid-sized firms I'll give you an example, I represent a district that's got a lot of small towns as a result of trade I now have a Mexican company that has moved into a small town in my district a town that has more than about 20,000 people they've hired 200 people to start and they're expanding they're using US cotton to fabricate yarn to be made into garments and then it's exported all over we're now part of a global supply chain and jobs have been created in rural Louisiana that would not have existed before without a trade a trade agreement Claude Barfield, AEI there's been a lot of discussion about this being a 21st century agreement and what the United States would like in terms of new issues in the agreement what prepared is the house and how much have you talked with your colleagues about the kinds of things people will ask of us in older issues such as textiles and rules of origin, shoes, cotton, sugar catfish and shrimp in other words will the house stand still or do you think your colleagues will vote for the protectionist elements in the US economy well you left out salmon I also didn't say anything about the 25% tariff on trucks coming in I think we both talked about that a little bit it's going to be the difficult part because every member of the house especially and every member of the senate obviously they have no special interest in your state and in your district and they are going to be asking questions about those problems they are going to be asking questions about those products how is this going to affect the cotton industry which is near and near to my heart and I don't want to lose any jobs in my district as a result of a trade agreement with any other country or a number of countries so as we get closer to learning more we are going to be able to share more but before we get to that stage I want to know that all of us on the friends of TPP caucus are reaching out to other members and asking them what are your concerns in your district and we are providing those to USTR so they understand and know what is confronting their efforts in negotiating these contracts so this is an ongoing communication it's an ongoing educational opportunity and mission that we have all undertaken and as we gain support we have more soldiers who go out and help us with that gathering information and promoting TPP and answering questions when we get answers about those specific products that you mentioned that's the complexity of it we've embarked on bilateral FTAs district by district this is a multi-level agreement first time really since well CAFTA was a smaller multi-level NAFTA multi-level this is bigger and it's going to be complex and that's why this consultative process is critical and I share the same sentiment and I think I've expressed it as well that USTR has done a very wonderful job in reaching out to us to try to address all the concerns that are out there as they embark on these very complex negotiations at the end of the day we're going to have to show benefit and significant benefit district by district and that's how we'll win but it's not going to be easy and that's the challenge going forward and that's why earlier I mentioned we really need all hands on deck USTR cannot do this alone they're a small agency relatively speaking they're embarked on negotiations and they're trying to deal with things on the hill the president is going to have to expend capital he's going to have to have the other agencies involved in this agriculture is a prime example I mean everybody in the room knows the difficulty we've had at the WTO level the complexity of this is every bit as much as what's been seen just fewer players but same complexity so all hands on deck we need agriculture commerce treasury anywhere there are going to be issues dealing with some of these 21st century items that are being discussed we're going to need all hands on deck to make it happen you know quickly as a part of that discussion I'm going to make this announcement right here Charles okay news this is had news cameras rolling well when we met with the business coalition for TPP the steering committee here a couple of days ago there was a great idea that was mentioned by Greg Meats and I reinforced it Charles immediately reinforced it and Ron wasn't there but three of us agreed that the four of us co-chairs of the Friends of TPP would it's kind of like American Idol huh hahaha would you like the suspense of this we're actually going to draft a letter and the four of us are going to sign this letter and we're going to send it to the president and we're going to ask the president to meet with the four co-chairs of the TPP, Friends of TPP so I think that's just a you know it's a sign where Democrats, Republicans coming together we're going to meet with the president and tell him how important this is we want to tell him how much support we have in Congress and personally and I think that's important for us to do so I'm sure he'll take us up on his offer especially after I've mentioned it here today great initiative on your part and we wish you great success in that unfortunately we're out of time we could probably go on with questions for another hour but the members have been very generous please join me in thanking Mr. Vastani and Mr. Riker thank you very much