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Jamison Greer is joining us now, Jamison, Ambassador, thank you so much for being with us. I know you've been incredibly busy. I can imagine you haven't slept much. I am curious how much we're seeing the end of negotiations or the beginning of the end, as there still seem to be some loose ends to be tied up.
Well, I would say that, you know, we've spent the past one hundred and twenty days negotiating with dozens and dozens of countries, and with some of these countries the deals have been good enough that the President's been willing to accept them. With other countries, they're just going have a tariff. But we have you know, you can look at some of the information that's gone out there. We have fact sheets, We have a joint statement with Indonesia
that give some details. You know, we'll be finishing the paperwork in the next weeks and maybe a couple of months, but these deals are pretty much set.
They are set right. We wouldn't make an agreement of less.
We all knew the contra of it, and the countries knew it, and it's an exciting time because the President has essentially reset the global trading system, and so we'll be you know, finalizing everything that's been agreed to on paper and then monitoring compliance going forward.
And Messagreer, can you help us understand how you landed on some of these rates, Specifically a country like Switzerland. It went from thirty one percent on Liberation Day April second to now thirty nine percent, even though you and your colleagues were in negotiations with the Swiss trading partners.
Sure.
Well, So, first of all, the rates are largely determined by the trade deficit of a country with the United States and what the country's willing to do to address that trade deficit from Switzerland. You know this is surprising to some to hear, but we have nearly forty billion
dollar trade deficit with Switzerland for a country of nine million. Now, we value our relationship with Switzerland, certainly, but during our discussions with them, you know, we weren't able to reach agreement on the best way to reduce that trade deficit at all. Right, they ship enormous amounts of pharmaceuticals to
our country. We want to be making pharmaceuticals in our country, so this is a challenging situation, and so we have, you know, high tariffs, not just on Switzerland, but many countries where we weren't able to fully resolve a path forward on reducing the trade deficit and opening markets.
My understanding was that the US in Switzerland actually had a negotiated text and it was just waiting on sign off from President Trump. Is that accurate.
I think that's an overstatement.
I mean that the reality is all of these countries, you trade back and forth paperwork and then you take it back to your leaders to get guidance from them, and so nothing's agreed and till everything's agreed, That's what every trade negotiator knows. So you know, the reality is, we negotiate with lots of countries. Listen, there are a lot of countries that didn't get the deal that we've been negotiating with, and they, of course, they all want
a deal. They all want to deal with the United States. So I can understand that. You know, folks may want to try to manifest a deal in the last minutes, but we just have.
To do it's right for America, and the President understands that too.
I'm thinking of other countries like Taiwan which that rate went down, India, Switzerland. Of course, we know you were in negotiations with so between now and August seventh, could some of these countries that you spent a lot of time with your counterparts get a deal?
Well, that's not my focus. I feel like we've been able to get everything set on August first. Of course, any country that wants to talk to us, they can always talk to us, and I'm sure some will be eager to find ways to reduce the deficit, open their markets, etc. But we're really focused right now on implementing the deals that have been reached.
Well, on implementing those deals. Representative, you mentioned that you would be looking and monitoring them for any violations. How will this administration judge what is a violation and what the consequences of that would be.
So, for example, you know, we put out a fairly detailed joint statement with Indonesia and we're finalizing the underlying agreement, and in there you can see that they've made commitments on terariff levels where they're can.
Remove all of their tariffs.
They've made commitments on non tariff barriers with respect to you know, agricultural inspections and the way they you know, treat certain digital trade and so our office, which has hundreds of people, the offs of the gust Trade representative, they watch this and they make sure that Indonesia actually does what it's supposed to do, and if they don't,
the president has his terr of authority. I mean, all of the deals are premised and the modified rates for these countries are premised on them actually opening their market, making the investment and purchase commitments they've agreed to, and if you don't, you can have the tariffs go back into place.
This is this is basic trade enforcement. That's what we intend to do here, Ambassador.
Right now, there are a number of countries coming out and saying this is part of a negotiation and they plan to keep talking with the team over in the Trade Trade Organization and trade representatives from the United States. Is that just messaging to their own political constituents or is that reality?
Well, well, listen, they certain they certainly have their domestic constituents they have to talk to. You can be sure that I woke up this morning to a number of trade ministers texting me and emailing me, and I'm sure they're reaching out to my colleague Secretary LATINX Secretary Vesson et Set And my job is to talk to these folks. I'm always going to talk to these folks, and you know, if they have proposals, you know, I'll talk to them and I'll.
Brief the president.
You know, we're focused on implementation and doing, you know, what's right to change the trading system to one that benefits American workers.
How much are you also hearing from US companies concerned about certainty and whether they're going to get clarity on exactly what the rates are going to be, whether they will stick, whether there will be adjustments, and how some of these things will work with trans national shipments of getting penalized forty percent.
So so with respect to certainty, you know, President Trump has been talking about a new tariff program.
For for literally years, decades.
In some instances, you know, he has tariffs from his first term that are still in place. So sometimes when companies say we want certainty, what they mean is we want a different outcome, right, and you know by by putting, you know, the market has baked in a lot of the tariffs we put in, you know, the new tariffs that we issued last night, are firm. That's why we
put it out the very clear list. Everyone can see it and understand, which retract a transhipment that's always been illegal, and so we're just going to put an additional forty percent tariff on that. So you know, I understand that there are going to be ede cases where companies have to change their supply chains and no one wants to do that. They just want status quo. But we can't have the status quo. The status quo is what led to offshoring
and the loss of some of our key industries. So during that supply chain shift, you know, that can be challenging for some companies. And I talk to a lot of these folks. I wanted to understand the presence trade policy. I want to hear about any unintended consequences. But the presence trade policy is moving forward and we're shifting from a seventy year policy based on purely efficiency to a new policy based on fair and balance trade.
And the world is agreeing with US.
Investor agree what about the unintended consequences of what's going on with the sectoral tariffs on autos? The Ford CEO was on Bloomberg Television yesterday talking about the price disadvantage compared to auto companies if they're making a car in Japan because of the input cost of twenty percent on those inputs that they need to make the car coming into the United States versus the fifteen percent right that
Japan now has. What's the point of the auto sectoral tariff if basically it's going to be bilateral now with country by country.
So first of all, you know, there are only a handful of countries that export cars to us, right essentially, you know, Germany, Japan, in a couple of countries of the European Union. We also have Canada, Mexico, and we had our domestic producers, you know, choose over a couple of decades to offsho a lot of that production to Mexico. And so naturally there is some some challenge as as they continue to reshore that. And we understand that, right, I mean, our goal is long term. We're not looking
at quarterly earnings as policy makers. We're looking at a way to make sure that we have a strong, robust industrial base here that provide good jobs for our workers and support the national security. So you know, we're in constant contact with the domestics with the unions and everybody. And you know, I understand that the the auto companies are receiving a credit for content that's made in America, which is how it should be.
That's what we're trying to incentivize.
When you're looking and you're thinking long term, are you preparing for Supreme Court ruling against using AEPA for these tariffs? And if so, what's the plan be.
So the case is at the Federal Circuit right now. We had the arguments yesterday, you know, lots of questions, a lot of preparation. Dog did a great doj did a great job. We had a great team out there. We feel very confident in the case. You know, if there's still questions coming out of the Federal Circuit or further litigation that goes to the Supreme Court, we're confident there that this statue clearly says the President has the authority to regulate imports. That's the language, you know, not
my words, it's a statute statutes language. You know, in case there's a national emergency, the Presence declared a national emergency. So we feel confident. You know, if it goes the other way, then we'll manage that. The reality is the countries understand the type of leverage that President Trump has created. That's why they're doing these deals, and they're going to regardless of what happens in litigation.
That's where I wanted to finish. And we just have a couple of minutes. We are out of time with you, I know, but I am curious what the game plan is should there be some sort of overruling of IEPA. Do you already have section two thirty two and others lined up?
Well?
Well, listen, we always have all kinds of plans, and I'm not going to go deep into our strategy here, mostly because we're pretty confident on the current plan. But we will do whatever it takes to make sure that the President can continue to rectify the trade deficit and change the global trading system. And this is a historic thing.
This is once in a hundred years that you have the chance to reorder global trade like this, and we're doing it, and we'll use whatever tools aren't necessary to do it.
US Trade Representative Jamison Greer, thank you so much for being with us.