Others to decide. No doubt this would be a big issue for White House PressSecretary Sean Spicer to address when he kicks off todays Daily Briefing at any moment. Also this hour, chilly reception. First daughter ivanka gets a firsthand look at diplomacy and what people in other parts of the world think of her dad. President trump. Im a tremendous champion of supporting families and enabling them to thrive. Translator you hear the reaction from the audience. Also this hour, a preview of our own hallie jacksons exclusive interview with ivanka trump. But as we await sean spicers walk out of the white house, lets bring in our panel. Kristen welker is at the white house. Kristen, talk to me a little bit about why the white house is denying the request for the documents that the House Oversight committee has asked for . Reporter two reasons, katy. First of all, they say that they dont have a number of the documents that the Oversight Committee is asking for. They say that Michael Flynns security clearance was conducted during the obama administration, and so those are documents that they do not have. They referred that request to dod. They also say that any documentation that they do have related to conversations that Michael Flynn may or may not have had with foreign entities is too broad. They say that he spoke with a number of officials in Foreign Governments on a daily basis, and so they say in order to provide specific documents, they need a specific request. So that is the pushback from the white house, and very vigorously deny there is any attempt at stonewalling. I press one of the representatives based on what weve learned today that Michael Fln Ma have failed to comply with the w, as you heard congressmen chaffetz and cummings say. This official said, look, there is a proes und ecess under way e not going to get ahead of the process, but insisting that at the end of the investigation it will be clear that there was no attempt at collaboration or coordination between Trump Campaign officials and russian officials. But you said it , katy, this is going to dominate this briefing which is set to begin moments from now. This just days from President Trumps marking 100 days in office. This is the last headline they want to be dealing with. This is a week aimed at touting what they perceived to be President Trumps top accomplishments, things like getting neil gorsuch on the supreme court, scaling back a number of obamaera regulations. This is undoubtedly clouding the messaging they were hoping for today. Kristen welker seeming to appear out of thin air. Kristen, listen to kasie hunt who spoke with congressman chaffetz earlier today. This goes back to a prior year of donald trump ever becoming president. It is not as if if the white house isnt responding. There just arent documents. Thats the problem. He was supposed to seek and obtain permission prior, and it doesnt appear as if he did. Youre saying there are no documents because Michael Flynn didnt handle this correctly. Correct. Thats what the law requires. So, basically chaffetz is laying the blame squarely on Michael Flynn saying that there arent documents because general flynn did not produce those documents. Ultimately though, isnt the white house going to get blame one way or the other . Th, after all, were the ones that should have done background vetting of their own advisors, made sure they werent going to get into a position later on that it comes out that one may have been lying to them. I mean this is public record, his dealings with the turkish government, and also his dinner that he had with vladimir putin. Two points, katy, and i think you are absolutely right. One, you will hear the white house likely echo what you just heard from congressman chaffetz, that, look, this is up to Michael Flynn to provide these documents. And, quite frankly, to seek permission to have some of these conversations and to receive payments from Foreign Government entities. At the same time, you are absolutely right, there is a vetting process that needs to happen. Whether it is a campaign or transition. And certainly once you get to the level of having a white house. So there are among the top questions that sean spicer will undoubtedly get, katy. I think we just got a twominute warning, so this is going to get under way just moments from now. We did indeed just get a twominute warning. Kristen welker, thank you. Were going to try to skis in senator mazie first, im sorry if we have to cut you off because sean spicer might come out. The question right now, the white house is saying they arent trying to stonewall any investigation, that they just dont have the documents. Do you believe that there could be truth to that . It is hard to say. They either have the documents or they dont. But in any event, i should think that they should have made the appropriate inquiry so that this kind of information they would have. Because anybody whos part of the administration that does not disclose this kind of pertinent information for one thing should have been disclosed or they should have gotten it out of flynn. Senator, the Judiciary Committee which you sit on a subcommittee of the committee, is going to be calling in sally yates, former deputy doj Deputy Director there. What are you hoping that your colleagues are going to get out of her . Well, im glad that were going ahead with her, as well as i believe james clapper. Theyre going to be testifying under oath as to what they knew about various investigations. And it is high time that we get to the bottom of the russian connections, russian efforts and the trump teams connections to the russian efforts to undermine our democracy. Ive been calling for an independent investigation for months now. We need to get on with it, because the public is finding out about these connections through drips and drabs an leaks and twitter. That is no way for the public to find out, really, whats going on. Senator mazie hirono of hawaii, thank you for joining us. Lets try to quickly bring in no, not going to bring him in. Sean spicers just walked out. He hastiming, this guy. By having the secretary of commerce discuss some action that the Commerce Department took last night with respect to canadian soft wood lumber. It is an action that talks about what were doing to make sure that were fighting for our industries here at home. Without further ado, secretary wilbur ross. Thank you, sean. The action we took last night is actually the culmination of a couple of decades of disputes between the United States and canada. Whats provoked the disputes is the following. In ka dcanada, the forests are d by the individual provinces, and each of the provinces sets a charge for the loggers to use when theyre taking trees down. In the u. S. , it is all open market. Its all market face prices. So the provinces subsidize the cutting down of lumber, this technical term being stumpage. Then that lets them charge a subsidized low price when the product hits the u. S. Border. We have determined preliminarily that those problems, while they vary from one province to another, in some cases are as high as roughly 25 , and on average, are around 20 . So theyre quite material items. So what the preliminary decision that was put out yesterday imposes those counterveiling duties on soft wood lumber from canada. Those duties will be collected starting today, and they will be collected on retroactive basis going back 90 days. Because it was 90 days ago that the kcanadians were put on notie of this being an inappropriate process. What it amounts to is the following. There is roughly 15 billion worth of hard wood soft wood lumber uses in houses in this country, and about 31 of that comes from the canadians. So thats roughly 5 billion a year. 20 tariff on that is essentially 1 billion a year. And the retrospective 90day feature adds another 250 million to that on a onetime basis. Soft wood lumber, as i say, is fundamentally used in singlefamily houses. We do no think that the price of lumber will go up anything like the 20 , but there may be some small increase in the price of lumber for the house. So will housing priced be increased in the United States due to that action . Not necessarily, because you are talking such a small amount. And the biggest part, the most home price, in any event, is the land value, not the lumber value. Lumber is a pretty small percentage of the total cost of a house. Secretary, what provoked this . As you mentioned, this has been a longrunning dispute, subject to conversations between the u. S. And canadian governments, Bush Administration and obama administration. Is this part of the milk dispute and is this a lever or bargaining chip with the canadian government over that dispute thats going on as well . This investigation had been under way before anything came up about milk. And on a statutory basis, the last day we could have released the findings would have been today. So the only thing that we did do was accelerate it one day. Its not related at all to the milk dispute. Do you see it as factoring in the canadian judgments about how to respond or how to resolve some of these other trade disputes . Well, everything relates to Everything Else when you are trying to negotiate. So i cant say theres no impact. But what we have tried to do was to clean the air and get this dispute out of the way before the big nafta talks went on. That was not possible to achieve, and thats why we went ahead and released the findings. Canada. [ inaudible [ snc ] are you comfortable with how this has worked out in terms of the relationships betweenhe two companies . Theyre an impornt ally. Theyre generally a Good Neighbor. That doesnt mean they have to play by the rules. What do you mean, generally a Good Neighbor . Well, things like this i dont regard as being a Good Neighbor, dumping lumber. And there is a feeling in the dairy industry that theyre a little bit abrupt in the action that they took the week before. The canadian government said those are only fair tariffs and each time the case was brought to an international court. Canada won its case. What are you answering to this . I had nothing to do with the prior cases. Im confident that this case is a good case. The problem with dairy isnt that theyre dumping Dairy Products in the u. S. The problem is the reverse, theyre prohibiting u. S. Dairy producers from selling their products in canada, as a practical matter. And were looking into whether there are measures we can do to try to correct that. Have you heard from anybody in the canadian government or has the Prime Minister reached out to President Trump to try to convince you that to change your policy or change the approach or work with you in any way . Well, i havent heard of anybody trying to ask us to change the approach. Youve seen the public statements that the canadians put out. As far as i know, that is their position. Im curious whether this soft wood lumber dispute or the milk dispute poin to the need to revisit, to renegotiate nafta sooner rather than later . Well, i think it does. Because think about it, if nafta were functioning properly, you wouldnt be having these kinds of very prickly, very unfortunate developments backtoback. So in that sense it those shah nafta has not worked as well as it should. This particular thats one of the problems. Mr. Secretary, why not try to resolve this in a notsopublic fashion . Youre coming out in the briefing room, youre obviously trying to flex your muscles of this administration. What would you say to the layman out there who says why is President Trump messing with the canadians now . Not a question of President Trump messing with the canadians. We believe the canadians violated legitimate practice. And to the degree were correct in that, it should be corrected. Just like steel dumping from china, or any other trade infraction. Youre trying to make a point. Publicly. We make it publicly all the time. It is just that there has been so much general Public Interest engendered by the two things, the dairy and the lumber, that we felt it was good to clarify. During the president ial campaign, people following thencandidate trump would assume his singular focus would be on mexico in terms of trade. All of a sudden now were hearing all these items related to canada. Can you tell us why the focus seems to have sfted to up north . Well, we had no way to know that the canadian dairy people would take the action that they did, nor did we have any way to know that the lumber dispute wouldnt have been resolved by negotiation. We tried. It didnt work. And so we went ahead with the statutory proceeding. Are you seeking any additional trade action against canada . Im sorry . Is the administration contemplating additional trade action against canada . As far as i know, theres nothing immediate contemplated. Secretary ross, when i talk to experts about this, they say the substance of what you did is very routine, like this has been done before, this preliminary counterveiling duties. But they say with a was really irregular was the way that you communicated it. Is this something that youre trying to sort of do as a bit of a pr thing to give putin and nafta notice . How would you interpret your statement . Well, it is not routine in that 1 billion of counterveiling duties does not happen every single day. This is a quite large its happened before. Its not unprecedented. Well, we made the release the way that we made the release. Why did you make it that way . It seemed appropriate under the circumstances. Yes. Mr. Secretary, thank you, sir. In india and america both were america the largest trading partier of india, or india largest trade being partner under Prime Minister mowdmow under Prime Minister modi. So what is the future of the play between u. S. And india, sir . Well, u. S. Does not have a Free Trade Agreement with india at this point, so the trade relations between u. S. And india are governed by the wto rules. Theres nothing in the actions weve taken that changes that. Mr. Secretary, following up on what jim said though, if housing prices do increase due to this, what do you tell average consumer in the United States if the prices are going up . They didnt bargain for that. Well, i dont know what they bargained for, but im sure what nobody in the United States bargained for was people dumping product. Its no different whether you dump steel or aluminum or cars or lumber or anything else. Nobody has you use the term counterveiling and antidumping. Technically theyre two different things. Which is it . Dumping or counterveiling . This is counterveiling duties. Could you give us a timeline of when the president may renegotiate nafta and could this compromise getting a good deal . Well, we put congress on notice two weeks ago of our intention to renegotiate nafta. Whats been stalled is getti the trade promoti authority, the socalled fast track authority, approved by the congress. Now with lob leitheiser having been confirmed out of the committee today and hopefully coming to the senate for a full vote very shortly, that should cure one of the objections that some of the senators had, namely they were concerned about formally reopening nafta in the absence of the u. S. Trade rep being confirmed. Now the catch22 to that was they were also slowwalking the conif i recallation. So it w the confirmation so it was a little bit of a circular thing. That appears to be in the process of being corrected. Would this complicate your ability to get a deal . Everything complicates Everything Else. But this trade issue over lumber, as has been pointed out, is not a brandnew issue. Its been around for quite a while. Mr. Secretary, the meeting the next upcoming meeting of the g7 is about a month away. The u. S. Is in the middle of talks with klein about how to address north korea. Are you comfortable that the north korea calculus has not hamstrung your ability to be as direct with china on matters like this, and is the action with canada meant also to signal to our other western economic allies and partners that if they mess with the u. S. , they could face Something Like this. As to canada, as you know, at the maralago meetings we agreed on kind of a 100day program, and were going back and forth with the deal. With the relation to dairy or lumber with canada, has no bearing on the chinese relationship as all. Seems to me the object of the 25 tariff on soft lumber coming out of canada is not to raise wood prices, it is to save and create american forestry jobs and loggers who are losing their jobs right now as a result of the dumping. Has the administration done a study to know how Many American jobs are going to be saved by this tariff . Well, its quite a lot of board feet of lumber. Lumber sells for about 38 cents per foot. So if you take all these large amounts, there are about 37 billion board feet of lumber consumed in the u. S. Market in a given year. Part of the reason i dont see that there will be a huge price differential coming in is this only affects 31. 5 of that output. The Competition Among the american producers remains the same. So this is not like suddenly house prices are going to go up 10 or 15 . Thats silly. How many jobs pardon me . How many new jobs will be created or jobs will be saved as a result of stopping the i dont have an exact total. But i can tell you, it is in quite a few states along the northern perimeter, going all the way down into louisiana. So this affects quite a number of people and quite a number of bus