Good morning mayors we have had a busy morning. Welcome to all of you. I encourage you to take your seats. We have a great panel this morning. Welcome our live cspan audience as well. I am the mayor is the city of san diego. Welcome. Our session today is trade. The americas and beyond. One of the most important topics and we have been dealing with certainly in our area in our region. I think all of my fellow mayors are here today the members of the audience in the panel that you will hear from in a second. There has never been a more critical toxicities around the country to Champion International trade and what that means. That is a success and the foundation for many good quality jobs have been created. That is what we will focus on today and get some unique perspective from our fellow mayors and ambassadors. As you know, the us mayors have taken progressive positions on the importance of free trade over the years in terms of transpacific partnership, laws and Environmental Standards. Intellectual property rights, just to name a few. Great progress but obviously our work continues. Today we will talk about how important the trade of experts are to our cities. And those of mexico and canada. And how that relationship has prospered as we talked about the issues of nafta. Mexico and canada are among the countries largest trading partners and we will hear about that in a second. At first i thought i would share just for a minute, how important the border cities and how important trade is with cities like san diego. I will introduce my friend from tijuana in just a second. It is not about to cities, that strength is one region. And how we are working together. How we are creating good quality jobs on both sides of the border. How it is incredibly important to our economy. San diego alone, approximately 110,000 jobs that are in our city because of nafta, because of trade. Mexico is the number one trade partner and canada is the second. We are happy to have you here to get a unique perspective on issues that are facing us as cities and as mayors, particularly as negotiations are taking place this very week on nafta. It is not jobs, dollars and moving forward. Im delighted to help moderate the panel here today. First i would like to introduce and will go to some speakers. I would like everyone to speed for maybe about 3 to 5 minutes. I want to make sure we have time for questions and dialogue from our fellow mayors across the country for the hourlong session today. Select and choose the director of the adrian ash Latin American Center on the Atlantic Council. Jason will provide us a brief overview on the nafta process. To work with the Atlantic Council on past trade issues and we look forward to ongoing collaboration. Please help me welcome. Jason . Thank you very much. Its a real pleasure to be here with the conference of mayors. To be here with you and ambassadors. Thank you for having me here. I will talk about the process of negotiating or renegotiating nafta. It was oftentimes talked about come the likelihood of a new agreement and what that might look like and i am optimistic about that. And let us know if that process looks like and when negotiations stand. Before doing so is all of you know, nafta after nearly 25 years, is fundamentally part of the us economy. Every state in the country counts nafta countries as at least one of the trading partners. With a watereddown nafta will all lose strategically. Mayor faulconer mentioned important jobs in california along with 215,000 jobs depend on nafta and i as well, there mayor as well. Our 20,000 jobs in iowa. This is a big deal across the country. New numbers are 1. 8 million jobs being lost without nafta. Where are we not . Negotiators write our meeting in montrcal for the sixth round of talks. This is an incredibly pivotal round. Many of you know, negotiations started in august with a number of demands from rules of origin to dispute settlements to a sunset clause. They were tough and hard for a number of our nafta partners to swallow. Up until this round there has been progress but has been limited more to minor and technical issues of the accord. Not addressing many of the essential concerns of the Us Administration. And it has been relatively straightforward issues first and then other questions later. Weve had little to no progress on some Major Authority issues. But im hopeful seeing what is happening in montrcal this week that we are starting to see some of the progress on the more complex issues due to real compromise put out by our nafta partners. One of the things that we looked at as well, the us and canada and mexico also had a number of discussions prior to the us withdrawal of the transpacific partnership. And theres a technical issue on digital language. He has a ready been discussed as part of the discussions of the three countries that was prior to nafta discussions. I believe also that the Us Administration has heard from so many pivotal players. Including mayors and governors on the dire consequences of scrapping the deal and i think that makes withdrawal all the more unlikely. The operations to finish the agreement, agreements made outlined by march before the mexican president ial campaign at the end of that month. A lot needs to be achieved before then. After all, most freetrade agreements take on average, about 18 months to sign and 45 must implement from the first day of negotiations. It is a tall order but i think it is something that i will nafta partners can work on together. What happens next . Progress this week. If there is momentum then negotiators will likely meet again soon. If not we could see substantial time elapsed before the next round of negotiations. After all, two months passed before the end of the last round in this one. There are two other factors in play involving congress. First, trade Promotion Authority. Because the president the ability to negotiate a trade deal without having to worry about congressional amendments. That authority expires on july 31. It can be extended july 1, 2021. The president wants to do that he needs to submit to congress with reasons on why he is seeking an extension. Congress does not have to approve the extension but the house or senate can disapprove it. Without trade Promotion Authority the president s hands to negotiate a new deal of time. The second factor also to be aware of is that a final agreement takes time to move through congress. International trade Commission Report will be produced and in the house and wins committee the house and Ways Committee must also produce a report. The whole process does not conclude when the next Congress Takes power in 2019, we start again. Mayors, your critical. The legacy of trans experimental affects all of us. 35 from canada as a foreign market. It is local jobs that defend the functioning agreement. I think we have a great opportunity here to build an agreement that has greatly benefited the United States and the partners and to make it even better. We can set the standard for the future of trade but we really cannot afford to get it wrong. I look forward your questions. Thank you very much. Thank you for that overview and particularly on the timing. Next is my pleasure to introduce canadas ambassador to the United States. His experience includes work at the federal and levels before department of transport, industry and foreign affairs. The principal secretary of the premier of ontario from 2003 to 2005. An chairman of strategy from 2005 until his appointment. Ambassador, thank you for being not only had this morning but for hosting the mayors the other evening. It was a pleasure to have you. Is a pleasure to be here. I enjoyed last night. I was particularly pleased not to have some of the canadian mayors and some mayors from across canada but it was also that i was struck by the number of us mayors that came up to me and said, we are so pleased. We just had, we just enable it to create 300 because a Canadian Company invested in our city. We have a great relationship with canada. We trade actively. I think the stories around how successful a relationship has been is really important to get through right at this point. I will talk a little bit about what i see in the nafta negotiations and what we are trying to achieve is a country. And share that with you. That is, i think you know, nafta has been extraordinarily successful in terms of building competitiveness into north america on a global stage. Many of our companies, many in our regions have become way more competitive globally than they were 24 years ago. And i think we face an even larger challenge now in the next 10 or 15 years. Our competitors are getting more aggressive. Theyre getting tougher, people are investing in technology. We will have to keep up and you cannot do that by simply saying, over the last 24 years, winter other of us lost and the other one won. We have to be able to look at the nafta organization as an opportunity to grow all of our economies and make sure that this region is the most competitive region in the world. That will benefit all three of our countries. And so, when we looked at some of the proposals that were being made in terms of the renegotiation, we agreed with many of them. But they were some of them that we felt were not going to achieve the goal of growing all three countries and making the economy more competitive. And frankly, there were many us businesses and us regions who agreed that some of the proposals that were being made were counterproductive to being able to achieve that goal. [inaudible] we tried to point that out. We tried to make that point at the negotiations. And late last year, there was some discussion around whether we were right or wrong. But the point was made, if you think our proposals are not good enough, come back and tell us what you think will work. And so i think one of the important things is it is happening right now and it is happening not just in terms of canada but also mexico and the United States is that people have put their thinking caps on and said all right, i do make a good for all three of us . So on rules of origin or the sunset clause, dispute resolution. On all of the critical matters. It is not just a matter saying we do not agree with you. It is, all right, how do we make this works for all three of us . I think that is the process we are engaged in right now. It will not be easy because those are tough issues. There isnt universal acceptance of our position within canada. I am sure that they will have some pushback on some of the proposals that were put on the table from us interest. But i think it is very much in our interest to make sure that before the end of march, certainly in the next short while, we come to a resolution which gives communities they represent and the businesses throughout north america, the confidence that they can invest and grow the economy and create jobs. I think that is what our common goal is. And i know in every trade negotiation, there is always a bit of drama. We had a in tbd. We had a negotiations with european. Im sure there will be some drama before this is all resolved. Having said that i think increasingly, the perception and the reality is yes, nafta has some flaws in it. We need to purify the consequences of breaking nafta part would be bad for all three countries. I think that is the most Important Message that you can help us to convey. And i can assure you that we have been trying to put constructive proposals on the table and will continue to do so. I think given the relationship between canada United States and mexico will find a way to get this done. I was sent last night for those of you who were there, very few americans understand this but the United States exports more to canada than it does to china, japan and Great Britain combined. We are a Huge Customer of your goods. 36 billion surplus that you have a manufactured goods and all i know is that when i was in business, if i had a customer that dave, i tried to take care of him a little bit. And you are our biggest customer. We want to make sure that we work with you to achieve a good result for all of us. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Investor. Our next guest is mexicos ambassador to the United States. And he was named ambassador to mexico in january 2017. With a career in the mexican government. He is in the areas of trade finance, diplomacy and National Security under for president. Mr. Investor, welcome. And a half to nafta is more about in a sense about not much about how much do we trade among ourselves, which as ambassador macnaughton was saying, its a significantly big figure but about how to produce together and remain competitive to compete with all the region over the world. The second reason is there are in the neighborhood of 14 million to 15 million jobs in the u. S. Directly linked to nafta, not unlike in canada and mexico. Sew were all concerned about meter more and better jobs in north america but precisely by improving nafta we can achieve that. The other reason is that over the course of the last 25 years, nafta has become really the backbone in my view, of the overall north american relationship, and whatever happens with nafta is going to pretty much set the tone beyond the economic consequences of the north american region and the north american relation, whether its on security, defense, many other areas of cooperation in which in fact we have been working very well as north American Partners over the last 25 years. Finally, 80 of the global gdp is precisely generated in cities like the ones you lead and represent all of you majors, and whatever in the past days heard the expression on the part of several majors saying we are really representing where the rubber hits the road, and its true. You have to deal with the front line in dealing with citizens and residents and communities, and over the course of the past two days ive heard it from all of the majors, how important the trading relationship among our countries is for the wellbeing of your communities. So, i think theres very good reasons why we need to get, yes, improved nafta, updated. Modernize it but make sure we get it right and keep it going. As you know there are negotiations right now taking place in canada so i wont go into very much detail right now. Ill leave that to the experts. But i think two things where are we and what is the for seeable future . I will just mention briefly two comments. The first one is over the course of the last year, on the three countries the governments heard loud voices from governors, mayors, the private sector, academia, and all sorts of institutions, peoples, that have come out and say you have to get nafta right and nafta going and that has been very positive. It certainly is an Important Message for the three federal governments that has changed the tone over the conversation over the last year. Right . Private sector, wherever you talk, everywhere you go, will mostly tell in my experience, governments, please get nafta right, please keep nafta going. So thats something very important. Finally, i would say theres a lot of speculation. I think that ambassador mcnaughton is right on point. We do believe we should try to get an agreement on the post important issues as soon as possible because there is a lot of investment and a lot of Economic Activity that is really waiting to see what happens, and it is in the best interests of the three countries to try to get that agreement as soon as possible. My own sense is that a year ago, the base scenario is one in which unfortunately we will no longer have nafta, it and was only that was perhaps the likely scenario and only probable that we could keep and update and modernize nafta. For many good ropes that has changed over the last year and probably the best scenario is one in which we can get an agreement. Its not going to be perfect. The three cider going to have to reach compromise on different areas but we will get an agreement in the end that is beneficial for the three countries. Although its still probable we could not, and, therefore, meetings like this and exercises like this are extremely important to keep educating federal governments about why we should keep nafta going. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Ambassador. Next id like to introduce my friend and partner in our cause, champion trade, mayor juan man well, san diego and tijuana are linked way common economy, common environment, and a shared community. We have a very powerful story to tell. We like to talk about it. And our strength and our friendship in the region and here in our nations capital. So please hundred me welcome the tijuana mayor. I appreciate the invitation for this to be here, that u. S. Conference of mayors. Thank you very much. Were here to talk about good news. We have good news. We have we can prove it. We have material proof of what the nafta trade has been for our region, and we have to see ourselves as a big region. A huge region, not as three Different Countries looking for their own good, for their own wealth. Were against an economy, a worldwide economy, and when i say against, its not in a its just to give it a name. We have to deal with ourselves. Do have problems, yes, but we can modernize it, modernize nafta, do the best for it. Our ambassador, the honorable guitierrez, said we can improve it. We shouldnt discard nafta, saying its not working. It is workingment we have jobs. We have lets see. Me english i kind of get stuck with certain words. Try do my best. Its competitiveness. If were competitive we can do best things better things. Its not a matter of losing jobs. Its a matter of doing things right, and nevada, since 1994, the nafta trade is the commercial length, what we have to do. For instance, in san diego, tijuana, with mark faulconr leading the way, we sign a memorandum of understanding to work on the good issues that can bring good things to our people. First all of issue its the people we have to look out for. Do have a legal border been there since years, we do have a small barrier, physical barrier. Its been there for a long time. I can recall when it wasnt a barrier properly. It was barbed wire and people would just jump and i