A Conversation with Ambassador Ron Kirk on the TPP

Introduction:
James Kessler,
Senior Vice President for Policy
Third Way

Moderator:
Ed Gerwin,
Senior Fellow for Trade and Global Economic Policy,
Third Way

Featured Speakers:
USTR Ambassador Ron Kirk;
Drew Greenblatt,
President,
Marlin Steel Wire Products LLC

Date: Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Transcript by
Federal News Service
Washington, D.C.

JAMES KESSLER: Well, good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us this morning, and we have no fiscal cliff news, unfortunately, to report, but we are very, very pleased to have joining us this morning Ambassador Kirk, who is a great friend of Third Way, a great friend of – having rules-based, fair trade for America, creating growth and opportunity for – all across the country for middle-class Americans. Let me quickly go through the road map for the morning. I’m going to first turn it over to Ed Gerwin, who is our senior fellow for trade. Most of you know Ed, so I don’t need to say this, but I’ll say this anyway; he’s really a gem in this town – knows more about trade than just about any human being alive, and is passionate about it.

Then he will say a few things about what Third Way is doing. We will introduce Ambassador Kirk, Ambassador Kirk will take a few minutes and give some remarks, and then we’re going to open it up for some questions. So with that, let me turn it over to Ed Gerwin.

ED GERWIN: Well, thank you very much, Jim, and good morning, everyone. There are two really big numbers that illustrate the promise of Asia-Pacific trade for the United States. The first big number is one billion; that’s the number of new middle-class consumers who are going to be joining the Asia-Pacific economy by the year 2020. These are going to be folks who have the financial means to buy the kinds of products and services that we make here in America. They’re going to be flying on Boeing jets, they’ll be eating our burgers and they’ll be doing banking with American companies. So that’s the first big number.

Second big number – 10 trillion (dollars). 10 trillion (dollars) is Third Way’s estimate of the value of trade into East Asia in the year 2020. Now, even in Washington, 10 trillion (dollars) is a big, big number. It represents two-thirds of the value of our current American economy. Now, we at Third Way believe that this opportunity in Asia can be a big driver of prosperity here in the United States, and we also believe that if we’re going to tap into this Asian opportunity, we need to do new market-opening trade deals like the TPP.

But we also know here that not every American gets it when it comes to trade. We know from our research that if we are to reach out to these Americans and convince them of the benefits of global engagement, we’ve got to do things like emphasize important American values, things like opportunity and fairness. And we really have to make the case that trade works for regular Americans in communities throughout the United States, and that’s why we’re so glad to have Ambassador Kirk here today and all of you to have a broader conversation about the broader benefits that TPP and other ways of engaging in trade can provide throughout the United States.

Now, I’d just like to take a brief minute to talk about one of Third Way’s most recent reports in the area of trade. Our report is entitled, “America Makes…Will Asia Take?” And it’s actually a riff on a sign that’s on a bridge in Trenton, New Jersey, which is, “Trenton makes, the world takes.” But what we’ve done in our report is, we’ve used both data and stories to show why a growing Asia increasingly wants the very, very products that the United States is so good at producing. So from cars to food to finance to health care and heavy equipment, we have tremendous opportunities in the Asia-Pacific, but at the same time, we’re not going to be able to take advantage of those opportunities if we don’t break down the many barriers that still exist, and that’s why trade deals like the TPP are so vitally important.

Now, we’ll be doing other reports in the future because we are engaged here at Third Way in a multiyear effort to make the case that expanding American trade with Asia-Pacific countries is important to our economy and is so important to good American jobs, and we look forward to working with all of you to make the case that expanded trade is so important for America winning the competition for opportunity in Asia.

I’d like to turn now to Ambassador Kirk, our special guest. As all of you know, Ambassador Kirk is President Obama’s chief adviser, chief negotiator and chief spokesman on issues of international trade. Most of you probably also know that Ambassador Kirk was a very successful two-term mayor of Dallas, that he was a top official in the Texas state government and that he was a top partner in a major American law firm. What some of you may know is that this year is the 50th anniversary of the USTR. When historians look back and write the history of the first 50 years of USTR, they are certainly going to find that Ambassador Kirk has been one of the most effective, important and impactful USTRs.

AMBASSADOR RON KIRK: You did say “effective,” not “defective?” (Laughter.) I just want to – I just want to make sure.

MR. GERWIN: Widely – we’ll make sure the transcript relates – we’ll certainly make sure that the transcript has an E rather than a D, sir. (Laughter.)

AMB. KIRK: Just checking.

MR. GERWIN: But Ambassador Kirk, you have shepherded through two very, very important trade agreements in an incredibly difficult political –

MR. : Three.

MR. : Three.

MR. GERWIN: Three – excuse me – sorry.

MR. : Four.

MR. : (Off mic) – three.

(Laughter.)

MR. GERWIN: You’re not – that I’m counting –

MS. : (Off mic.)

MR. GERWIN: No. (Laughter.)

MR. : Well, I’ve got this from here. (Laughter.)

MR. : You’ve got it – you can take it –

MR. : You’re being really – (inaudible) –

MR. GERWIN: Anyway, we are – you’ve done many other important things that I think will establish an incredibly strong legacy as the USTR. Look, we’re honored to have you here; we have been honored to work with you to show that trade can work for all Americans, and we’re really interested in what you have to say to us tonight. Thank you, sir.

AMB. KIRK: Thank you. No, Ed, thank you so much. Jim, thanks to you and the Third Way family for your early reaching out to me in my tenure as a voice at least in democratic, you know, circles that was bullish on trade, but at least willing to attack head on a lot of the fears and a lot of the anxieties that a lot of Americans had about trade. And a lot of the research, a lot of the work, the advocacy you all have done I do think has helped us set the stage that we could – however you look back on my tenure as USTR, I think celebrate a lot of the good work that we’ve done work together. And I tease Ed a lot, but Ed is really one of the good thinkers in this business, and we appreciate the work that you’ve done as well as our friends over at Peterson.

I also want to thank my team; I know you all know Carol Guthrie, who is our communications director – came to me from years in the Senate and had the unenviable task of taking a mayor that could best be described as a bull in a china shop and trying to rein me in and help me understand – (laughs) – the nuances of this trade world, and it’s been an interesting role for her to travel, but we’ve done a lot of good work together.

I don’t know if you all have met Tiffany Enoch, who has been around the world of intergovernmental relations – (laughter) – for a while, with USTR as an infant, and then State stole her. And then, as I like to tease other members of the Cabinet, that USTR really is a sanctuary for abused former State, Commerce, Ag – (laughter) – staff, and then we bring them back and love them and get them back (home ?). But we’re glad to have Tiffany with us as well as other members of our team.

I’m going to – I’m going to – I’m going to do one thing – just a quick retrospective, because I do think it’s important, and that – at least in the four years now, people are looking – you know, we’re doing a little bit of valedictorian work as much as we are looking ahead. But I spoke to a group of – pretty big business group the other day, and somebody said, what are you most proud of during your tenure? And I reflected on my time as mayor, and I think it’s too easy to look at this and say, well, boy, he passed three trade agreements – two trade agreements, Russia and – to me, that’s not what I’m most proud of. What I’m most proud of is those first two years when you all were all banging on me, wondering, when you all are going to do something? When are you going to do these trade agreements? Does Obama have a trade agreement? Why are you – why are you spending all your time going to Pittsburgh and Baltimore and all of those places? Why aren’t you in Geneva? And I tell people, what I’m most proud of is that at least this administration understood a couple of things.

One, we can’t have the kind of economy that creates the jobs Americans desperately want, that the United States is not only not engaged, but we aren’t leading in the world of global trade and global commerce. We know that. You just – that’s the truth. And the flipside of that and I think – as counterintuitive as it is for many Americans, the opportunity for us to grow our trade is probably bigger now than ever before for a lot of the reasons Ed hit on, but you all know. You’ve got all these consumers coming of age in Southeast Asia and India, Africa – now we’ve got a chance to sell them stuff.

But secondly, the president and I were critically concerned that we had done to trade what we’ve done to most issues in America – the debate about trade had just become so Balkanized that either you were a, trade is good and you didn’t understand it – just go pass the damn agreements – or if you raised any objection at all, we labeled you anti-trade and we just shut you off.

And the two camps were happy to just sit there and scream at each other, not understanding each other. And in the interim, that’s how I ended up with a drawer full of stalled trade agreements, because they weren’t going anywhere. And from day one, when we’d submitted our first trade policy statement, a lot of people looked at it and thought, that ain’t much of a statement. But we said, look – we’re going to be aggressive about opening markets, but we’re also going to be aggressive about enforcing our agreements, and we’ve got to get much more aggressive about explaining to the American people and our – and our stakeholders what we do and why we do, because people don’t understand it right now.

They think we’re just doing trade deals for the sake of doing them; they don’t see any rationale – no benefit to us, and it was reflected in research both Third Way have done and you all have often heard me often reference later – the survey I guess the Wall Street Journal did in concert with ABC News that 70 percent of Americans, when asked – when we came into office, 70 percent of Americans, when asked, has trade been good for America, said no. And their intuitive bias was that we were trading cheaper T-shirts and laptops, and the jobs were going elsewhere. That was not the kind of environment that we could have passed any trade agreement, much less three of them and done Russia and all of that.

And so I say that as proud as I am of the work we’ve done to pass the agreements, to get Russia in, which – and I’ve got to tell you, anybody that was involved in the China PNTR battle – I mean, I was still sitting in my office going, how the hell did we get 369 votes in the House with basically no objection and then 94 in the Senate, and – well, it’s because of all this other stuff we did. And I just say that whatever we do going forward, doesn’t matter, we’re – I imagine this group is a fairly pro-trade, get it done, but I say that – the part of Ed’s presentation – he sort of glossed over that collectively, our biggest challenge is how we engage and convince the American public we can win at this game now, because the voices against trade – now that we’ve done it, we’ve move forward – the good news, people believe it – but those on the other side have doubled down, and the chorus of anti-trade voices is getting bigger; it’s not getting smaller.

And in order for us to do something as complex, as dynamic, as far-reaching as this Trans-Pacific Partnership – and I’m going to spend a little less time on it, because I’m assuming you all know that – you’ve all been involved, but the real stumbling blocks to us getting this done aren’t as much the difficulty in negotiating with now 10 other countries. It’s trying to quiet some of the voices in America – (laughs) – that are saying, why the hell are you doing this? This is awful; this is the biggest giveaway, because this is a big opportunity for us to do a 21st century trade agreement that is smart, that deals with the barriers to trade that exist today that we’ve learned from manufacturers, retailers, small businesses, that aren’t necessarily tariffs – regulatory burdens, supply chains, all those issues you all have educated about. That part we can think through.

But we also need to make sure Americans understand that we are doing trade very differently than they perceive we did 20 years ago. We’re never going to have a trade agreement that doesn’t have the strongest labor, environmental, intellectual property rights. That ought to be a given, but Americans don’t understand that. You got to help us – help us educate our friends and neighbors. That’s part of the deal.

The big issue now is getting them to understand why we got to fight so hard for issues like intellectual property right and new-generation issues like cross-border data flows and different issues that affect the cloud and the whole issue of regulatory convergence, because those are the things that are going to enhance our competitiveness because if we can’t protect the innovation, then everything Drew Greenblatt has done that we bragged about over at his little company that he bought and saved by innovation – and he’s doing OK – then Drew’s out of business if we’re going to live in world where we just let everybody rip off his stuff or steal it.

And the debate about the proper level of intellectual property rights and privacy is a healthy one. We’ve been engaged in that. But protecting our innovation, our creativity is where America’s going to compete and win in the future. And that’s what we’re fighting for. That’s as much what we’re negotiating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership as anything.

The real value, for me, when I participate in Third Way, frankly, is what I hear from you all not you all listening to me. But I think you know, we are elevating – we’re trying to – in TPP at least challenge our partners. And you all would have been so – (inaudible) – President Obama was out – is out at ASEAN, I guess, two weeks ago in Cambodia. And he had a meeting at least with the six other Asian partners.

And he is masterfully more diplomatic than his trade ambassador, but he very artfully structured a conversation around the fact that the TPP members have created a little conundrum for ourselves, because we’ve all sold this as a next-generation, forward-thinking trade agreement, and that therefore we’ve got to elevate our level of aspiration a little bit. But this just can’t be sort of the lowest common denominator among the nine.

And that, at least for us in the United States, the reason such a diversity of people are excited about it is we tell them, we’re going to deal with next-generation stuff. We’re going to deal with all of the data issues and issues of state-owned enterprises being involved in government. And let’s get busy. We’ve made great progress.

I think you all know we literally are just finishing up – wrapping up our 15th round in Auckland, New Zealand. I’m not going to give you much report on that because they’ll be doing a press – forgive me for the time difference – but for the press, C.J. (sp) will give you all readout of the end press conference earlier today. That’ll be current about an hour from now.

And we are making good progress, but I will be honest, we’ve sort of done the low-hanging fruit. And there still are a lot of big issues left. And most of you can imagine what those are – around the proper levels of IP protections, whether or not we’re going to have an SOE chapter. We’re still struggling to get the right formula on rules of origin in textiles and some others. And now that we’ve got Mexico and Canada in on board, I mean, we basically are conducting 10 bilateral engagements at one time. But it’s worth it.

And I would say – I think we went from a world 18 years ago, when a lot of people kind of wondered why we did this to a year ago people began to think – you know, and no so much because Doha stalled in Geneva. People seriously began to look at this sort of being the best trade deal going. And we’re now in a world that you’ve got not only Thailand and other – Philippines and other APEC countries that are saying, look, hold me a spot at the table.

But since they’ve been so aggressive about it, Costa Rica, you know, saying the hell with being APEC, I want in. And most curiously, and I won’t name them, is the number of European Union member states that have sort of sidled up to us at cocktail parties and said when do you think y’all might open this up to non-APEC countries?

So this is something to get excited about, but the worst thing we can do is start patting ourselves on the back about how unique this is and get our eye off the ball of getting this done and trying to get it done in the timeframe that our leaders have set. So let me stop with that. I know you have lots of questions or comments. And I don’t know who – Jim, are you –

MR. GERWIN: I’ll take it from here, sir.

AMB. KIRK: OK.

MR. GERWIN: Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. I’d like to kick off our discussion with a few questions, both to Ambassador Kirk and to a number of our guests.

AMB. KIRK: And if we could, and for no offense – (inaudible) – can I take members from – questions from the participants? And, you know, depending on what time, we’ll do a little short press thing afterwards. But if I could have questions from the people – (inaudible) –

MR GERWIN: Yeah. And I’d to emphasize, I think as Ambassador Kirk mentioned, that what we’re talking about today in terms of your questions are the broader benefits of the TPP. If you all have technical questions about the negotiations, I know Carol and her team would be more than happy to set up meetings for you when the negotiators get back and even before that.

Mr. Ambassador, as I said, I have a few questions. I know you’re a graduate of the University of Texas. You went to law school there. And as you know, Texas and the big football schools are busily remaking college sports through this process of realignment. There are folks like me, who didn’t go to big football schools, who are really afraid that at the end of the day our schools are going to be on the outside looking in.

Something very similar is going on in the Asia-Pacific. You’ve got countries in that region who are very busily establishing new trade linkages with each other – in effect, realigning Asia-Pacific trade. And those who are on the outside are going to miss out on this big bonanza in the Asia-Pacific. Now, America’s always going to be a big player on the world stage, but I’d be interested in your thoughts on why it is so important that the United States be a driver of these high-standard deals, like the TPP.

AMB. KIRK: I thought I could go away to make a point, that was a pretty creative way to get there. (Laughter.) (Inaudible) – the big 12 – (inaudible) – anybody in, but yeah we’re about to –

MR. GERWIN: Well, we’d also be interested in your thoughts on college realignment too.

AMB. KIRK: Well, I will tell you what, I don’t know that I was ever prouder than when my youngest daughter, who’s about to graduate from the Tisch School in dance this year, and I – when she finished applying to colleges she sent me her common application. And she had to do one essay she submitted to everybody.

Like most parents, I was stunned when she actually quoted her father – (laughter) – you know, because I’m like – (inaudible) – you know? She was – but I guess if you say something 4(00) or 500 times – (laughter) – it has, you know, some change of sinking in. But she did. She said my father always taught my sister and I – one of his mantras is that a vision without a plan is hallucination. And my next step is that if you’ve got that plan, then you’ve got to have a plan and you got to fight for it and you’ve got to execute against it.

And so one, not discounting your question about other countries being left behind, for economies like the United States, that clearly see where our path is, we’ve got to have a plan to get there, we have to be willing to execute against that, and I would say our president is probably – has more of a bias towards multilateralism than anything else. It’s one of the reasons we, frankly, went through such a long deliberation to join the TPP, because I had to convince him and Larry Summers Doha wasn’t the place to – you know, to make that bet.

But our president is also what I define, more than anything, is – as a raging pragmatist. That, look, we’ve got to get our economy going; we got to create jobs. And we’re at a point that if somebody wants to dance with America, let’s dance. And if that’s in a bilateral deal – that’s why he said, go get Panama, Korea, Colombia done. It’s just too easy.

But we’ve also got this opportunity, while we wait to find a way to unlock the triggers on Doha, that at least here’s a group of countries within APEC that have collectively had this vision of this free trade agreement of the Asia-Pacific. And let’s get going. And I think what you’re going to find is that we are in a world now that we’re going to look for willing partners who share our values, share our commitment to trade liberalization. And those who are willing to dance with us, we’re going to be – we’re going to be ready to go to the dance.

Now, the other advantage is, unlike other configurations, the TPP has taken great pains to make – in our messaging and everything – to say, this is an open architecture. When we build this tree house, we’re not putting up a moat and a ford. When we build this tree house, we’re going to leave multiple ladders to say, you’re welcome to come on in. But we have made it plain, this is something you got to aspire to and it’s not something you going to sit around and wait for an invitation. Each country’s got to make their own judgment and then do what’s right for them.

But we are also keeping in mind lessons I’ve learned from businesses like – I keep picking on Drew, I know there are other small businesses that – doing 200 bilateral, plurilateral trade agreements may put a lot of pelts on the wall, but that just drives him nuts trying to figure out what the hell are the rules. So there is some advantage of trying to do things enough in mass to say, you know, Drew, here’s your portal to, whatever you said, a billion new consumers, 15 different economies and one set of rules.

That has great value because one of the areas where we’re going to see growth in our trade, frankly, is demystifying, making it simpler and easier for small businesses to be able to participate because the rate of participation of small businesses in trade in the U.S. lags behind most of the other developed world. We’re about a third of everybody else. So – anyway.

MR. GERWIN: Well, sir, just one really quick follow-up question on that. Some people are saying that the RCEP is China’s response – you know, the RCEP, for those of you who don’t know, is the new negotiation among the ASEAN countries and their six major trading partners. Some are saying that RCEP is China’s response to the TPP. How does the administration view the relationship between those two?

AMB. KIRK: You know, I’m not troubled by that. I mean, you know, now I will tell you, at my core, I am as competitive as hell. And so I think imitation as form of flattery. That’s fine. But I also think – it’s more that apparent to me, what it says is let’s get ours there. I mean, you all have been in business. And Susan (sp) I’ve met in a lot of lives. I was privileged to be on three corporate boards in the retail and CPG sector. And the once principle I took from that is first to market.

And so all I know is that if we do what we need to do and get TPP done, that is a huge value-added to our – for our own competitive interest. And if they want to do RCEP, fine. If other groups want to do other things – what I don’t want to do is have American businesses on the outside looking in while the rest of the world is doing deals.

But I also said something, if you remember, in my confirmation the one quote that got me in the most trouble was I said I didn’t have deal fever. And a lot of people didn’t understand that. Well, what does that mean? You don’t want to do trade? Well, I think just doing deals for the sake of doing deals is what got us in this problems where Americans didn’t understand what we’re doing. We want there to be a logic – a compelling, economic logic, job-creating sort of evident story to be told, and an ease of doing business that’s associated with everything we do.

And so I don’t begrudge them. We’re going to go forward on this. That’s why we’re having the conversations we are with the European Union. It’s why we’re so careful to try and to look and see what’s happening in the Middle East and North Africa, to see what we can’t do to bring some of the same lessons we learned to those countries once they shake out. So we’ve got a very forward-looking posture in terms of trade.

MR. GERWIN: Well, thank you, sir. Let me broaden the discussion now a little bit. I’ve got a couple of questions for two of our participants today who are here from small business. And I’d like to start with Drew Greenblatt. Drew is the president of Marlin Wire Steel Products. He’s up in Baltimore. And he has grown a very successful small manufacturing company, substantially because of the work you do in exporting.

Drew, I’d be very interested in your perspective on why it is important for small companies – and particularly manufacturing companies – to export, and why trade deals in the Asia-Pacific are so important to your business.

DREW GREENBLATT: Well, we’re thrilled that Ambassador Kirk and President Obama are pursuing TPP because it’s big. It grows – it gives us opportunities for new markets and new people to sell to. It’s intrinsic to the health of our company that we grow every year and we have more clients to sell to – more prospects to sell to. We’ve shipped containers to Australia in the past, but we think we will sell more if Ambassador Kirk powers this through. And we’re thrilled that this is such an emphasis of his.

You know, you were mentioning before about – (inaudible). Marlin Steel makes, Asia takes, OK? We make right now and we ship to Asia right now. We want to do more of it though, because when we do, we create more jobs in Baltimore City. And we don’t import anything. We export to 36 countries. But if you improve our tariff posture with these countries, we’ll sell more because we’ll be more competitive.

AMB. KIRK: All right, I’m going to be Drew – I’m being Drew’s mother sitting on the sideline. I’m going to brag a little bit. You bought the company when, less than –

MR. GREENBLATT: 1998.

AMB. KIRK: Yeah, but little more than 10 years ago. It was on its way out the door.

MR. GREENBLATT: Yes.

AMB. KIRK: Chinese company came in, basically –

MR. GREENBLATT: Commoditizing it.

AMB. KIRK: -- reverse engineered their stuff. He had a choice to go out of business. You went from – how many employees did you have after that downturn? You went down to –

MR. GREENBLATT: We had – got down to 16 – 15 employees.

AMB. KIRK: Now – how many do you have now?

MR. GREENBLATT: We have 36 now.

AMB. KIRK: And they’re growing and they’re doing lots of innovation, lots of stuff. But issues of protection, enforcement, law and tariffs, regulatory – really, really critical. And we need more companies like that.

MR. GREENBLATT: And if you improve the intellectual property protections, we’re going to be in a safer environment, we’re going to be more likely to prosper and thrive, and hire more local steel – unemployed steel workers in Baltimore City.

MR. GERWIN: Well great, well, thank you for sharing that with us, Drew.

AMB. KIRK: We’re proud of Drew. (Laughter.)

MR. GERWIN: I can tell you are – you are a proud Mama and Papa.

AMB. KIRK: Well – but I mean, one of the things I tell when I talk to Drew – and we’re very honest, and I’ll be – and I’m not beating on anybody – you know, with the rate of – just the rampant rate of counterfeiting and piracy – and it’s hard for us to see the rest of the world just thinks America’s so prosperous, you know, a little bit here and there, it’s not going to hurt you all. When if you’re making iPods, if you’re Boeing, you know, it’s – no company will admit it; they will factor in, you know, 5 percent of stuff walking out the door. But you’re a small business in Trenton, in Dallas, in California, and somebody steals your idea, those people are out of business, and we don’t see that. And so we caution them to literally go to markets where we have a trade agreement, where we’ve got a partner that respects intellectual property, where you’re less likely to be ripped off. And that’s one of the big barriers to small manufacturers, frankly, from getting in trade, just because it’s – you know, it’s just too much of a risk for them. Because it’s about the foreign proposition for them, and that’s why I keep harping on the need for us to really get this story out of why we need strong IP protection in these trade agreements.

MR. GERWIN: Well, let’s – with that, turn things over to John Saylor for a question. John is here from Los Alamos Technical Associates, and John, you were sharing with me before the event today how your company, which is an engineering and technical and scientific services company, has grown because you’ve been expanding your list of clients to include more and more global clients. As a small company and as a services company, can you share with us why Asia-Pacific trade, why the TPP, why global engagement is so important to you to grow and create good jobs here?

JOHN SAYLOR: Just – thank you, Ambassador Kirk, for coming today.

We’re about 300 employees, and we cover a wide range of services and (goods ?) that we manufacture. And I had worked on – on previous companies – worked in multinationals, and I’ve worked on the free trade agreements, and gone through the frustration of all of that, actually testified in front of Congress on a couple of things – which I’m going to point out now, which I’d like you to address. But one of the issues we came up with – and a new product that we had – I sat down, the first time I came to join the company was several years ago – and it was a control device for light rail systems that we use here in the United States, and I didn’t know what it was. They had a terminology for it – I’m not going to bore anybody with it right now – and I sat down and listened to it – God, have you guys ever thought about exporting this? And they go and, oh, can we? (Scattered laughter.) And I go and, there’s all kinds of programs out there, all kinds of opportunities, trade agreements, et cetera. So we hooked up with – and I mentioned – with U.S. Trade and Development, USTDA, grants, going to countries like that. So we went to – and we’ve been in India right now, with that, with a mass – with a whole rail system. If anybody’s aware of what the Indians are about to do with their entire rail system, just huge for both in passenger, light rail, and especially on the – on the cargo systems, and having nothing but moving containers in and out.

So – but one of the issues I had, and we found out – when you work for a multinational company, it’s not difficult to go to your management and talk about, we need to expand here, we need to expand there, we have an opportunity in this country. Yeah, they’re right on board. When you’re with a small company, and you said, you know, I think we need to go to just something as simple as doing something with Korea – or India was a big pull for us, and I’d had to convince them, and they go, well, I don’t know. And our nuclear side, our remediation work that we do – I brought in the Russians – well, we have a close thing; I’m so happy about PNTR, because I worked on that – but the issue on that was trying to say, this – for us to expand, it’s not going to be domestic. For us to expand is going to be international. The market is out there. That’s where our growth is going to come from. The Russian opportunity was huge, especially on the nuclear side, especially what we’re doing here and seeing with the problems they have there, and the Russians are closer. But there’s hesitation.

So my question to you, sir, is this: What are you doing – and this is the same thing I put to the congressional committees – about the educational factor, not outside the country, but internally inside the country? Because I’m also the chairman of the District Export Councils, and we have 1,300 companies across – 1,300 members across the country in 60 decks, and the biggest issues we have is going back and educating our management, educating people within our community. And I find that when you sit here and you talk about TPP, and we’re out in Leesburg, and we did that, and I go, for those – for those of us who know it, it’s easy. But you step outside that room, and you talk to them, they go, what are you talking about? You know, it’s hard enough to explain PNTR; it’s hard enough to say the China Trade Route. TPP is a whole different ballgame, because we’re going into another area we haven’t been to before. How are you doing? What is your approach of working within the states, of educating the small and medium-sized companies out there who this is a huge opportunity for them?

AMB. KIRK: Well, one, we’ve done – and thank you, and I love – I love to hear what you’re doing, and particularly in Russia and others – one, we are working with export councils through the president’s export initiative. We’re doing more work collaboratively with SBA, state groups, governors, mayors, to reach out to other partners, because we don’t – you know, we – all of us have (recourse source ?) constraints. So, one, we’re doing a better job doing that. We’re pushing more information out on the Internet. We’ve got a website through export.gov, specifically kind of with small businesses in mind, because their biggest complaint is just tell me where to go, don’t give me five websites, don’t tell me to call RAND for this, SBA for that. But we’re really trying to simplify that.

And then secondly, we’re really pushing businesses like – there’s nothing I can do to educate your employees more effectively than you. And you know, and there are, there are businesses, Mary Vermeer serves on the president’s export council, runs her family’s manufacturing business, and she now puts an export myth buster in every payroll check that her employees get. In every payroll check, she makes sure that they know this percentage of your money comes from the fact that we just sold 15 combines to Russia. (Inaudible.) You know, and I’ve talked to businesses, and used – and I appreciate your honesty – you know, and going, why are you not telling me? We just assume everybody knows. And you know my personality; I’m a mayor. I mean, we were in – everywhere we go, we do these business roundtables like this. Then we try to go visit a factory (we all like ?). And I also do like the roundtables.

So I’m in Washington, the most trade-dependent state in the country, and I’m meeting with the Boeing Aircraft manufacturers’ union, and they give me their required paper about trade is bad, because they have to. And I – you know, I love – I deal with it – you know, I’m like; you got to be kidding me. (Laughter.) You know, (you blanking blanking blank ?), if Boeing didn’t sell airplanes around the world, you’d be out of business. But we’ve just got to assume that our employees know nothing – you know, not in the sense that they’re incapable, but make sure that they understand – look, we’re building and we’re growing because we own America. That’s a good thing. We got America. But our future is going to be whether we can get into India, whether we can get in – and we have to make them understand that’s nothing to fear. But it’s going to take – I can’t do it; we’ve got 250 people. We do everything we can to push out more information on our website. One reasons I know Drew’s (sp) story, I just happened to believe as a mayor, it’s much more compelling if people go on my website, and the first thing is trading for small business, but if they go on the website and look up Baltimore, and pull up Marlin Steel and see a film – (inaudible) – of Drew Greenblatt talking about how he’s going – or your company – they will believe that. They’re not going to – you know, they just think that’s my job.

So I would only flip it to say, what can you do to help us get that message out? Because we’re doing everything through SBA, we’re educating, the president had asked for more money for training for small businesses, educating about it – in terms of our friends and neighbors, they’ve got to hear it from us. And Americans are skeptical about it. They just are, because they feel like, we heard all this before, and it’s too easy for people to believe, yeah, all the jobs are going to China, India, somewhere else, and they just don’t believe we’re doing it here.

MR. SAYLOR: I’d like to just follow up with that. I know a lot of people have questions here; I’ll make it short. I’m the former state commissioner for the Ports of Virginia, and one of the things that Port Authority’s done, and I’m sure they do this in Baltimore, as well, is we keep track and have the track of what’s coming in, what’s going out and who the companies are, and the amount of exports that are coming out of the state, the – I can tell you, just for the state of Virginia alone, the exports out here, it’s so important to the economy of the state. But when you look at what – how many jobs are derived that comes out of the port, it’s out of – one out of every 10 jobs in the state has something – some connection to the Port of Virginia. Frank Wolf and I have spent a lot of time talking about issues – that we have an inland port up in Front Royal which wasn’t there back when I – and that was built to handle international trade to manufacturing facilities that go out there; it’s created a tremendous amount of jobs.

Here at Dulles airport – so the amount of exports and the warehouses, and the international operations, the amount of jobs are there – so what I’m saying is that we use that when we’re out – especially on our district exports councils – and we’re having our meetings, and meeting with the local community like that is – these are in our neighborhood. This is right here in our state. We have the port, we have the airport, we have the inland port like this. These all create jobs. These jobs were not here if we didn’t have the exports, if we didn’t have the international trade.

AMB. KIRK: But –

MR. SAYLOR: And that’s just what I see that I see that needs to be spread around to the rest of the country.

AMB. KIRK: We’ve been meeting with the port, so I’ve learned more, but I mean, it’s – but the other thing we have to be careful to do is not create a world that all exports – all exports are great; that’s easy. All imports are bad. Because if I’m a dock worker, I’m working whether I’m loading or unloading.

MR. SAYLOR: That’s true.

AMB. KIRK: And not all imports are bad, you know? A bunch of imports, you couldn’t make all of what you do, because, you know, we’ve got to get – we’ve got to source materials and raw materials and component parts from around the world. And so for a lot of our manufacturers, you can’t make what you make if you are importing –

MR. SAYLOR: Well, look at the strike – look at – look at the – no –

AMB. KIRK: – so one thing we have to do is be careful to not just sort of self-singularly focus on exports, if we create a presumption that all exports are bad. And it raises the other issue, now that we’re through the campaign, the people do need to realize, one way to get our economy going is to focus on necessary infrastructure. You talk about the port of – I’ve been to the Port of Virginia, the Port of Baltimore, the Port of – every port you could imagine. Two of our ports are prepared for the fact that the Panama Canal’s going to double capacity of ships that can come through there, and the rest of them are all sitting around, waiting on the federal government to write a check.

We have $9 billion worth of exports sitting in barges that they can’t get down the Mississippi River right now because of the drought – which we haven’t talked about, but Tom Vilsack – our farm economy’s done great – this was the second-worst drought since the Dust Bowl in 1933. This was a horrible drought. The Mississippi River’s such – is at such a low level right now, that if something dramatic doesn’t happen, they’re saying about January, you’re going to have almost $10 billion of goods that aren’t going to be able to get down that Mississippi to ports that we can go sell. The need for us to look holistically at all the infrastructure around trade is critical. And that’s ports, that’s education of our businesses, that’s all of it. Because it won’t do us any good to go negotiate on all these trade agreements if we don’t have the capacity to get these goods to our customers.

MR. SAYLOR: I had – one question, I was going to mention is the thing about the strike, recent longshoremen’s strike in Los Angeles, Long Beach – if – if anybody was watching that – I know everybody else here was – but outside that, and the importance of what shutting that port down for 10 days – how much it costs the economy, and the effect it had, the ripple effect like that – that’s all trade related.

AMB. KIRK: Billion dollars a day.

MR. GERWIN: Well, Drew, thank you very much, and I just wanted to say, you are definitely preaching to the choir when you – when you talked to Ambassador Kirk about this –

MR. GREENBLATT (?): It was John. (Inaudible.) (Chuckles.)

MR. GERWIN: I’m sorry, John –

MR. SAYLOR: That’s OK. We work together. (Chuckles.)

MR. GERWIN: – but also to us at Third Way, because we also believe very strongly that the one really important thing to do is to convince Americans that trade is very important, and everything should flow from that.

If we can now, let me open things up for questions from our other participants here. If you could identify yourselves and your affiliation, we would appreciate that very much.

Rob?

Q: And if I could just do a little advertising – to pick up on ambassador’s comment there about intermediate goods – I mean, I think that that’s something that is important for – it’s really one of the harder parts to educate people, in terms of the way companies are doing business now. And just a note that last week, U.S. Council for International Business, which I represent, and the business roundtable jointly put out a report by Professor Matt Slaughter from Dartmouth, that talks about, you know, the reason that companies – American companies – have to be doing business overseas, and how they do it. And now, more and more, they develop products or offer services that, as you said, pull in intermediate goods from around the world. So it’s not just export, import, it’s all part of the process, that they bring goods in, they export them back out, everything – and that their policies are needed to try to make sure that there’s more flexibility for companies to be able to succeed in this globally, you know, competitive environment. So I just wanted to just flag that. And I actually have a copy right here, if you have the – (laughter) –

AMB. KIRK: Imagine that.

Q: – (inaudible) – (laughter) – but I would also follow up with a question – just in terms of, you were talking about the multilateral system here. Do you see TPP change the dynamic in Geneva in terms of the WTO, and like, that stuff?

AMB. KIRK: I am sort of new to the world of trade technician work. I mean, I came to this from a mayor – purely from an advocacy standpoint. But if you believe – there are some people that believe the United States doing NAFTA and a couple other deals at the time sort of were the key to unlocking the Uruguay round. You know, doing things in Geneva necessarily gives weight to the smaller powers that if I don’t get what I want, I’ll hold everybody up. But I’d like to believe a lot of what we’re doing in – the genius of TPP is that at least we know a lot of what we’re doing will easily flow and be fed into the broader APEC region. And I’ve got to believe a lot of those disciplines will either be copied, be mirrored and ultimately fed into the multilateral trading system.

But at the same time, we do understand, in Geneva, to some degree, you’re kind of working on the lowest-common-denominator platform. Not everybody wants to reach as far as we go. But the genius of TPP is that it says we shouldn’t be constrained if we want to do more. But there’s nothing that we’re doing that would prevent it from being bolted on, copied, used in a broader multilateral platform.

A lot of what we’re seeking to do, for example, in services liberalization – ITA – is complementary of what we’re doing in Geneva right now – trying to go ahead, for example, and go forward with, you know, an expanded ITA agreement or services agreement. A lot of what we’re doing in trade facilitation in Geneva is going to be mirrored and recognized – and we are trying to bring in economies like Vietnam and others that are very new to this. So I mean, there’s learnings (ph) – lessons to be learned both ways.

And the other big lesson we’re learning is that it’s – it – we’re increasingly come in in a world where it’s harder to say, are you a manufacture – (inaudible) – are you a services company, because for the most part, if you’re making a good and doing – half of your money now is the follow-on servicing of that product, when you’ve got to go and teach customers how to do – and then if you’re an innovate and a manufacturer, today’s manufacturing company is a services company. I don’t know that I could say the same, you know, for services, but we’re going to have to rethink those applications as well.

MR. GREENBLATT: Ambassador Kirk, Chuck runs a company that does exactly what you just described, which is doing that combo manufacturing and also services. And he’ll be greatly and positively impacted by the free trade agreements that you’re negotiating.

Q: So Ambassador, hi; Chuck Wetherington with BTE Technologies. We’re a manufacturer of health care products – medical devices. I first got to meet you – I was part of a round table at the Peterson Institute almost four years ago. And I do want to thank you for the consistency in which you have promoted the need to get the word out that this is an American public issue, that they’ve got to understand the value of trade.

When I was there, I talked about a specific issue that’s only grown for me. Then we were spending a little bit less than 15 percent of our engineering expenses on regulatory issues. Bought the company in 2000; we did zero exports. Today we’re doing 40 percent of our business in exports. We were 40 employees then; we’re 85 employees now. Four million (dollars) in revenue; 18 million (dollars) in revenue. So we’ve had a great story. But – and I come from big corporate America. I was GE and Black & Decker before I bought this tiny company. And I was so excited about the opportunity to be fleet of feet, fast to market and really rush things through.

But the regulatory environment that I’m working in now – not just U.S.; I’m talking about the lack of harmonization of standards, what medical devices has to go through in every single country. I feel like I’m running a hundred-yard dash pulling a plow.

AMB. KIRK: It’s crazy.

Q: I am now spending this year – 30 percent of my engineering budget is just on compliance. So – and the exciting thing about a multilateral deal is there is an opportunity to do a lot at once, as opposed to a bunch of individual (rifle shots ?). I might – it’s not a question; it’s a plea. (Laughter.) Please keep going; I’m in your corner.

AMB. KIRK: No, look, I have – I had – one of your colleagues brought us an example, and it was true, and I won’t – that one of our countries literally defines a Band-Aid as a medical device.

Q: Absolutely.

AMB. KIRK: I mean, just – and it’s stupid. (Chuckles.) (Laughter.) And it’s all for competitive reasons. But those are the sort of things – and I’ll be honest, Chuck. The regulatory work we talk about doesn’t get – that’s really the hard stuff, because it isn’t the tariffs and things anymore. And those are the things that’ll make any business just throw up their hands and say – but particularly a small to medium-sized business – I can’t figure out 18 different countries’ stuff. So we hear you.

And I will also say, just for the benefit of all of you, because we do a lot of these White House Business Roundtables – the one message we’ve heard from everybody is whatever happens – and I would say, I think – I mean, the fiscal cliff’s going to get solved. But you know, there’s – (inaudible) – saying that you waste a good crisis. That’s a – but if we do fiscal cliff and we really don’t have a serious – not just a conversation – start putting in place some formulas about the issues of tax reform and regulation , we would have missed a huge opportunity – because we do hear that a lot. So I will pre-emptively –

Q: Thank you.

MR. GERWIN: Well, we have time for a couple more questions from our stakeholder participants.

Q: Hi, I’m Debra Marks with IBM. Thank you, Ambassador, for coming; really appreciate it. And thank you for mentioning the 21st-century issues like the data flows, which is really important to big companies like IBM but small companies, too. It’s really important for international business.

I liked your quote about having a vision without a plan is a hallucination. So I’d really like to ask you what is the plan for closing TPP, for making it – to bringing it to a conclusion? And this is something that Mike Froman said last week: This is a deal that doesn’t get any better with age. (Scattered laughter.) So we know that. And we’re – you know, we’re coming up to some crucial, I guess, milestones coming up in 2013.

So – and then my last point is, like, do – in order to close this big of a deal, do we need to get the president more closely involved? Do we need President Obama’s imprimatur to come forward and really work on – you know, roll up the sleeves and get involved?

AMB. KIRK: OK. Well, just in fairness, because I tend to not be brief in my responses, you said – was there one more question? (Inaudible) – take both of those, and then I’ll – (inaudible) – but then that’ll be the last – oh, yeah.

MS. : Actually –

Q: Ambassador, thanks for doing this. Quick question in terms of the election results for the Spanish community. We tend to look at TPP as an Asia-Pacific but Asia first initiative, for all the right reasons. But it also includes three countries of Latin America. And you’ve also mentioned Costa Rica; you’ve mentioned Panama in terms of its – (inaudible) – didn’t mention Colombia; we could add that.

The question is: Is there an opportunity here with the election results – with the found voice of the Hispanic community, which is very appropriate – to perhaps balance the scales a little bit more toward Latin America, toward the Western Hemisphere? I think that would be something that we’d be interested to hear – (inaudible).

AMB. KIRK: Well, first of all, Eric (sp), thank you and the council for helping us out at our last round table.

I would say one of the reasons – (inaudible) – well, I’ll be (careful ?) – one of the real value-addeds, frankly, to Mexico joining TPP is Chile and Peru don’t feel quite so isolated. And it is – you know, it is easy for us to get into easy speak, and we do. We say Southeast Asia, Pacific, and we forget the Asian economy includes Latin America, and that’s a big part. And one of the, you know, core founders of TPP was Chile. So now having Chile, Peru, Mexico, with Costa Rica being excited – it really gives it a balanced flavor to it. They don’t feel so – oh, you’re just doing, you know, us to skip over us to get to Vietnam and the rest of the world. So one, that adds a balance to the initial 11, I think, that wasn’t there. And that’s critically important.

And Mexico, which – you know, again, in our law firm, I used to – (inaudible) – remember it was a commercial about a firm that was in trouble. And the boss brought everybody in and said, you know, Susan, you’re going to see this guy, and you’re going to see this. (Inaudible) – says, well, who’s going to see our best customers? He says, we are. You know, and you always lose – so don’t ever take your best customer for granted. And – (inaudible) – dynamic as old as hills – Canada and Mexico still our number-one trading partners, and by a huge margin. And our exports to Mexico are actually going up. I mean, this is a billion-and-a-half dollar relationship every day of the year. So that’s important. It also gives us the advantage of a great way to sort of modernize – bring NAFTA into a 21st-century agreement.

I think we get it closed – and this’ll go a little bit into Debra’s point – I can’t imagine, with all of the – back to your point – the different configurations of – (inaudible) – and FTA of the Americas – you know, we aren’t – we just need to be – there are some places United States needs to be quiet. But if we can get this done – and whether you’re a South America, Southeast Asia economy, and you’re looking for a way to jump-start your economy, I think TPP’s going to be sitting there saying – you know, with the lights flashing – we’re open. You know? (Chuckles.) TPP, you know, saying so.

Debra, I don’t know that I could publicly share my vision for getting this thing closed. It looks too much like the table scene in the movie “The Untouchables,” with Robert De Niro – (laughter) – walking around the table with that baseball bat. (Laughter.) So I’m not – but I mean, I’m just saying, that’s one way to get it – (inaudible). (Laughter.) But that’s – (chuckles) – yeah, I know. C.J. (ph), I have to give you – if I don’t give you one movie reference to – (inaudible) –

MR. GERWIN: We know – we know the headlines from today’s event. (Laughter.)

AMB. KIRK: No, teamwork, teamwork. (Laughter.) Look, it’s going to – at some point – and you’ve all done – look, you’ve all done deals. The hard stuff gets done last. You know, the good thing for us is the United States is very much helping to drive this debate. The bad thing for us is we’re the – you know, there’s challenges that come from being, you know, the 800-pound gorilla. It’s – we’re the demander on most of this stuff. It’s real easy for the nine of them to look at us and go, oh, we’re small; we’re – (inaudible) – come on, give us a break. But we know that. We’ve been there. We’ve got a great team of negotiators.

Debra, I would tell you the president is wonderfully engaged in this. And every forum, whether it’s APEC, G-20, ASEAN, we meet – and I love reminding, you know, especially my Republican friends, who find it real easy to – (inaudible) – you know, and they are – they are great. And they always go, well, Kirk, we love you. You’re the good – as if I’m the only trade guy in the administration. (Scattered laughter.) You’re the good guy, but you’re working against – (inaudible) – I go, no, I don’t; I work for the president. Everything I do has the – (inaudible) – of President Obama. I mean, we would not have done any of these trade agreements – (inaudible) – Russia, had the president not sat down with the president of Korea, with President Santos, with President Medvedev at the time, and say, if this is important, we’re going to get it done; now, Kirk, go get it done.

And so just as he did in ASEAN when he meet, we made the decision to do this. We announced it deliberately at APEC two years ago. And he has put his mark on this. And he has credentialed how important it is to our economy. And so I don’t – you know, at this stage, I think we’re not to the point to say, oh, the leaders have to get involved. But negotiators know what’s before us. And we’ve got a great team working together, and that team includes many of you, because we’re not closing this without the strong support of the business community. And we need you all to help, because – especially you multinationals – you are the ones that can go to these other countries where you have jobs and say, look, this is important.

So the next 12 months are going to be critical. But we’re committed to doing everything we can to try to bring this to closure.

Q: We are, too.

MS. : Yep.

Q: Thank you so much.

MR. GERWIN: Well, we have time for two very quick questions from the press. And please, if you could refrain from follow-ups –

AMB. KIRK: Well, they’re quiet. The press is – (laughter) – they don’t –

MR. GERWIN: Eric (ph)?

Q: I’ll go first. I’m Matt from Inside U.S. Trade.

MR. : Oh, I’m sorry.

Q: Thank you for the opportunity. Ambassador Kirk, I just want to follow up on the question that was asked about the path forward for TPP. As most people know, the leaders, or at least some of the TPP leaders, have set the goal of October – the APEC meeting in October as kind of the goal for concluding the talks. But the U.S. still has several outstanding proposals that it still has to make in what I know are kind of sensitive areas – on drug patents and also sanitary – (inaudible) – sanitary chapter and also possibly the tobacco proposal.

Do you have – can you give us any idea of when the U.S. would expect to table those so we can, you know, have everything on the table and then – and then move towards conclusion of the deal? And at what point does it – does it hinder the process, not having all of the U.S. proposals on the table?

And the second thing, if I could just put it in there, is – (laughter) –

MS. : No, no, no, no, no. (Chuckles.)

Q: OK. (Laughter.) Had to try; I had –

AMB. KIRK: (Inaudible) – if I cannot answer that one, I cannot answer the next one. So – (laughter) – it doesn’t matter; go ahead. Some – I mean, look, we know what the issues are. And we’ve got a plan to get all of our issues on the table as well – (inaudible) – other economies. And we understand at least the stretch goal to try to get this done next year. And that’s one of the reasons we keep stressing on our other partners that we can’t keep putting off all of the hard issues till later.

But it’s a negotiation. It will be very difficult to close, but we’ve done it before. We’ve done it in the individual agreements, and we’re confident we can work through these remaining issues and get a good deal.

But the other thing we’ve demonstrated from the U.S. is we won’t take a deal that doesn’t meet the aspirations that we’ve set out for Congress and the American public. We want this; we badly want this. But it’s got to meet our test of being a high-standard, next-generation trade agreement.

MR. GERWIN: One more quick question?

AMB. KIRK: There.

Q: Thank you. Ambassador Kirk, at what point in the coming year do you think you’ll need trade promotional authority? Do you – do you feel that you need it to complete TPP, or could you get the TPP deal done first and then ask for – (off mic)?

AMB. KIRK: In the strictest legal sense, you don’t have to have it to negotiate. But we want to have trade promotion authority. I think this – now, I’m speaking as a trade rep – this president should have it. And we’ve begun very, you know, quiet conversations with members of Congress – what should be in that, what it should look like. You know, are we going to do it TPP-specific? Are we going to do it broad enough to encompass other things we’ll do? But we’ll be having those conversations. And some point, obviously, we will address that.

But I – one of the things I feel best about is clearly, I think, we’ve demonstrated – if you look at the continuum of how we moved all (three ?) trade agreements, trade adjustment assistance and PNTR – that at least we’ve moved to a point that we’ve got, I think, a strong relations with our committees of jurisdictions, our stakeholders in Congress, and that we can come up with a template that when we get it, we will be able to move it through Congress pretty quickly.

And what I’ve said to my colleagues – I think we’ve proven to anybody sitting on the sidelines saying, oh, we shouldn’t negotiate because you don’t have – you know, when Korea got the largest vote of any trade agreement in history in the Senate – you look at the vote we just got for PNTR on Russia, that’s a pretty effective statement to our partners United States is serious. And what I’ve told them – there’s never the right time to take a bad deal to our Congress. But you give us something that we can stand up, and this president and the manufacturers and the farmers and small businesses can say we embrace, I think we’ve proven it’ll move. So we’ll have that conversation.

MR. GERWIN: Well, thank you, sir. I actually have one quick question for you. (Scattered laughter.) You’re committed to openness and transparency. (Scattered laughter.) You also believe it’s very important that our trading partners –

AMB. KIRK: Why is it always that last question? (Chuckles, laughter.)

MR. GERWIN: No, no, no. No. You also know that our trading partners have to follow the rules. You recently played golf with President Obama and President Clinton. Does your transparency extend to golf, and who is the more rules-based golfer of the two? (Laughter.)

AMB. KIRK: Any time you’re playing with two presidents – or as one of my – (chuckles) – one of my friends actually tweeted me very early: Wow, you’re playing with the first two black presidents. (Laughter.) Any time I’m playing with President Obama, it’s a victory. (Chuckles.) So we had a great game. It was great fun. And I will tell you, President Obama spectacularly played his best round of golf. (Laughter.)

MR. GERWIN: Well, we know we’d get a diplomatic answer from you. (Laughter.) You’re a consummate diplomat. Please join me, everyone, in thanking Ambassador Kirk. (Applause.)

(END)