Were not seeing that, but im looking at tech stocks we are seeing still dramatic moves, pintrest up about 10 shop fie up about five the market faded gains yesterday in the 10 00 hour bounced back by 11 00 and close we were about flat you never know which way that is going to go, right, morgan thats true, jon. We have averages up about 20 off the march 23rd lows. One of the questions being debated on wall street right now is are equities ahead of reality . The focus has been for investors for the market the curve of the virus. We are seeing some of the hopeful signs thats maybe flattening in the hot spots like new york, new jersey, some of the other areas that have been epicenters here in the u. S at some point in the coming days, hopefully based on the models well get past that projected peak and i think the question shifts to what does the medium and long term impact of covid19 look like on the economy and also what thats going to mean in terms of a rewriting on earnings, which were flat last year we dont have a tough comparable the way we did in 2018 post tax reform, and what does that mean for the market we are seeing some of the play books, discussions take root and manife manifest about what its going to take, what its going to look like, probably gradual, regional to get the u. S. Economy back online. Or the Global Economy, to that point. For sure. The World Trade Organization is out with its trade statistics and outlook report they forecast the global trade could fall by as much as 32 due to the pandemic. Joining us to discuss that is roberto asevato, director general, thank you for being with us. My pleasure when we look at World Merchandise trade down 13 to 32. What do we think this range could be over the next couple of months we would characterize that as two scenarios, rather than a range. Because the number of uncertainties are so great there are so many unknown factors here that its difficult to actually call these projections. But we are seeing, in a positive scenario, a fall in trade of around 13 , which is about the same order of magnitude that we saw in 2008, 2009. So thats huge the pessimistic scenario would see a decline in trade of around 32 . Thats pretty much what we saw during the Great Depression of the 1930s, over three years. Were seeing that in one year. But thats just part of the picture. I think what is important to note is that we can recover much more quickly than we did in 2008 or in the 1930s. Were going to get to things like medical supplies and food supply, but you mention that you see you expect a steeper drop in sectors where the value chains are complex, electronics, automotive products. Can you explain to viewers why because these are much more integrated chains of supply globally so were talking about sectors like automotive sector and electronics where components come from several parts of the world. For example, an iphone made in asia, it adds it experiences an addition of about 24 in value only the rest is parts and components coming from different parts of the world. So the more integrated globally a sector is, the more its going to be affected by the disruption of the supply chains director general,an even before we saw this Pandemic Take hold and rock the world, we were seeing, quite literally, the rules around trade being rewritten, supply chains rewritten, changed, tariffs. The trade war between the United States and china how does that factor into your methodology and how youre arriving at the projections today, what does that mean now in terms of post covid rewriting Going Forward . Thats the point. Thats precisely what is happening. I think this trajectory, the sharp decline that we are projecting, its partly due to the fact that we were not doing great to begin with. So when we were in the last quarter of next year, trade was already decelerating quite significantly. And, therefore, we are adding a crisis on top of another one and this is one of the reasons why we have to be particularly careful in planning for the rebound. We could come back to prepandemic level of growth and level of Economic Activity rather quickly we could come to that in one or two years. But that would depend significantly on the kind of measures we put in place and one of them, i think, would be trying to avoid the kind of things that were bringing trade down, like the trade tensions, increasiing import duties across the board in big markets those things helped to set the stage for the decline were seeing now. Director general, are the risks particularly high for emerging markets im thinking about particularly countries that are reliant on trade more than usual for their economies. You talked about integrated supply chains and industries that need those as being an area of risk, but it seems there are countries in similar positions several and the problem with the emerging economies, is that they not only face the supply and demand shock that we see globally, but they also are very vulnerable in different ways to begin with, their Health System is not that great they are not fully prepared mostly so the duration of the pandemic can be pretty significant if they dont take the right measures the second point is their Social Security safety nets are not that great either. Theyre very vulnerable. So the impact of an economic slow down can be pretty disruptive from a social perspective. Having said that, those that export natural resources, they could experience a stronger rebound more quickly especially if Commodity Prices pick up once the demand is restored after the pandemic is controlled in the major markets. Medical supplies and pharma weve already seen so many flareups, tensions erupt over chloroquine, face masks, respirators, you name it how important is it going to be in the future as governments try to make sure its manufactured in their countries and then not traded to other countries . I think the attempt of being selfsufficient is a dangerous one. First because no one is going to be selfsufficient it doesnt matter how powerful, how advanced technologically you are. Those supplies will come from different sources. If you try to bring it to your own national territory, youll be misallocating resources and increasing costs that may make sense in the short term, but medium and long term, thats a losing proposition. Those products, they are heavily traded right now only the products that are very much final products that are related to the pandemic they account to about 300 billion in imports globally you cannot disrupt that supply chain. What is more wise would be two things first, diversify supply that youre not relying on one Single Source of supply from one country, one region or one area of your own country. And the second one is have more International Coordination so when we have Something Like what we see today, there is a coordinating effort to get the supplies where they need to be at that point in time. And then move them around and make sure that you ramp up and prepare the Health Systems as we go along in a coordinated fashion. But just selfsufficiency is not the right answer here. Certainly i think we all hope that we do see some sort of coordinated longer term plan that is put in place its shedding light on china, and the fact that the key supply chain within in the Health Care Sector does lie in that one country. Just to shift gears a little bit, the other big Global Economic trade story playing out right now is crude oil, you have opec plus scheduled to meet tomorrow to talk about production cuts in coordinated fashion, question marks about what this is going to look like in terms of u. S. Involvement as well from a w. T. O. Standpoint, is crude oil something that should potentially be taken up in a more active way . Does it make sense to have Something Like a cartel in place when we are talking about trade flows and trying to promote more Economic Activity in a more positive way on a global basis well, this is a sector that has never been truly liberalized. We have a supply side arrangements, the demand tends to be pretty stable. So its heavily dependent on these supplyside arrangements in the w. T. O. We take a look at this in a more holistic fashion. In other words, do these actions affect trade flows and they somehow change the level Playing Field or affect a level Playing Field. At this point in time, these conversations are extremely important because they affect the economy from a horizontal perspective. Its not a sector. The whole gdp, the whole economy is affected. This is not only about trade this is horizontal impact that those measures and arrangements may have on the Global Economy roberto thanks for that fascinating report everybody should take a look at it well see you soon Roberto Acevedo is the director general of the World Trade Organization. Joining us is dells Technology Founder and ceo, michael, dell an organization with tens of thousands of employees around the world michael dell, you have been running this company as ceo or chairman, mostly as ceo since 1984 thank you so much for being with us youve also committed, i should note, 100 million from the michael and Susan Dell Foundation related to covid19 how does this compare with other challenges that youve seen over the past 35 plus years well, jon, i dont think weve quite seen anything like this it certainly and the full impact of this is uncertain. I think it leaves us all feeling unsettled. Its got farreaching impacts really for almost every person, family, community. Its left us, you know, physically isolated with our nuclear families, but i think its emotionally united us im sure well talk about the digital transformation, which has been astonishing and rapid but i think we may be experiencing a human transformation with more empathy, generosity, gratefulness, kindness, selflessness and humility. All our companies are becoming more human, we have dogs and children popping up on Conference Calls were more remote but more connected than ever before i think now every day is Teacher Appreciation day were relating in more meaningful ways as we experience the heart wrenching challenges we see around the world. Its unprecedented in terms of economic and human terms i think really three things that, you know, we need to focus on in a crisis like this, the first is, of course, ensuring our teams feel safe and protected. And that they have the resources they need to be productive im inspired by the way our team has operated through this. We started, actually, work from home about a decade ago and we have well more than 90 of our 167,000 team Members Around the world working from home. I bet this has made you glad that you started that a while ago. And maybe also changed your practices a bit. How is the old mindset around working from home held up . What have you looked to change well, its been pretty seamless ill tell you, one of the big challenges that young families have had is, how do you juggle all the responsibilities of home schooling, making food for your kids, entertaining them, while also doing your day job. And, you know, thats been a fairly big challenge i think the other kind of the second thing that i focus on in a crisis is your customers and theyre going to remember how you treated them and helped them during a crisis forever and weve helped, you know, large numbers of customers around the world, public and private sector, in keeping society moving, i think there are some incredible stories to be told there as well. What kind of help are you talking about . Say again what kind of help are you able to give are you talking about equipment, lines of credit . Well, all the above, jon. I think in the public sector, for example, you know, workfromhome was really very uncommon and so for the first time weve seen states moving tens of thousands of people into work from home. They need a lot of help to be able to do that. You know, theres additional capacity thats needed with their vpns and Virtual Desktop interface capacity and certainly, the essential support and services to keep all their systems running. I think the thing weve heard consistently from customers is that technology has never been more important than it is now. And finally, kind of the third thing is you got to move quickly to make sure your business is financially strong and that youre focussed on the future and making the investments to come out of this stronger. So those are some thoughts given that, and what weve seen so far and were not through this yet by any stretch, i wonder if you have a perspective on what a return to normal demand looks like based on what youre hearing from your customers about their cash flow and availability of resources. Based on what youre hearing in conversations with other ceos, maybe business round table is this a vshaped thing possibly still is it more of a ushape . I think it probably varies by sector what i would tell you is i think the digital transformation, the fourth industrial revolution, things Like Software defining networks, nfv, virtualization for 5g, cloud, i think all those investments get accelerated. I think work from home persists. And, you know, how this rolls out in terms of the future periods, its i dont think anyone is able to predict that and i certainly wont try. But it sounds like, in a way, youre saying that office space may be a little less important but investment in software and services more important . If people are going to shift to more of a work from home scenario, that means equipment, technology, it might mean thinking differently about physical space sure. If you think about this, jon, you have 700 million plus computers in the commercial sector im not even including all the kids in schools and, you know, public sector. And, roughly, 25 of those were remote workers, either that worked at home or that travelled. And so, you got, you know, a large number of workers and Computer Systems that were either, you know, kind of permanently in an office, not in their home, or they had some remote capability. And so, as Companies Work to build out what i think is going to be a more persistent work from home feature of their work place, you know, thats going to be a significant change for sure and, yeah, theyll be some shifts, i think, within real estate and that sort of thing as well right before this crisis hit, we were in the thick of a trade war with china you and i have talked about china before and trade and the impacts on the Global Economy. What do you think is the one to two year impact of the china u. S. Supply chain relationship between different companies, the flow of that given this. Does it show thats more important . Does it improve . Or does the relationship deteriorate perhaps because people are looking to diversify . Let me say about our supply chain first. Good news, its working quite well were able to, you know, function and largely around the world weve been designated essential because we are providing the equipment for the Health Care Sector for all the national, you know, health services. For the first responders, for things like the sba loan program, and all the systems that are critical to keeping the economy going. You know, weve been on a path with, you know, creating resilience in our supply chain for a long time, and i think that will just accelerate and supply chains will be reoptim e reoptimized for further resilience. That means geographically, too, i take it sure. Absolutely so lets also talk about investment you have msd capital, youve had quite a good amount of money to invest airbnb has taken on a billion dollars in debt, i imagine fore stalling its i. P. O. What are you doing as an investor what are you advising your invested companies to do given the need for cash that so many businesses, especially smaller businesses, have right now so look, i think, you know, were humbled that, you know, the role we get to play asdell technologies and helping our customers and keeping the economy running and functioning. Thats really what im focussed on on a daytoday basis again, im optimistic that technology will play an incredible role in the recovery and ultimately growth phase of this and thats where, you know, im focussing my attention i guess im wondering advice to entrepreneurs trying to figure out how to balance keeping their organizations running, viable, keeping them alive, and also the other commitments that they have is there either something that youre seeing from customers or advice that you have this used to be a Small Company youre running now thats now quite large, what to do in a time like this you know, for smaller entrepreneur yal businesses you have to stay focussed on liquidity, stay focussed on your customers and figure out how do you use this as an opportunity i think that just playing defense is not the answer. We have to be thinking about how do we invest for the future and prepare for the recovery and growth phase, and look, i think there will be shifts you know, were definitely believing that, you know from the feedback and conversations ive had with hundreds of customers, the Largest Companies in the world and the Midsize Companies as well, that the role of technology not only during the crisis but post the crisis is just essential for how theyre able to operate their businesses and theyll likely pivot more of their investment to technology. And what happens, do you think, to the practice of offering credit to businesses in order to purchase that technology its quite common in large enterprise Tech Companies right now to do that but i imagine there are questions about ability to pay back is this a time wh