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A
I'm Scott.
B
I'm Bill. And we're the Trade Guys.
C
You're listening to the Trade Guys, a podcast produced by CSIS where we talk about trade in terms that everyone can understand. I'm Alex Kisling, and I'm here with Scott Miller and Bill Reinsch, the CSIS Trade Guys. Thanks for listening to the Trade Guys. On today's episode, the Trade Guys give an update on the USMCA review, whether or not we're seeing a real thaw in US China trade relations. And now that Congress is back in session, what to expect from Capitol Hill on tariff policy. All that and more on today's Trade Guys.
B
Well, hello, everybody. This is trade Guy Bill opening up today because I want to introduce all of you to our new moderator. After an extensive detailed global, worldwide search, we've ended up back in the building. And I'm delighted to introduce you to Alex Kisling, who is going to be our moderator going forward. He is in his real job, Andrew's successor as chief Communications Officer. Previously, he was Andrew's deputy. So we haven't strayed far from our roots in bringing in Alex. He began his career on Capitol Hill, worked at several leading public affairs firms, and at one of our competitors, the Atlantic Council. We don't talk about that very much.
C
Don't hold it against me.
B
Oh, no, I won't hold that against you. But what I can hold against you is that he's proud of the fact that he's a native of Cincinnati, which I'm sure will make Scott happy. But from my standpoint, it pales in comparison to Chicago. But, you know, if you two guys want to brag about Cincinnati and talk about their football team, I mean, I'm not going to talk about the Bears. So, you know, know, go for it. With the Bengals, we don't have much.
C
To talk about with the 3 and 6 Cincinnati Bengals. Bill and as I told you and Scott, if we want to have a whole episode dedicated to bad trade policy, we can talk about the Bengals front office.
B
Well, I think that. No comment from me on that.
A
It's a fine place to be from. It's still the queen city of the west and lovely place. And it's the headquarters of my former employer, Archer and Gamble, Arthur and Gamble, which was founded there in 1837.
C
And.
A
And so we've had a good run in Cincinnati. I actually always know when Alex is calling me because I recognize the 513 area code.
C
513. I refuse to let go of that area code.
A
It's a trip down memory lane for me every time Alex calls.
C
Well, it's great to be with you guys. I'm humbled to be part of the trade guys and looking forward to all the conversations ahead. I will say the talk of the Bengals is a little bleak. So let's start with something lighter today. Usmca. It's been a while since the trade guys has checked in on usmca, and we're now staring down this four formal review of the agreement scheduled for next July. That's the six year mark of the agreement when the United States, Canada and Mexico are supposed to sit down and assess the state of the agreement and what comes next. So, Scott, as we get into this review, what's actually on the table here and how is each country approaching the review?
A
Sure. Look, a lot of trade agreements do get reviewed formally or somewhat informally over their lifespan. The original NAFTA had a working group, what they called a Free Trade Committee, which was made up of the three trade ministers from Mexico, Canada, and then the USTR from the US and they met annually to basically review progress, tee up issues that were problems. And so did it with a relatively formal basis. In this case, when NAFTA became usmaca, as we love to call it, there was a much more structured and formal review put in place at year six, literally a renegotiation commitment in the concluding chapters. So that's new and we'll see how it goes. Usually these reviews, they're somewhat anadia because they cover either the old issues that nobody's been able to solve, like softwood lumber, or the Canadian supply managed agricultural products like dairy and poultry, or many US similarly sensitive issues. But it also reaches into new issues on occasion, so it can be interesting. I think this time I'm expecting President Trump to use the opportunity. One of the things I've noticed about President Trump's style of setting priorities is he always thinks geographically as an old real estate guy, you know, location, location, location, and he'll think, what are the geographic endowments and how can I get the most out of it? So I would be amazed if there weren't a big discussion of critical minerals, given the huge share of the earth's crust that Canada has.
C
Yeah.
A
And their longtime expertise in mineral production. Same with Mexico, is another candidate for the kinds of things that the president and his team see the US Would like to get from its close partners. But overall, look, we're now almost 40 years since the U.S. canada Free Trade Agreement entered into force in 1988. And so there are a lot of old Habits, which are good habits, which is we make things together and we sell them to each other in the world. And the US And Canada and Mexico do that in a very quiet but efficient way. And there's a whole lot worth preserving in the nafta, and it was preserved in usmca. So we'll see what happens.
C
Bill, what's your take and what's Trump's calculus here?
B
Well, first, it's got to be one of the most complicated review mechanisms that I've seen. The agreement as structured is supposed to last for 16 years, which would be 2036, with reviews like the one Scott just talked about every six years. So the one next year is the first one. Essentially, when they meet, they'll have four options. They can extend the agreement with any changes they want to make, which means it'll be good for another 16 years. And the six year interval reviews will start again. So there will be one again. The next one will be in 2032. They can decide not to extend the agreement, meaning somebody can object. And at that point, the interesting thing about it is that from a business standpoint, nothing happens. The agreement continues in effect for 10 more years anyway. The only thing that happens is that each year and every year of those 10, the three countries have to meet again to discuss continuing the agreement. So it may well be that, you know, by the 8th or 9th year, out of exhaustion, they give up and decide that they want to extend it. If they do, at any point, then the 16 year cycle starts all over again. There are two other options, though, that are less talked about. One is that somebody could pull out, you know, and end the thing. Trump will probably threaten that at some point. He's threatened it on multiple occasions before in his first term. He never did it. And it is, in fact, one of his signature accomplishments from his first term. But that hasn't stopped him. He's publicly mused that perhaps it's time is gone and we don't need to have this kind of agreement anymore. So, you know, I think pulling out is more likely to be a threat than something that he'll actually do. But the fourth option is a little bit more likely. I think he's talked about it and U.S. trade Representative Jameson Greer has talked about it, which is to dump the trilateral agreement and have two bilateral agreements, U.S. canada, U.S. mexico, and presumably Canada Mexico. If they want to do that, that would not be our business. Trump likes bilaterals because it means the other guys can't gang up on us and we're usually the bigger country In a bilateral, we certainly would be in this context. And he thinks it's easier to push the other guys around. So he prefers bilaterals and understands, I think, that we have issues with both Canada and Mexico, but they're not the same. And I think he's sympathetic to the idea that it might be easier to win if we take them on each separately. So we'll see about that. Getting back to your actual question, I think his primary objective is to prevent Mexico from being a backdoor for China and. And that is, you know, deterring them from either trans shipping things through Mexico or Canada for that matter, or starting up production in Mexico or Canada using mostly Chinese parts and components and then shipping them into the United States as Mexican products with the duty benefits that go along with that. He's been nervous about that. And the demands have started small. The easiest one, demanding that Mexico have a CFIUS process that is a process to review and if necessary, block inbound investment. We have one, Canada has one. Mexico does not have one. The Mexicans promised Biden that they would do that, and they haven't. So it's a legitimate requirement, and you're going to see that one spread all over the place. And I also think this is an area where the countries can find common ground. Chinese investment in Mexico has been a mixed bag for the Mexicans. And if you looked at the mood of President Chanbau's predecessor, Amlo, he was kind of hot and cold on Chinese investment, depending on what week it was. Sometimes he welcomed it, sometimes he threw them out of the country. It's not immediately clear that they always bring in a huge amount of job creation, and sometimes it's job displacement, as I think the Mexicans have said, it would probably occur in the auto industry. So I think it's an area where there could be agreement, actually. And I don't view it as a deal breaking demand by the Americans. You know, beyond that, there's the things that Scott alluded to. We've got a boatload of grievances all against each other. I mean, Mexico and Canada have grievances against us. We have grievances against both of them. Mexico has grievances against Canada and vice versa.
C
Well, that begs the question of, you know, what do the Canadians and Mexicans want out of this? We know have a sense kind of of what Trump would want out of this, but I mean, what are they bringing to the table?
B
I think survival. I think they just want to keep the agreement intact without further punishment. I mean, they'd love to keep their Existing barriers. Lumber, poultry, dairy. In the Mexican case, they'd like to get their winter vegetables into our country, they'd like to get our tomatoes into our country without dumping duties. And the larger issue we have with them right now is their energy policy, which we believe discriminates against American companies and against American investment. So I think they're looking for survival. I don't know, Scott, you got a better idea?
A
No, I think that's about right. It'll start off as like Festivus does, with an airing of grievances. So, you know, I got a lot of problems with you people is how essentially the negotiations start. But, you know, look, we, we, we know each other. We're each other's biggest trading partners. We've worked together for a long time. But as I said, there's so much that is mutually beneficial and completely off the radar in terms of integration between the U.S. canada and Mexico. It's unbelievable the extent to which the companies who do business in all three markets rely on their counterparts in the other countries. So nobody ever notices and never scores a dispute panel. But it's really important.
B
There was a debate for the more than 25 years of NAFTA over who won and who lost. American labor unions, and I think some civil society organizations in the United States are absolutely convinced that we lost. I think the economist's answer would be that everybody won. It was net job creating in all three countries. It was net growth promoting in all three countries. It was net trade promoting in all three countries. I think economists would also say that. Having said that, I think Mexico probably won more than the other two in terms of job creation and economic growth. And there clearly were individual companies or individual sectors that lost. When I was on the Hill, I worked on this with Senator Rockefeller, and my bottom line in briefing him on the subject was that was good for the country and bad for West Virginia. I mean, this was NAFTA I was talking about, and I think that turned out to be right. It was good for the country, but there were a lot of plant closings and West Virginia was hit hard. We're over most of that now, not all of it. So I think net, it's been good. But there will be debate about that, you know, and people trying to gain further advantage. So we'll see how many of these intractable issues could really be tackled. I mean, we've been arguing with the Canadians about lumber for 40 years without much success. We've been arguing with our dairy policy for almost that long. I once had lunch with the Canadian Embassy guy who did agriculture, and he explained their dairy policy to me, and There was one 20 minute period when I understood it, and then it disappeared into the ozone. I don't get it. I could go back and have lunch with a new guy, whoever it is, and try again, but these things are really, really complicated.
A
All you need to know is that when Congress enacted this section 301, which was a statute to deal with unfair practices, the first case filed was Canadian eggs. So it was a Canadian agriculture case, was the very first 301 investigation. So it's been going on for a while. Yeah.
B
How did you know that? How did you know that? That's interesting.
A
Well, you know, reading is fundamental, Bill. It's amazing that you can pick up.
B
That's right. You're an egg guy. Okay.
A
Yeah, something like that.
C
All right, I want to move on to the next topic, and I'm going to see if Scott can weave in a Frank Costanza reference on this one as well. But now we're three weeks past the Trump XI meeting on the sidelines of apec, and the dust is starting to settle a little bit. Like, we've seen some movement over the past couple weeks on fentanyl and port fees. But, Bill, can you catch us up on what's been happening since the meeting between the two presidents and whether any of these moves that have happened over the past few weeks leave you any more optimistic? There actually is a genuine thaw in trade tensions or not.
B
Well, it's a punt, using a football term, I guess. Basically they're kicking the can. What they've done, and I'll get into details in a minute, what they've done is they spent the last eight months sparring, taking actions against each other. Port fees, export controls, threatened tariffs. One side would act, the other side would retaliate, then the first side would counter retaliate. And they've been building up these walls, I think, largely to gain leverage. Trump's fantasy throughout this has been this thought that he could sit down with Xi Jinping and solve all problems. And it was this giant leverage game building up to that. He did sit down with Xi Jinping a couple weeks ago, and they didn't solve any problems. Basically, what they agreed to do was unravel the leverage moves they'd taken against each other since Trump came into office. So we got rid of the 100% tariff threat. We lowered the fentanyl tariffs from 20% to 10%. We made some other barrier changes. We eliminated the port fees. The main thing we did in the Export control area was that we postponed. And a lot of these were postponements. So they are deliberately not permanent. So we postponed what became known as the 50% rule for a year. That was the rule that expanded the number of subsidiaries that would be caught by BIS if the parent company was placed on its entity list. If you go on the entity list, it means you're a bad company and that an export license is required to ship you anything. What the United States runs into when they do that, of course, is that it's not that hard for a company to create a new company with a different name, often not even bothering to change the address or the phone number. So the entity list is always sort of behind reality. In the summer, the US Floated this idea of let's automatically include on the entity list all subsidiaries that are 50% or more owned by the parent. That would be a huge expanse and expansion in the coverage of the list, particularly with respect to Chinese companies. Chinese were very upset. We've postponed that now for a year. So what we did was kind of a reset. What the Chinese did is they postponed their port fees, have stepped back on export controls, although not quite as much as reading about this today. Some of this is still being debated. The big thing we wanted them to do was start up exports of rare earths and critical minerals. Again, this is huge, right? It is huge. And they're halting it. They're putting them under controls, and then postponing, or slow rolling would be a better term. Issuing the licenses caused a lot of consternation in the late spring and summer. And then, you know, in response to some of Trump's moves, they've ended up in the fall saying, well, we're just going to block export of some of these things, gallium, germanium, and some of the other items. Most of that has been rolled back, except that the interesting thing about it is they have not removed the controls. These items remain controlled, whereas before 2025, most of them, or many of them were not. But they've restarted the licensing process, so commerce is flowing. And the issue that is still under debate, but it's important, this issue of a general license, an export license basically means you need to get permission in advance for your shipment. You go to the government, say, I want to ship this many rare earth magnets to General Motors. Can I do that?
C
Right.
B
And the Chinese government says, yes or no? That's a specific license. A general license is broader, permission to do that, usually for a defined period of time to specific countries, sometimes even to specific companies. But you don't need advanced permission. It just says if you've got a general license, you can ship that stuff to those people for three years or two years or four years or whatever it is. So that saves a lot of paperwork and it puts a lot of certainty into the marketplace. You don't have to go back to the government every single time you want to sell something. The Chinese have not moved on that yet, and it's not clear where that stands. The U.S. version of the Trump Xi Jinping meeting was the Chinese agreed to go back to general licenses. I don't think the Chinese have acknowledged that quite yet, or if they have, they haven't done it. So there's a discussion going on now about exactly how that's going to work. You can put a lot of speed bumps in the way of granting these things, even though it sounds like a big step forward, or in this case, actually it's a step backward, but it's a step towards something better. So these are all the nature of postponements. The Chinese Rare Earth thing was for a year. So what we're going to see is it's Groundhog Day, basically, the movie, not the holiday. Trump's going to go to China in April, probably, and they'll do things to each other between now and then. Inevitably, one side or the other will do something that the other side doesn't like. So in April, they'll clear away all that debris, start again. Then Xi will come here, probably in the fall, I guess, and they'll do it again. And they can't agree on the big things, so they spend their time on the small things.
C
I mean, Scott, is that just going to be the pattern here for the rest of Trump's term? Punt after punt?
A
Most likely. It was certainly what got started in Trump 45, with the phase one, phase two, and nothing really happening. You know, the end of last summer, when President Trump flew over to his castle in Scotland and held meetings with Europe and basically took the Commission's lunch money, I noted with some snideness, my usual, to some of my European friends that they should have read his book. But it looks to me like the Chinese did read his book. They read the Art of the Deal, they understand how he approaches things, and I think they've got a pretty good fix on the guy. And that is essentially what you're seeing playing out, as Bill has described it, is threats and pushing and trying to expand the space of negotiations, and then when meeting resistance, withdrawing and backing off just enough to. To keep things going. So it's clearly a pattern with the guy. It's, it's how he's managed his life. So I wouldn't expect it to change at this point.
C
So they're fine with continuing to punt?
A
Oh, yeah. The Chinese are perfect with this. And for me, the missing piece is we've got to figure out how we, we get the materials and particularly the defense specific materials that we need for our own security without China. We've got to sort that out. You know, I read AJ Bain's book the Arsenal of Democracy and magnets were made in large quantities in Indiana during World War II. My guess is the U.S. geological Survey knows where all the critical minerals are in the United States. There's nothing that needs to be invented in terms of mining or processing technology. It's not like it hasn't been done. It just we don't do it. And that's the error I would correct. Rather than trying to beat China or anybody else at the negotiating table, this.
B
Is the run faster rather than tripping the other guy policy. And I think it's right. The problem the United States has on this, though, is timing. We could do what Scott just said, but it costs money. It takes time. If you're going to create processing facilities, you got to build them. You've got to deal with zoning, you've got to deal with the NIMBY community and wherever you want to put these things. And all of that is complicating. And the Chinese don't make it easy, because what the Chinese have a record of doing is if they see you doing this, they lower their prices. And United States is a market economy. Our companies get into businesses like this to make money. And if the Chinese create a situation where they can't possibly make any money, they're not going to do it or they're going to go bankrupt, as past plants have done. I mean, Trump, I think, has got the right idea on this. You've got to do some unusual arrangements, right? And one of the things they're talking about are purchase commitments from the government and price floors, right, in order basically to guarantee the US Companies that do, you know, go out on a limb and build these facilities that they're going to be able to make a profit. But this is years down the road. This is not next month, no question about it.
A
But we're going to get going. I mean, no time like the present.
B
All right?
C
Speaking of getting going, after 43 days, the federal government has finally reopened, at least until January 30, when funding runs out. Again.
B
Groundhog Day again. It's everywhere.
C
Groundhog Day again. So here we are. Congress is back. They're in town this week and then out for Thanksgiving and then back in December. But now that Congress is back, Scott, what are you tracking on the Hill, and are we expecting any action from Congress in an effort to reassert its control over tariffs or no?
A
Well, I felt like I'd always hope. Look, I think that having watched the interplay of tariffs and broader international economic policy sort of careen around the federal court system, including all the way to the Supreme Court with ieipa, it struck me all along. I had this sense that there's a conflict between branches of government, but the Article 3 branch is not the place that's the problem. This is really a conflict between Congress and the executive about what authority is delegated and what is not, and the degree to which Congress's power to regulate foreign commerce is being respected by the Congress of all people. So, look, you have some interesting things going on that, to my mind, call for a very active least Ways and Means Committee in the House and a Finance Committee in the Senate. What you have is President Trump is an outsider, and he uses old and sometimes somewhat dormant tools to solve new problems. Now, he did this in the first term. He was the first to use Section 301 to deal with Chinese domestic policy on intellectual property. So the novelty is something that we should expect from the president. But in this case, what he's doing, and I think what confused the courts all along, what confused a lot of people, is in the case of the International Economic Powers act, the language of the delegation to the executive was written as if it were always used against adversaries. President Trump uses tariffs against allies and friends because he uses it not to create protection for industries as much as to create leverage on his own priorities. So he's using it for other purposes and using it against parties that were not really conceived of by the Congress when they created the statute back in the 70s. So, in any case, all that would say is it's time for Congress to weigh in on this. And I think there are many issues to do it. Here's my hope is that it seems to me that, well, the one big, beautiful bill used one of the reconciliation measures available to the Congress, and it got a lot of President Trump's domestic policy agenda, including tax rates, enacted. There are two other reconciliation bills that can come to the president's desk, and they're talking about using one of those to do some work on the Affordable Care act. Essentially create reinsurance pools and create stable exchanges within the Affordable Care act that don't need subsidization. That's a noble goal. But if you're going to have a health title, why don't you put together a trade title, too? And the Congress would have a chance to weigh in on tariffs as leverage. They'd have a chance to codify the agreements that have been made, which Chairman Smith of the House Ways and Means Committee has suggested they do. They have a chance to update statutes.
C
Is there political appetite for that?
A
Well, you know, you could do it with 51 votes. That's, that's why it's an opportunity. At least the two chairmen are talking about problems that they don't want to solve. So Chairman Crapo of the Senate Finance Committee has said he really doesn't want to take up duty free measures on individual products. So there's a lot of talk about what they don't want to do. But not only do they have policy updates that they ought to be involved in, but there's a whale of tariff revenue coming in that nobody's decided what to do with. And I think the Congress may have their eyes on it. So there's plenty of reason. But this is probably wish rejection on my part, which bill will now.
C
Yeah, Bill, your level of optimism is high here, I'm sure.
B
Oh, yeah, right. I don't think much is going to happen. Sherman Smith gave a wonderful speech about the need to codify these agreements, but he's yet to introduce any legislation that would do that and he's yet to actually do anything beyond talk. My sense has been that, I mean, there's different groups up there. I think there's a lot of classic conservative free market Republicans who are privately appalled but are intimidated and don't want to oppose the president publicly on a signature issue and don't want to end up with a primary opponent that Trump will engineer as he threatened to do in some cases. So they're just holding their fire. And the reality for them too is that, and we discussed this, I think, in a previous podcast, things are not yet as bad as the conservatives in last March said they were going to be. You know, a combination of stockpiling, delayed implementation, lower tariffs and threatened growing number of exemptions. You know, coffee, bananas are supposed to be announced later today. The impact has been less than projected. So it's not good, but it's not disaster. Plus, as Scott said, there's a lot of revenue. And since they blew a hole in the deficit in July with one Big, beautiful bill. They're looking for money. So they've got a lot of reasons to complain privately, but not to do anything. The Democrats problem is deciding what to do. You know, they're not opposed to tariffs. I listened in on a session yesterday, listened to another former Commerce Secretary, Raimondo, talking about how tariffs can be a constructive thing. And I am not necessarily disagreeing with her. But what that has done for the Democrats is reduce their opposition to Trump's tariffs, to saying, well, he's not doing it right, you know, which politically that's a very weak argument, you know.
C
Yeah.
B
Bad implementation is not policy, you know, it's tactics.
A
But what you're saying is politics are going to take their usual course and none of this is going to happen.
B
Well, my degree of optimism is I think that, you know, he's beginning to sink a little bit in the polls. When they start reporting inflation numbers again, if those continue to go up, if unemployment numbers continue to go up, if they start reporting those again, it's inconvenient that they haven't, then I think you're going to see more pushback. You've already seen it in the Senate. They voted against the Canadian, Mexican, Brazilian and the reciprocal tariffs. They were narrow votes, all Democrats plus four Republicans. But they had a majority. They had 51. Just, Scott said, is what you need to unravel these things. None of that's showing up in the House yet, but it's happening. I was struck by an odd factoid the other day. Trump now holds the record for the most nominations withdrawn, 50 just in this year, which is unprecedented over several decades. And you don't see this in votes because they don't vote very many of these down. What happens is, if Republicans are nervous, somebody calls the White House up and.
A
Says, hey, send us a new guy.
B
This guy doesn't have the vote. Send somebody else.
C
It's all behind the scenes.
B
And he's done that 50 times. So there is pushback. You just don't see it. Yes, but you may start to see it a little bit more.
A
Yeah. In the meantime, he's going fast and breaking things. Yeah. So that's been his M.O. this time.
B
And they're all. The Congress is always going to be a step behind. So there is that.
C
Scott, just mechanically, is there any factor here of how the Supreme Court comes down on IPA and whether or not Congress will take action? Is that an odd factor here?
A
Well, it certainly may depends on how it comes down and how it rules. What I observed is you look at the major Questions act. And that doctrine is expressed in EPA versus West Virginia. I think Gorsuch was the author of the majority decision. It closes with a paragraph about how difficult Congress is to deal with, but you got to deal with them, particularly on issues that have major impact. So wouldn't be surprised to have that kind of coloration. Look, there is no judge who's elected to conduct foreign policy for the United States that doesn't belong to the judicial branch. And that's really what IEBA does. It's a, it's a foreign affairs power. In my view, the Congress and the executive ought to agree on what it covers and what it doesn't. That's a little far fetched and kind of a fantasy world, but I think that's how it should work.
B
Dream on. If things work the way they were supposed to, if Trump loses in court, what he ought to do in theory is go to the Congress and say, give me legislation that puts these tariffs in place. That's, that's the way it's supposed to work.
A
That's how it should happen.
B
Yeah, but he's not going to do that. You know, he'll find another statute and reimpose them some other way. He'll be sued again, he'll lose again. And then we go back to Roundhog Day.
C
Groundhog Day.
B
We should do this next February when there actually is a Groundhog Day.
A
That's right.
B
We can always celebrate early, vote another sessions to it.
A
Best of us and Groundhog Day in one episode.
C
So trade, guys. We'll leave it there Again, it is such an honor to be with both of you. Next week we will have our Thanksgiving episode. Scott, is there anything you want to tease out ahead of that one or should we save it all for next week?
A
Well, I think a really American holiday is American Thanksgiving. It's the only one that's two days. I love Thanksgiving because there's so few expectations other than showing up and eating. And so it's a delightful holiday. It's very American. But I think you'll find it's that trade has a big factor in making it a great Thanksgiving dinner. Probably bigger than most Americans suppose.
C
Stay tuned. We'll leave it there. Thanks, guys.
B
Thank you.
A
Thanks.
C
You've been listening to the Tray guys, a CSIS podcast. For more audio content, visit@csis.org podcasts thanks for tuning in.
Episode: USMCA Renegotiation, U.S.-China Trade Thaw, and the Return of Congress
Date: November 18, 2025
Hosts: Scott Miller, Bill Reinsch
Moderator: Alex Kisling
In this episode, the Trade Guys (Scott Miller and Bill Reinsch, moderated by Alex Kisling) break down three key topics at the center of U.S. and global trade discussions: the looming USMCA six-year review and renegotiation, the so-called “thaw” in U.S.-China trade relations following the Trump-Xi meeting, and the anticipated role of the U.S. Congress as it returns from a lengthy government shutdown, particularly regarding tariffs and legislative oversight.
The conversation is packed with expert insights, historical context, candid opinions, and the trademark wit of the Trade Guys, offering listeners an accessible yet in-depth guide to where trade policy might be headed as 2026 approaches.
[03:00–13:00]
Scott: Outlines the formal review mechanism built into USMCA, which distinguishes it from NAFTA’s less structured processes. This six-year “renegotiation commitment” provides a critical moment to reevaluate the agreement.
“When NAFTA became USMCA...there was a much more structured and formal review put in place at year six, literally a renegotiation commitment in the concluding chapters.” – Scott [03:06]
The US, Canada, and Mexico have a history of reviewing unsolved issues (e.g., softwood lumber, dairy, poultry), while sometimes new topics emerge.
President Trump is expected to focus heavily on “critical minerals” given Canada’s resources and expertise, and similar leverage with Mexico.
“Trump likes bilaterals because it means the other guys can’t gang up on us and we’re usually the bigger country. In a bilateral, we certainly would be in this context.” – Bill [06:39]
“It’ll start off as like Festivus does, with an airing of grievances. So, you know, ‘I got a lot of problems with you people’...” – Scott [10:09]
[13:00–21:45]
“What they’ve done is...unravel the leverage moves they’d taken against each other...so we got rid of the 100% tariff threat, we lowered the fentanyl tariffs from 20% to 10%...eliminated the port fees.” [13:31]
[21:49–30:44]
“...the Congress would have a chance to weigh in on tariffs as leverage...they have a chance to update statutes.” – Scott [25:04]
“Oh, yeah, right. I don’t think much is going to happen.” [25:46]
“If things work the way they were supposed to, if Trump loses in court, what he ought to do in theory is go to the Congress and say, give me legislation that puts these tariffs in place. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.” – Bill [30:12]
“Trade has a big factor in making it a great Thanksgiving dinner. Probably bigger than most Americans suppose.” – Scott [31:01]
For listeners seeking a deep, unvarnished look at the state of U.S. trade policy—with insights only true veterans can provide—this episode is a must.