September 18, 2025 • 29 mins
Newt talks with Mitchell A. Silk, about his new book, “A Seat at the Table: An Inside Account of Trump’s Global Economic Revolution,” which details his perspective on Trump's global economic policies and highlights the strategic approach taken by the administration in reshaping global trade dynamics. Silk shares his journey from a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant to becoming the first Hasidic Jew confirmed by the Senate for a position in the U.S. federal government. He discusses his role as assistant secretary in the Treasury under the first Trump administration, where he was instrumental in trade negotiations with China and infrastructure initiatives in Latin America. Fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese, Silk offers insights into China's economic strategies and the challenges faced by the U.S. in trade negotiations. He emphasizes the importance of perseverance, strategic diplomacy, and the need for the U.S. to assert its economic interests.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
On this episode of The Newsworld. From his earliest beginnings
as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant to his work
in international law and finance, Mitchell Silk's story illustrates how
perseverance and divine providence led him become the first Hasidic
Jew ever confirmed by the Senate for a position in
(00:26):
the US federal government and a consequential leader in Trump's Treasury.
In his new book, A Seat at the Table, An
Inside Account of Trump's Global Economic Revolution, he describes his
role as Assistant Sector of the Treasury, in which he
played a senior role in the trade negotiations with China,
(00:46):
designed and implemented both the landmark America Crees Initiative and
the first Trump administration's signature program in the Western Hemisphere
that spurred infrastructure growth through private capital solutions in Latin
America and beyond. I'm really pleased to welcome my guest,
Mitchell So. He's a graduate of Georgetown University and the
(01:07):
University of Maryland Law School. He is fluent in Mandarin
and Cantonese and actively engages in pro bono work within
the Jewish community. He currently serves as Group General counsel
of Waterton Global Resources and the cedar Field Group. Mitchell,
(01:35):
welcome and thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Thank you so much for having me, mister speaker, and
thank you for all you've done for a great country.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
You know you've had a remarkable career. Tell me for
a complements, just how did you evolve to the person
who became.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I'll give you two angles. One of them is my
maternal grandfather, somebody who came to this country from Europe
in nineteen twenty from a small village in what is
now western Ukraine. In my view, he was the greatest
man in the world. I write about him extensively in
the book, and he was a person who stood five
(02:13):
foot two in physical stature, but in my view he
was the tallest person in the world. So to frame
my first part of my response, I would say that
I am where I am because of his great influence
on me. But the rest of the story is really
one that I can only explain through providence. Some people
might call it fluke, but I'm firmly convinced that it's providence,
(02:35):
and I see the good hand in every stage of
the development in my career, and that career very interestingly,
started out in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. I
had to go out when I was in my early
tomdish teens to work to help our families' finances because
of our circumstances. I got a job washing dishes and
(02:59):
do prep work in the kitchen, and very interestingly, that
job really was a defining point in my whole professional career.
That job led to working in the front of the
house as a waiter, then went on to formal Chinese studies.
I had gotten Cantonese under the belt in the restaurant
and then studied Mandarin in college. The Chinese studies in
(03:22):
college led me to pursue a career in Chinese law.
The Chinese law led me out to Asia to work
for a firm that was expanding their energy offering, and
so I became an expert in power development and finance.
And it was the combination of my expertise in China
and infrastructure finance that drew me to the attention of
(03:44):
the senior leadership at Treasury and why I was offered
a position under Secretary Manuchent. So that's basically the long
and short of it, mister speaker. It all started in
the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
That's a great story for young people to hear because
you don't always know how each step leads to the
next step, and so it's important to just take every
advantage you can when an opportunity shows up and your
life sort of illustrates that. You know, you could not
have planned how your life unfolded, but by working hard
(04:17):
and being adaptable, interesting things happen, absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And that's one of the thematic messages basic messages in
the book. I have my little four p's that I
talk about perseverance, progress over perfection, personal touch, and divine providence.
And without the hard work, I found that nothing really
happens well in.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
A period of extraordinary change right now. And love to
get your view because you have been in the room
and you know how these things work. Treasury Secretary Scott
Besseam said that he thinks they have a framework for
a TikTok deal that will allow the app to continue
in the US. I haven't released what the framework might be,
(04:58):
but I think it's possible to develop a framework that
basically guarantees that the Chinese do not have access to
the people who are on TikTok and that it does
not become essentially a Chinese propaganda system.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
There is, mister speaker, and I think you'll be aware
that the TikTok case was under heavy review and there
was a tremendous amount of work done on it under
Secretary Mnuchin during Trump forty five. One of my best
buddies in the building, Tommy Fedow, decorated naval officer, was
then serving as the first Assistant Secretary for Investment Security,
(05:35):
and he and the Secretary all the way up to
POTUS were heavily focused and actually had come to some
solutions that were put forward and in the process of
implementation when the administration finished up. Unfortunately, that framework did
not move forward. Matters muddled through during the whole of
(05:56):
the Biden administration on this issue, as most to three
shoes did. And here we are back in twenty twenty
five dealing with the same issue. And to be very
specific on the response, there are some very very very
fundamental requirements or pieces of a framework that we would
(06:18):
require in order to ensure that TikTok's continued operation touching
on the US would not be harmful to us. We
would need to control the algorithm. There need to be
some element of algorithm control. There need to be a
way to deal with the risk of data access and flows,
(06:39):
and thirdly of foreign ownership and control paths. And those
are really the three fundamental framework hardlocks that would be required,
along with an enforceable, auditable structure that would ensure that
TikTok's continued operation would not be harmful to the US.
(07:00):
Without that, there's a problem. There's a very big problem.
And it's my understanding that the Secretary has spent time
on this Secretary Pasant in Madrid this week working toward
chipping away at an agreement that would ensure these three
fundamental pillars along with an enforceability mechanism.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Since you speak both Mandarin and Cantonese, which I think
is a pretty remarkable achievement. As you think about China
from your much more intimate perspective than most of us have,
what's your whole take on what Jijiinpang's goals are and
what we should be thinking about as we look at China.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I spent thirty years of my career, mister Speaker, working
in China, and the perspective that I had during that
time was representing foreign investors and trying to pursue their
interest on a rather micro and project basis. And it
wasn't until I came to try meury and inherited the
portfolio that I did that I came to appreciate the
(08:05):
great challenges with the Chinese approach to growth. When the
last administration came into office, we were confronted with a
bunch of really big issues. We stepped into a massively
large trade deficit, IP theft and weaponized cyber were rampant.
Industrial policy was not friendly to us, and through the
(08:28):
Belton Road initiative, we were seeing the Chinese engage in
some very very considerable predatory practices, mainly in the kind
of developing countries emerging nations. And none of that is
good for the US. None of that is good for
the world. And a lot of the approach is overt
(08:51):
and a lot of it is I don't necessarily want
to use word cofort, but it's creeping. It's done in
a manner that people don't necessarily notice it. And so
these development practices and these growth practices are not good
and we need to stop them. And I think that's
what the President's agenda on China is all about. It's
(09:11):
to not be complacent and to confront the issues. And
that's what we saw as a key driver and an
underpinning of our negotiations during Trump forty five, and I
expect that that is the thrust of the formulation of
our negotiating positions during Trump forty seven.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
The sad point of an everyday American, how big a
dealer is trying to work out an agreement with China,
And your judgment, is it likely that we can get
a deal that is truly acceptable the US accepted by
its autolitarian dictatorship. I think it is, sir.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
We certainly did deliver a deal that was good during
Trump forty five that unfortunately was disrupted by the impact
of COVID and failure to continue to push on the
agreement that we had settled during the last administration. But
our folks formulated a policy and formulated a negotiating position
(10:31):
that was meant to deal with the issues that presented
themselves during Trump forty five, massive trade and balance IP issues,
weaponized cyber not friendly industrial policy, and we had a playbook.
Perhaps we were not taken seriously the first time that
we got into the room but we stood by that
(10:54):
playbook meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting, and we
keptishing our position until the Chinese understood clearly that we
meant business. And so by staying the course with maximum
pressure until we see concessions, which was the case during
Trump forty five, namely through the tariffs, and by staying
(11:17):
the course with our negotiating positions, namely our clarity of
red lines and sticking to settled concrete goals, we were
able to bring back an agreement, and I expect that
that will be the approach now. There are some added challenges,
kind of changes in negotiating leverage, particularly referring to the
(11:37):
Chinese position on critical minerals and on semiconductors, but again
by staying the course with firm negotiating positions, we will
get there. Now, we've not seen a lot of concrete
results out of the engagement with China thus far, and
my view on that is that, and I've kind of
(11:57):
referred to this as three dimensional chests that the resident
is playing, I think that the approach that we've seen
since day one of Trump forty seven has been extraordinarily
brilliant on this issue of global tariffs, and global trade,
and particularly the one point two billion dollar deficit that
the President inherited on day one, in that the approach
(12:18):
has been staged off the bat from the beginning of
the administration. The President has very artfully leveraged the force
of tariffs, many different types of tariffs that are targeted
toward different countries, different geographies, different sectors. But ultimately he's
used that leverage and that strategy to pin down a
(12:42):
large core of countries and they're about call it ten
countries Japan, e U, South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam
that represent around let's call it sixty seven percent of
the total trade deficit that was presented to the President
on day one. And so by bringing those countries into
line and settling initial agreements with them, and on top
(13:06):
of settling the initial agreements, also using those agreements to
leverage investment from those countries into our country to boost
our industrial base and create jobs. In addition to that,
he has fixed those variables and allowed our great negotiation
teams to focus on the really big issue that's left,
(13:29):
which is China, which comprises twenty plus percent of that
remaining thirty three percent. Now there are a couple of
swing factors out there. India is not an easy one
to nail down, still negotiating with Taiwan and a couple
of others. But despite the challenge of India, the trade
deficit position presented by India is not nearly as close
(13:51):
and nearly as great as China. So in simple answer, Sir,
I think the answer is, yes, we will get there.
It will take time, it will a smart plan and
a firm plan, and it will require staying the course
in negotiations.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Then it strikes you that the whole process we're involved
in China is so big and is a dictatorship. We're
going to have to I think at some point have
a fairly difficult period of convincing them that they're just
stuff we're not going to accept. And I think that's
(14:27):
part of what President Trump is now going through in
these negotiations. Initially, I think the Chinese thought they could
shrug him off the way they had shrugged off President Biden.
And I think it's been a little bit of a
surprise to them how tough he's willing to be, and
it's certainly been a surprise to Modi that he is
(14:47):
imposing a fifty percent tariff because Mody won't quit buying
Russian oil. I think that was a genuine shock, and
they have all sorts of consequences. But don't you think
that it takes somebody as tough and as tenacious as
Trump to get the attention of the Chinese dictatorship.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
There's no question about it, sir. It's a very simple recipe.
Sort and settle your negotiating position, stay the course by
using maximum pressure. In this case with tariffs, there is
the TikTok dimension of bringing pressure, because I'm sure that
the President is using the TikTok discussions to assist with
(15:25):
the ongoing negotiation on other issues. But in addition to that,
the differentiator is that the key top leadership is directly
involved in the discussions. So in Trump forty five, it
was my secretary is Secretary Manuchin, obviously Ambassador Leitheiser working
as a team going through major negotiation after major negotiation.
(15:49):
But of course the President was directly involved with Premier
c through phone exchanges. There were a couple of in
person meetings, and we're actually seeing the same right now.
Secretary Bessant is directly involved. And as you'll be aware,
the President has a call scheduled with Premier Shee on Friday,
and this is the direct illustration of Potus's personal involvement
(16:15):
at crucial stages to ensure that the ball keeps going
and to ensure that everybody at the table understands that
work that's being done is being directed and engaged directly
by Potus himself.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Compared to the first term, my sense is that he's
more aggressively engaged this time in terms of basically restructuring
the entire global trading pattern than he was in his
first term.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
There's no question about that. He came out of the
corner swinging. He is far more disruptive, and he's far
more strategic in actions that he's taking in Washington. We
could look at a bunch of different examples, but as
we're talking about tariffs, I mean, let's look at forty
five versus forty seven. The President had assumed office for
(17:04):
the first time, had not been in the mix, as
it were, of how the dynamics run in the executive
and particularly in relations with the Hill. The tariffs didn't
come for a little bit. I'm sure that he was
getting advice that there could be challenges and there would
be challenges, and there were challenges to the use of
a EPA, And in forty seven he just utilized the
(17:27):
force of his executive authority to a point that enabled
us to get where we are in delivering trade deals
with countries that represent sixty seven percent of the deficit.
We would not have got there. I'm quite confident had
not the President really pushed aggressively in the use of
his executive authority to the FoST extense. So I wholeheartedly
(17:50):
agree with what you're saying, sir.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Doesn't he speak very well of Besting and Lunnik and
the trade negotiator that they've been able to handle this
many different parallel negotiations almost simultaneously.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I'm a deal lawyer by nature. They had one hundred
negotiations going simultaneously. You couldn't find anybody, highest levels of commerce,
highest levels of treasury, and certainly Investor Greer, a good
friend of mine, and his great team at USTR. They
were fully engaged. But look at the beauty of it, sir.
Through the strategy, they were able to lock down countries
(18:42):
that represented two thirds of the deficit in order then
to focus on the biggest fish. And that's a strategy
and the strategy worked.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
It seems to me. In your book, A Seat at
the Table, you really take on the critics who think
that Trump's diplomacy lacks strategy, and you argue that, in fact,
he has a very highly strategic approach. In fact, do
you describe it as a game of three dimensional chess?
I happen to agree with you. I think that Trump
(19:14):
is far more strategic than the news media understands. But
can you start to describe for us what you mean
by this game of three dimensional chess and the way
in which Trump approaches things strategically.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well, I come back to the best example of it,
which is trade. If we were to go back and
look at the press coverage in the first couple of
months of the administration, a good piece of that content
was using the words chaos, confusion, creating damage and detriment
to the US economy. I don't happen to agree with that.
(19:49):
The numbers are not in line with those descriptions. But
the President used his executive authority with a specific intent
I believe, to get us where we got to today,
let's call it one hundred and eighty day point, where
he had essentially wrestled down the biggest part of the
(20:10):
issue of the deficit, while at the same time security
commitments for greater foreign investment in the US to grow
our industrial base and to create jobs. So on the
one hand, there were commentators that were describing his approach
as disruptive, as chaotic, as detrimental. But on the other hand,
(20:32):
if we are to look at the results that the
President and his team have delivered on the trade front,
and we would look at the macroeconomic indicators throughout the
whole of the one to eighty and when we have
the opportunity to look at the next thirty sixty ninety days,
I think that it will be very challenging for somebody
(20:54):
to come to a view that it was anything less
than strategic. It was certainly not chaotic. I'm wholly confident
that there was rhyme and reason to it, that nobody
was winging it, and that the desired outcome of getting
us where we are today was settled at the beginning.
There certainly may well have been the appearances of disruptive.
(21:17):
There certainly may well have been the appearance of chaotic,
but that is dispelled by the results that the President
has delivered and his team have delivered, and so if
that's not strategic, I don't know what is.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
From your perspective, do you think that we will probably
come out of this with terms of trade that are
substantially more favorable to the United States.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
We certainly have in respect of the first round, Japan,
New South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, a couple of others.
Hard to know what will be with India. I'm confident
that others that are remaining Taiwan, Israel, and a few others,
I'm confident that we will get there. The big issue
I think is the largest elephant on the table right
which is China, and I feel wholly confident that the
(22:06):
team will get there. There's continuity of many of the
team members from Trump forty five that went through the
negotiations to begin with. Many of the core issues have
not changed. It's just an issue of continuation and following
on from where we had settled in the Phase one
trade agreement in twenty twenty, and then also dealing with
(22:27):
the couple of additional issues that have arisen, some of
which are quite large, like rare earths and semiconductors. But
I'm confident that this team will deliver, just as Trump
forty five China team did deliver.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Did the Biden administration represent a pretty big detour away
from the Trump focus on the American economy. Did you
have a sense that all the trade negotiations that you
all helped launch under Trump one, everything just sort of
fell apart under Biden.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Well, the simple point that comes to my mind, or
simple word that comes to my mind, is complacency. If
one thinks that inaction is going to stop predatory action
by a country or countries that historically for fifty years,
one hundred years, three hundred years, five hundred years have
(23:19):
been predatory, then that's ill advised. I would almost want
to say it's delusional. I look at some very impactful
areas in which I was engaged, like infrastructure finance globally,
where the United States was using very successfully with just
about twenty countries in Latin America, the West ham and Caribbean,
(23:39):
and also in Asia. We were using the tools of
the whole of government approach ten different agencies to help
our partners in those regions grow by helping them identify
impactful infrastructure and energy projects that would help them grow
in a healthy manner unlike bri using primarily, if not exclusively,
(24:04):
private capital sources as opposed to government funding, and all
of that programming that was delivering wonderful results. We did
a three point five billion dollar transaction with Ecuador. We
helped the Panamanians refinance their electric utility, saved them sixty
million dollars in debt service. We were working with Vietnam
and completed a very large one point two billion dollar
(24:27):
ellergy receiving terminal. All of that programming was scrapped put
to the side by the Biden administration in exchange for
a focus on climate and in my view, not a
good use of US taxpayer dollars, not good for global growth,
certainly not good for the emerging market countries that we
(24:47):
were assisting.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
I mean, one of the things is most striking to
me about the transition from Obama and Biden to Trump
is that he is very American centered, and that he
believes that we have to really build up our economic strength.
And if that makes other people a little uncomfortable because
they've been living for the last sixty years in a
(25:11):
world in which the US passively allowed them to have advantages,
that's the price He's willing to pay to get back
to a system which is focused on the American worker
and focused on American jobs. Is that a reasonable summary
of what you've been living through.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yes, but it's a great summary.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Well, but you can then understand why the other guys
are all pretty irritated. I mean, it's kind of like
if you had a cousin who always got to come
by and borrow your car, and by the way, you
put the gasoline in, and then one day he showed
up and he said, you know, I'm not going to
learn it to you anymore. Suddenly he's mad at you,
even though you've been the one learning of your car.
I think that's a lot of what we're seeing around
the world that the United States is now looking out
(25:52):
for itself. But let me ask you, if you had
to boil it down, what do you think is the
biggest lesson American citizens should take from the past twenty
years of dealing with China.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
That complacency doesn't work. It's just that simple bottom line, Like,
very simply, China is not converging with us. If we
were to take all of its policies and look at them,
how they're handling their domestic economy, how they're handling investment abroad,
how they're handling engaging in the global trade system, in
(26:25):
the global financial markets. A good part of it is
undermining us. It's not converging with us. And so until
one puts their foot down and says I'm not putting
up with this anymore, I'm not going to have it.
This is it, then there's no chance of the less
than positive behavior stopping. And under Trump forty five, when
(26:49):
we were at the table, and it was not limited
to the trade negotiations, we had other engagements going on,
for example relating to unfair subsidies and export credits, where
the Chinese government was using subsidies of financial subsidies to
their exporterers to create disadvantages against all other suppliers, including
American suppliers. Under Trump forty five, we prove that America
(27:12):
does not need to blink, and that with the right leverage,
whether it's tariffs, whether it's capital markets, whether it's private investment,
we can make China playfair and at the same time
protect our sovereignty while delivering good results for the US taxpayers.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
I really appreciate you taking the time to talk today
because you've been in the room. This part of why
your new book is Seated at the Table and inside
account of Trump's global economic revolution. I mean, you've been there,
you understand it, you help explain it, and given the
scale of what we're living through, I think virtually everybody
would profit from reading your new book, and I want
(27:51):
to thank you for joining me. I do think you
bring a kind of unique experience and unique wisdom in
a very complicated, esoteric copic that very few Americans understand.
So you're an enormous asset to all of us with
the work you're doing, and I really appreciated Mitchell.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Well, mister speaker, I'd just like to repeat once again
that I thank you for all the great things that
you've done for your country. And finally, i'd like to
thank you for today giving me a seat at the table.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Thank you to my guest, Mitchell Silk. You can get
a link to buy his new book, A Seat at
the Table on our show page at newtsworld dot com.
New World is produced by Gingishe sixty and iHeartMedia. Our
executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson.
The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley.
(28:44):
Special thanks to the team at gingriishly sixty. If you've
been enjoying newts World, I hope you'll go to Apple
Podcasts and both rate us with five stars and give
us a review so others can learn what it's all about.
Right now, listeners of Newtsworld consigner from three three weekly
columns at ginglishtree sixty dot com slash newsletter I'm nute Ginglish.
(29:07):
This is Nutsworp.
On this episode of The Newsworld. From his earliest beginnings
as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant to his work
in international law and finance, Mitchell Silk's story illustrates how
perseverance and divine providence led him become the first Hasidic
Jew ever confirmed by the Senate for a position in
(00:26):
the US federal government and a consequential leader in Trump's Treasury.
In his new book, A Seat at the Table, An
Inside Account of Trump's Global Economic Revolution, he describes his
role as Assistant Sector of the Treasury, in which he
played a senior role in the trade negotiations with China,
(00:46):
designed and implemented both the landmark America Crees Initiative and
the first Trump administration's signature program in the Western Hemisphere
that spurred infrastructure growth through private capital solutions in Latin
America and beyond. I'm really pleased to welcome my guest,
Mitchell So. He's a graduate of Georgetown University and the
(01:07):
University of Maryland Law School. He is fluent in Mandarin
and Cantonese and actively engages in pro bono work within
the Jewish community. He currently serves as Group General counsel
of Waterton Global Resources and the cedar Field Group. Mitchell,
(01:35):
welcome and thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Thank you so much for having me, mister speaker, and
thank you for all you've done for a great country.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
You know you've had a remarkable career. Tell me for
a complements, just how did you evolve to the person
who became.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I'll give you two angles. One of them is my
maternal grandfather, somebody who came to this country from Europe
in nineteen twenty from a small village in what is
now western Ukraine. In my view, he was the greatest
man in the world. I write about him extensively in
the book, and he was a person who stood five
(02:13):
foot two in physical stature, but in my view he
was the tallest person in the world. So to frame
my first part of my response, I would say that
I am where I am because of his great influence
on me. But the rest of the story is really
one that I can only explain through providence. Some people
might call it fluke, but I'm firmly convinced that it's providence,
(02:35):
and I see the good hand in every stage of
the development in my career, and that career very interestingly,
started out in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant. I
had to go out when I was in my early
tomdish teens to work to help our families' finances because
of our circumstances. I got a job washing dishes and
(02:59):
do prep work in the kitchen, and very interestingly, that
job really was a defining point in my whole professional career.
That job led to working in the front of the
house as a waiter, then went on to formal Chinese studies.
I had gotten Cantonese under the belt in the restaurant
and then studied Mandarin in college. The Chinese studies in
(03:22):
college led me to pursue a career in Chinese law.
The Chinese law led me out to Asia to work
for a firm that was expanding their energy offering, and
so I became an expert in power development and finance.
And it was the combination of my expertise in China
and infrastructure finance that drew me to the attention of
(03:44):
the senior leadership at Treasury and why I was offered
a position under Secretary Manuchent. So that's basically the long
and short of it, mister speaker. It all started in
the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
That's a great story for young people to hear because
you don't always know how each step leads to the
next step, and so it's important to just take every
advantage you can when an opportunity shows up and your
life sort of illustrates that. You know, you could not
have planned how your life unfolded, but by working hard
(04:17):
and being adaptable, interesting things happen, absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And that's one of the thematic messages basic messages in
the book. I have my little four p's that I
talk about perseverance, progress over perfection, personal touch, and divine providence.
And without the hard work, I found that nothing really
happens well in.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
A period of extraordinary change right now. And love to
get your view because you have been in the room
and you know how these things work. Treasury Secretary Scott
Besseam said that he thinks they have a framework for
a TikTok deal that will allow the app to continue
in the US. I haven't released what the framework might be,
(04:58):
but I think it's possible to develop a framework that
basically guarantees that the Chinese do not have access to
the people who are on TikTok and that it does
not become essentially a Chinese propaganda system.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
There is, mister speaker, and I think you'll be aware
that the TikTok case was under heavy review and there
was a tremendous amount of work done on it under
Secretary Mnuchin during Trump forty five. One of my best
buddies in the building, Tommy Fedow, decorated naval officer, was
then serving as the first Assistant Secretary for Investment Security,
(05:35):
and he and the Secretary all the way up to
POTUS were heavily focused and actually had come to some
solutions that were put forward and in the process of
implementation when the administration finished up. Unfortunately, that framework did
not move forward. Matters muddled through during the whole of
(05:56):
the Biden administration on this issue, as most to three
shoes did. And here we are back in twenty twenty
five dealing with the same issue. And to be very
specific on the response, there are some very very very
fundamental requirements or pieces of a framework that we would
(06:18):
require in order to ensure that TikTok's continued operation touching
on the US would not be harmful to us. We
would need to control the algorithm. There need to be
some element of algorithm control. There need to be a
way to deal with the risk of data access and flows,
(06:39):
and thirdly of foreign ownership and control paths. And those
are really the three fundamental framework hardlocks that would be required,
along with an enforceable, auditable structure that would ensure that
TikTok's continued operation would not be harmful to the US.
(07:00):
Without that, there's a problem. There's a very big problem.
And it's my understanding that the Secretary has spent time
on this Secretary Pasant in Madrid this week working toward
chipping away at an agreement that would ensure these three
fundamental pillars along with an enforceability mechanism.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Since you speak both Mandarin and Cantonese, which I think
is a pretty remarkable achievement. As you think about China
from your much more intimate perspective than most of us have,
what's your whole take on what Jijiinpang's goals are and
what we should be thinking about as we look at China.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I spent thirty years of my career, mister Speaker, working
in China, and the perspective that I had during that
time was representing foreign investors and trying to pursue their
interest on a rather micro and project basis. And it
wasn't until I came to try meury and inherited the
portfolio that I did that I came to appreciate the
(08:05):
great challenges with the Chinese approach to growth. When the
last administration came into office, we were confronted with a
bunch of really big issues. We stepped into a massively
large trade deficit, IP theft and weaponized cyber were rampant.
Industrial policy was not friendly to us, and through the
(08:28):
Belton Road initiative, we were seeing the Chinese engage in
some very very considerable predatory practices, mainly in the kind
of developing countries emerging nations. And none of that is
good for the US. None of that is good for
the world. And a lot of the approach is overt
(08:51):
and a lot of it is I don't necessarily want
to use word cofort, but it's creeping. It's done in
a manner that people don't necessarily notice it. And so
these development practices and these growth practices are not good
and we need to stop them. And I think that's
what the President's agenda on China is all about. It's
(09:11):
to not be complacent and to confront the issues. And
that's what we saw as a key driver and an
underpinning of our negotiations during Trump forty five, and I
expect that that is the thrust of the formulation of
our negotiating positions during Trump forty seven.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
The sad point of an everyday American, how big a
dealer is trying to work out an agreement with China,
And your judgment, is it likely that we can get
a deal that is truly acceptable the US accepted by
its autolitarian dictatorship. I think it is, sir.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
We certainly did deliver a deal that was good during
Trump forty five that unfortunately was disrupted by the impact
of COVID and failure to continue to push on the
agreement that we had settled during the last administration. But
our folks formulated a policy and formulated a negotiating position
(10:31):
that was meant to deal with the issues that presented
themselves during Trump forty five, massive trade and balance IP issues,
weaponized cyber not friendly industrial policy, and we had a playbook.
Perhaps we were not taken seriously the first time that
we got into the room but we stood by that
(10:54):
playbook meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting, and we
keptishing our position until the Chinese understood clearly that we
meant business. And so by staying the course with maximum
pressure until we see concessions, which was the case during
Trump forty five, namely through the tariffs, and by staying
(11:17):
the course with our negotiating positions, namely our clarity of
red lines and sticking to settled concrete goals, we were
able to bring back an agreement, and I expect that
that will be the approach now. There are some added challenges,
kind of changes in negotiating leverage, particularly referring to the
(11:37):
Chinese position on critical minerals and on semiconductors, but again
by staying the course with firm negotiating positions, we will
get there. Now, we've not seen a lot of concrete
results out of the engagement with China thus far, and
my view on that is that, and I've kind of
(11:57):
referred to this as three dimensional chests that the resident
is playing, I think that the approach that we've seen
since day one of Trump forty seven has been extraordinarily
brilliant on this issue of global tariffs, and global trade,
and particularly the one point two billion dollar deficit that
the President inherited on day one, in that the approach
(12:18):
has been staged off the bat from the beginning of
the administration. The President has very artfully leveraged the force
of tariffs, many different types of tariffs that are targeted
toward different countries, different geographies, different sectors. But ultimately he's
used that leverage and that strategy to pin down a
(12:42):
large core of countries and they're about call it ten
countries Japan, e U, South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam
that represent around let's call it sixty seven percent of
the total trade deficit that was presented to the President
on day one. And so by bringing those countries into
line and settling initial agreements with them, and on top
(13:06):
of settling the initial agreements, also using those agreements to
leverage investment from those countries into our country to boost
our industrial base and create jobs. In addition to that,
he has fixed those variables and allowed our great negotiation
teams to focus on the really big issue that's left,
(13:29):
which is China, which comprises twenty plus percent of that
remaining thirty three percent. Now there are a couple of
swing factors out there. India is not an easy one
to nail down, still negotiating with Taiwan and a couple
of others. But despite the challenge of India, the trade
deficit position presented by India is not nearly as close
(13:51):
and nearly as great as China. So in simple answer, Sir,
I think the answer is, yes, we will get there.
It will take time, it will a smart plan and
a firm plan, and it will require staying the course
in negotiations.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Then it strikes you that the whole process we're involved
in China is so big and is a dictatorship. We're
going to have to I think at some point have
a fairly difficult period of convincing them that they're just
stuff we're not going to accept. And I think that's
(14:27):
part of what President Trump is now going through in
these negotiations. Initially, I think the Chinese thought they could
shrug him off the way they had shrugged off President Biden.
And I think it's been a little bit of a
surprise to them how tough he's willing to be, and
it's certainly been a surprise to Modi that he is
(14:47):
imposing a fifty percent tariff because Mody won't quit buying
Russian oil. I think that was a genuine shock, and
they have all sorts of consequences. But don't you think
that it takes somebody as tough and as tenacious as
Trump to get the attention of the Chinese dictatorship.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
There's no question about it, sir. It's a very simple recipe.
Sort and settle your negotiating position, stay the course by
using maximum pressure. In this case with tariffs, there is
the TikTok dimension of bringing pressure, because I'm sure that
the President is using the TikTok discussions to assist with
(15:25):
the ongoing negotiation on other issues. But in addition to that,
the differentiator is that the key top leadership is directly
involved in the discussions. So in Trump forty five, it
was my secretary is Secretary Manuchin, obviously Ambassador Leitheiser working
as a team going through major negotiation after major negotiation.
(15:49):
But of course the President was directly involved with Premier
c through phone exchanges. There were a couple of in
person meetings, and we're actually seeing the same right now.
Secretary Bessant is directly involved. And as you'll be aware,
the President has a call scheduled with Premier Shee on Friday,
and this is the direct illustration of Potus's personal involvement
(16:15):
at crucial stages to ensure that the ball keeps going
and to ensure that everybody at the table understands that
work that's being done is being directed and engaged directly
by Potus himself.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Compared to the first term, my sense is that he's
more aggressively engaged this time in terms of basically restructuring
the entire global trading pattern than he was in his
first term.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
There's no question about that. He came out of the
corner swinging. He is far more disruptive, and he's far
more strategic in actions that he's taking in Washington. We
could look at a bunch of different examples, but as
we're talking about tariffs, I mean, let's look at forty
five versus forty seven. The President had assumed office for
(17:04):
the first time, had not been in the mix, as
it were, of how the dynamics run in the executive
and particularly in relations with the Hill. The tariffs didn't
come for a little bit. I'm sure that he was
getting advice that there could be challenges and there would
be challenges, and there were challenges to the use of
a EPA, And in forty seven he just utilized the
(17:27):
force of his executive authority to a point that enabled
us to get where we are in delivering trade deals
with countries that represent sixty seven percent of the deficit.
We would not have got there. I'm quite confident had
not the President really pushed aggressively in the use of
his executive authority to the FoST extense. So I wholeheartedly
(17:50):
agree with what you're saying, sir.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Doesn't he speak very well of Besting and Lunnik and
the trade negotiator that they've been able to handle this
many different parallel negotiations almost simultaneously.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
I'm a deal lawyer by nature. They had one hundred
negotiations going simultaneously. You couldn't find anybody, highest levels of commerce,
highest levels of treasury, and certainly Investor Greer, a good
friend of mine, and his great team at USTR. They
were fully engaged. But look at the beauty of it, sir.
Through the strategy, they were able to lock down countries
(18:42):
that represented two thirds of the deficit in order then
to focus on the biggest fish. And that's a strategy
and the strategy worked.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
It seems to me. In your book, A Seat at
the Table, you really take on the critics who think
that Trump's diplomacy lacks strategy, and you argue that, in fact,
he has a very highly strategic approach. In fact, do
you describe it as a game of three dimensional chess?
I happen to agree with you. I think that Trump
(19:14):
is far more strategic than the news media understands. But
can you start to describe for us what you mean
by this game of three dimensional chess and the way
in which Trump approaches things strategically.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well, I come back to the best example of it,
which is trade. If we were to go back and
look at the press coverage in the first couple of
months of the administration, a good piece of that content
was using the words chaos, confusion, creating damage and detriment
to the US economy. I don't happen to agree with that.
(19:49):
The numbers are not in line with those descriptions. But
the President used his executive authority with a specific intent
I believe, to get us where we got to today,
let's call it one hundred and eighty day point, where
he had essentially wrestled down the biggest part of the
(20:10):
issue of the deficit, while at the same time security
commitments for greater foreign investment in the US to grow
our industrial base and to create jobs. So on the
one hand, there were commentators that were describing his approach
as disruptive, as chaotic, as detrimental. But on the other hand,
(20:32):
if we are to look at the results that the
President and his team have delivered on the trade front,
and we would look at the macroeconomic indicators throughout the
whole of the one to eighty and when we have
the opportunity to look at the next thirty sixty ninety days,
I think that it will be very challenging for somebody
(20:54):
to come to a view that it was anything less
than strategic. It was certainly not chaotic. I'm wholly confident
that there was rhyme and reason to it, that nobody
was winging it, and that the desired outcome of getting
us where we are today was settled at the beginning.
There certainly may well have been the appearances of disruptive.
(21:17):
There certainly may well have been the appearance of chaotic,
but that is dispelled by the results that the President
has delivered and his team have delivered, and so if
that's not strategic, I don't know what is.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
From your perspective, do you think that we will probably
come out of this with terms of trade that are
substantially more favorable to the United States.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
We certainly have in respect of the first round, Japan,
New South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, a couple of others.
Hard to know what will be with India. I'm confident
that others that are remaining Taiwan, Israel, and a few others,
I'm confident that we will get there. The big issue
I think is the largest elephant on the table right
which is China, and I feel wholly confident that the
(22:06):
team will get there. There's continuity of many of the
team members from Trump forty five that went through the
negotiations to begin with. Many of the core issues have
not changed. It's just an issue of continuation and following
on from where we had settled in the Phase one
trade agreement in twenty twenty, and then also dealing with
(22:27):
the couple of additional issues that have arisen, some of
which are quite large, like rare earths and semiconductors. But
I'm confident that this team will deliver, just as Trump
forty five China team did deliver.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Did the Biden administration represent a pretty big detour away
from the Trump focus on the American economy. Did you
have a sense that all the trade negotiations that you
all helped launch under Trump one, everything just sort of
fell apart under Biden.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Well, the simple point that comes to my mind, or
simple word that comes to my mind, is complacency. If
one thinks that inaction is going to stop predatory action
by a country or countries that historically for fifty years,
one hundred years, three hundred years, five hundred years have
(23:19):
been predatory, then that's ill advised. I would almost want
to say it's delusional. I look at some very impactful
areas in which I was engaged, like infrastructure finance globally,
where the United States was using very successfully with just
about twenty countries in Latin America, the West ham and Caribbean,
(23:39):
and also in Asia. We were using the tools of
the whole of government approach ten different agencies to help
our partners in those regions grow by helping them identify
impactful infrastructure and energy projects that would help them grow
in a healthy manner unlike bri using primarily, if not exclusively,
(24:04):
private capital sources as opposed to government funding, and all
of that programming that was delivering wonderful results. We did
a three point five billion dollar transaction with Ecuador. We
helped the Panamanians refinance their electric utility, saved them sixty
million dollars in debt service. We were working with Vietnam
and completed a very large one point two billion dollar
(24:27):
ellergy receiving terminal. All of that programming was scrapped put
to the side by the Biden administration in exchange for
a focus on climate and in my view, not a
good use of US taxpayer dollars, not good for global growth,
certainly not good for the emerging market countries that we
(24:47):
were assisting.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
I mean, one of the things is most striking to
me about the transition from Obama and Biden to Trump
is that he is very American centered, and that he
believes that we have to really build up our economic strength.
And if that makes other people a little uncomfortable because
they've been living for the last sixty years in a
(25:11):
world in which the US passively allowed them to have advantages,
that's the price He's willing to pay to get back
to a system which is focused on the American worker
and focused on American jobs. Is that a reasonable summary
of what you've been living through.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yes, but it's a great summary.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Well, but you can then understand why the other guys
are all pretty irritated. I mean, it's kind of like
if you had a cousin who always got to come
by and borrow your car, and by the way, you
put the gasoline in, and then one day he showed
up and he said, you know, I'm not going to
learn it to you anymore. Suddenly he's mad at you,
even though you've been the one learning of your car.
I think that's a lot of what we're seeing around
the world that the United States is now looking out
(25:52):
for itself. But let me ask you, if you had
to boil it down, what do you think is the
biggest lesson American citizens should take from the past twenty
years of dealing with China.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
That complacency doesn't work. It's just that simple bottom line, Like,
very simply, China is not converging with us. If we
were to take all of its policies and look at them,
how they're handling their domestic economy, how they're handling investment abroad,
how they're handling engaging in the global trade system, in
(26:25):
the global financial markets. A good part of it is
undermining us. It's not converging with us. And so until
one puts their foot down and says I'm not putting
up with this anymore, I'm not going to have it.
This is it, then there's no chance of the less
than positive behavior stopping. And under Trump forty five, when
(26:49):
we were at the table, and it was not limited
to the trade negotiations, we had other engagements going on,
for example relating to unfair subsidies and export credits, where
the Chinese government was using subsidies of financial subsidies to
their exporterers to create disadvantages against all other suppliers, including
American suppliers. Under Trump forty five, we prove that America
(27:12):
does not need to blink, and that with the right leverage,
whether it's tariffs, whether it's capital markets, whether it's private investment,
we can make China playfair and at the same time
protect our sovereignty while delivering good results for the US taxpayers.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
I really appreciate you taking the time to talk today
because you've been in the room. This part of why
your new book is Seated at the Table and inside
account of Trump's global economic revolution. I mean, you've been there,
you understand it, you help explain it, and given the
scale of what we're living through, I think virtually everybody
would profit from reading your new book, and I want
(27:51):
to thank you for joining me. I do think you
bring a kind of unique experience and unique wisdom in
a very complicated, esoteric copic that very few Americans understand.
So you're an enormous asset to all of us with
the work you're doing, and I really appreciated Mitchell.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Well, mister speaker, I'd just like to repeat once again
that I thank you for all the great things that
you've done for your country. And finally, i'd like to
thank you for today giving me a seat at the table.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Thank you to my guest, Mitchell Silk. You can get
a link to buy his new book, A Seat at
the Table on our show page at newtsworld dot com.
New World is produced by Gingishe sixty and iHeartMedia. Our
executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson.
The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley.
(28:44):
Special thanks to the team at gingriishly sixty. If you've
been enjoying newts World, I hope you'll go to Apple
Podcasts and both rate us with five stars and give
us a review so others can learn what it's all about.
Right now, listeners of Newtsworld consigner from three three weekly
columns at ginglishtree sixty dot com slash newsletter I'm nute Ginglish.
(29:07):
This is Nutsworp.
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