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May 5, 2025 17:36-18:30 - CSPAN

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Washington Journal Rachel Slade

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unidentified		At 7 Eastern Tuesday morning on C-SPAN.
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		Democracy.
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		It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted.
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		This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		A conversation now about the history and future of American manufacturing.
		Our guest is Rachel Slade.
		She's the author of the 2024 book, Making It in America, the Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the U.S. and how it got that way.
		Rachel Slade, why do you describe it as almost impossible?
unidentified		Thank you for asking that question.
		Thanks for opening that way.
		We actually have 13 million Americans right now working in factories, working in manufacturing, and they're contributing about $3 trillion to the economy.
		That is not a small number at all.
		So I just wanted to remind everybody that there are people going to work every single day making things in America.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		It's not a small number, but it used to be a lot larger number.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Explain how we got here and what it used to be.
unidentified		Oh, well, that's a big ask.
		How we got here.
		How we got here is obviously offshoring.
		It was a decision that we all made together.
		We did it through our corporations.
		We did it through policy.
		We lowered the guardrails and allowed American corporations to start using labor from abroad.
		And that meant we didn't just offshore the actual labor of our economy, but we also offshored all the ingenuity that we had developed right here through making.
		And I really love driving that point home because manufacturing isn't just about making things.
		It's about innovating.
		You can't innovate unless you make.
		So I always like to drive that point home from the very beginning.
		This isn't just about making widgets.
		It's about making widgets better.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Offshoring.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Offshoring and NAFTA often said in the same sentence, is offshoring all NAFTA's fault?
unidentified		NAFTA accelerated it, but actually offshoring started to happen earlier.
		So what NAFTA was, was bipartisan legislation that allowed companies to use labor abroad without tariffs, without penalties.
		And that was super tempting.
		They could make things cheap, but that had started actually way before NAFTA.
		You know, companies were starting to realize that they could set up factories all around the world and get around the labor laws and the environmental laws that Americans put into place to protect each other and our assets, which include, you know, our air, our water.
		So that meant that manufacturing was more expensive in the United States.
		And if companies were pushed to make more profit, then they had to find ways to make things cheaper.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		For our viewers who like the numbers, two sentences from your book, since NAFTA's implementation, more than 60,000 American manufacturers permanently shut their doors.
		5 million American manufacturing jobs vanished between 1994 and 2013 in textiles alone.
		More than a million manufacturing jobs evaporated between 1990 and 2019.
		Speaking of textiles, what is American Roots?
unidentified		American Roots.
		So I didn't know a lot about all of this, this entire landscape.
		And in 2020, when the pandemic suddenly made us very aware of the delicate nature of our supply chain and how we're dependent we were on imports, I decided to find out what is manufacturing in America?
		What does it look like right now?
		And I went to a company in Maine.
		It's called American Roots.
		It was started by a husband-wife team in 2015 outside of Portland, Maine, which is the state capital.
		And they began with this vision that they could use union labor to create apparel.
		I loved their company and I really wanted to investigate American Roots specifically because it seemed so impossible to make apparel here, to use union labor.
		But also they didn't have any private equity backing.
		They weren't rich.
		They had actually cashed out their retirements.
		They mortgaged their house to start this factory.
		And in 2020, what did they do?
		When they saw that everybody around was suffering because we didn't have protective clothing for first responders and for other workers who needed to come into work every day, they pivoted from making apparel to making protective gear.
		That was an incredible story, and that's where I was starting.
		So American Roots continues today.
		They have 85 employees now and they are making all kinds of apparel.
		And actually, they just created, they just established a partnership with women's professional soccer to make all of the fan gear and all of the uniforms for women's soccer.
		So it's just an amazing story.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		The story of American Roots and American Manufacturing laid out in the book, Making It in America, the Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the U.S. and how it got that way.
		Rachel Slade is the author, our guest, until the end of our program today.
		And she's taking your phone calls on phone lines split this way.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		Republicans 202-748-8001.
		Independents 202-748-8002.
		And then a special line that we have set up for this segment.
		If you work in the manufacturing sector, we would especially love to hear from you and your questions.
		202-748-8003 is that number.
		Go ahead and start dialing.
		And Rachel Slade, as folks are calling in, what would it take if we've lost 60,000 American manufacturers since 1994?
		What would it take to get them back to create 59,999 more American Roots type business to make it in America?
unidentified		Yeah.
		Well, these folks need a lot of support.
		They need access to low-interest capital.
		That's really important.
		Where are they going to get the money to rebuild?
		They need trained workers, which if they're going to do the training themselves, again, they need capital.
		They need machines.
		Where are they getting the machines?
		Can we develop a machine industry right here to support these folks?
		They also need a level playing field.
		And if other countries are doing currency manipulation or are providing cheap labor, which produces cheap goods, then we need to level that playing field.
		And I do believe in tariffs, but the tariffs should be on finished goods, finished goods.
		That's really important to distinguish from raw goods, which of course all manufacturers need.
		And we are part of the global supply chain.
		We need to understand that intrinsically, that there are different kinds of imports coming in.
		But what American companies really need to compete is a level pricing playing field, which does require tariffs on finished goods.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		We had a caller in our last segment, Steve and Tucson, and he was talking about manufacturing, job losses that have happened in this country, and onshoring, jobs coming back to America.
		And he says, if we do this, if we try to onshore, what happens when these jobs come back?
		People who are currently being paid, and he said, $2 an hour to manufacture an item in another country.
		What happens when they come here and they have to be paid $20 an hour?
		Who's going to pay the cost of that?
		What would you say to Steve and Tucson?
unidentified		Well, the people who would be making the things here would be earning $20 an hour.
		It's not people coming over who were making less before.
		So the question is, what happens when you have labor making more money to produce domestic goods?
		And the answer is domestic goods will be more expensive.
		Absolutely no question about it.
		However, when we think about the incredible cost that we are paying for cheap imported goods, suddenly things start to make sense.
		So if you have people here in America making good wages, producing things, then we are creating a whole new ecosystem, a whole new tax base of makers, of innovators, of people who are contributing finally to a growing economy.
		And instead of what I see now, the service economy, which is an extraction model, the service economy is designed to take dollars out of our pockets instead of the manufacturing economy, which is about producing, which will then grow the entire economy.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Can you explain what planned obsolescence is?
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		And if we make these items in America, are we certain that they're going to be better quality items?
unidentified		That's a great question.
		The whole idea that Americans produce better goods was certainly true at one time and can certainly be true in certain sectors.
		I'm not sure that that is the strongest argument for bringing American manufacturing back.
		However, if you treat workers well with respect, you pay them living wage, you give them time off, you give them time flexibility, you give them opportunities to grow within the industry through training programs and other things, and you also give them the right to organize so that they can protect their own labor, then you have an economy where people are being taken care of,
		where people feel good about what they're making and they have pride in the products that they're producing.
		And then they will give back to the economy by innovating, by supporting the very companies that are supporting them through good work.
		That's the idea.
		And that's what I've seen in the factory in Portland, Maine, and all around the country.
		I've spoken to small producers all around the country.
		And that's what they see.
		When you take care of workers, they take care of the product.
		They want the companies to succeed because they're invested in it just as the companies are invested in them.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me let you chat with a few callers, including folks on that special line we're setting aside for those who work in manufacturing.
		That number 202-748-8003.
		And John is on that line out of Wisconsin.
		John, you are on with Rachel Slade.
unidentified		Hi, thanks for taking my call this morning.
		I worked in manufacturing my entire career and it was a non-union plant.
		And I'm only 61 years old and I've been retired for it'll be six years.
		I was lucky enough to enjoy a pension to a non-union plant.
		And so I don't really know if it's as big of a deal as far as organizing, like you were saying, that you need to organize and have union labor.
		Like you say, there are companies out there that will treat people that are employees right, necessarily without having to pay the union dues or that type of thing.
		I think the union is more to protect people that didn't do their job efficiently.
		But my main question to you is: people nowadays talk a lot about the people in China and other countries where they pay such little wages compared to what we do here.
		And that's because they treat them terribly, in my opinion.
		You know, they don't have anything to do with any backing or safety things.
		And I was just wondering what your thoughts on that were.
		And also, it's funny that people I retired from six years ago are now making the same amount of money starting as I was after working there for 26 years.
		So the costs have greatly increased since inflation happened in 2020.
		So I just wanted to give your thoughts on that subject.
		Thanks a lot for taking my call.
		Yeah, John, thank you so much, first of all, for being in manufacturing.
		You mentioned pensions.
		You're lucky you got one.
		I would love to see pensions come back.
		And by the way, I would love to see pension plans, especially union pension plans, have mandates to allot some of their investment in companies that actually support workers.
		But that's a whole different discussion.
		We can talk about that if you want.
		But the question about how are workers being treated in other countries where they're getting paid so little, you nailed, you hit that nail right on the head.
		I mean, that's the cost of offshoring, right?
		That's the cost.
		And we all, you know, pay an ethical and moral cost to being addicted to very, very cheap goods.
		There is a cost to those goods, and the cost is in exploitation of people and places.
		Do you know that Bangladesh, which is where almost all of our apparel comes from, in Bangladesh, I believe they have two or three major rivers that are classified as dead?
		Dead.
		That means that nothing can live in those rivers because of the apparel and textile industries there.
		They have no safeguards.
		That is happening in Bangladesh.
		It actually at one time used to happen in America.
		We enacted laws, we, the people, asked the government to enact laws to protect our air and protect our water.
		That made things more expensive for Americans.
		But we, at one time, were willing to pay for that because this is our country.
		This is where we live.
		This is where our children go swimming.
		This is where we have to draw the water from our faucet.
		So we were willing to pay that price.
		And we need to be able, we need to, we need to have that kind of courage again to pay the price for well-being goods that don't have these inherent terrible costs, the exploitation of labor and of the environment.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me head to Iowa.
		This is Mark on that same line for folks who work in manufacturing.
		Go ahead, Mark.
unidentified		Yeah, I worked for a packing house.
		It's owned by Smithfield here in Iowa.
		And Smithfield is a Chinese company now.
		They bought Smithfield 20 years ago, and it used to be Connagra Foods, and they sold to Smithfield.
		And Smithfield is one of the biggest pork producers in the United States.
		And it keeps our prices low because my grandfather retired from an armor plant, which was previously ConAgra.
		And they made more money on a loaf of bread or gallon of milk compared to what I was making when I retired.
		Thank you.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rachel Slade, any thoughts on Mark's story?
unidentified		Yeah, you know, China has actually invested.
		So we did offshore so much of our economy to China.
		What's interesting is China's not the bogeyman here.
		And I don't think it's a positive thing to blame everything, all of our problems on China.
		Like we brought this upon ourselves, did we not?
		What's interesting is that when we exported our economy to China, China did come back and invest in the U.S.
		And so China, I believe, is the largest foreign holder of U.S. bonds.
		And of course, bonds support U.S. bonds support rebuilding in America, infrastructure, all kinds of things.
		And as you mentioned, of course, the Chinese have also used their incredible wealth to buy American companies.
		There was a great movie.
		I don't know if you can have access to it, but it was called, I believe it's called Factory, which was about an auto glass factory in the United States that was actually purchased by a Chinese company.
		And it was really interesting to see the cultural differences.
		But yeah, I mean, we are part of the global economy.
		I don't know what else to add to that, but I do appreciate what you're saying.
		And I think it's important to understand that American industry, you know, can be held by foreign owners.
		A lot of it is.
		I don't think that's our biggest problem.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		On China, let me come back to tariffs for a second.
		You said you do believe in tariffs on finished goods or finished products.
		How much of the tariff regime that we've seen from the Trump administration in the past couple of months, how much of it is focused on finished goods versus the raw material?
unidentified		My understanding is that these are blanket tariffs and they seem punitive, right?
		So they're based on the idea that the other countries did this to us, that they should be penalized for having trade imbalances with us.
		And from my perspective and from what I have learned through manufacturers, that's not a positive way to approach this very serious problem that Americans have right now.
		Again, if we understand that we did this to our subs by empowering corporations to basically dictate policy and lower the guardrails so that they could offshore and make much higher profit at our expense, that means that we need to start right here at home to fix these problems through policy.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Let me head to Mike in Rice Lake, Wisconsin Independent.
		Mike, thanks for waiting.
		You are on with Rachel Slade.
		Go ahead.
unidentified		Okay.
		Thanks for taking my call, John.
		So I have a couple, I have one comment and then one question.
		I own a small landscaping business in Rice Lake, Wisconsin.
		And an experience I had with trying to purchase a product like a shoulder bag either in the United States or China.
		This was probably five years ago at least.
		I had to buy I had to buy 500 bags.
		And they asked me if I wanted to buy them in Texas or overseas.
		And they said, well, I said I'd like to buy them in Texas, but they said, well, they'll cost like almost three times as much.
		Yeah.
		So they were $40 a bag coming from Texas or $15 a bag coming from China because they had plants in China also.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Which one did you go with, Mike?
unidentified		Good question.
unidentified		Well, I went with $7,500 from China instead of $20,000 from Texas.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Mike, were the bags made in Texas any better quality than the ones made in China?
unidentified		Well, I think the sample bags that they sent me first probably came from Texas because they had a plant there at their office.
		And the bags that I purchased that came from China were just like the sample bags.
		So I would assume the quality was the same.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Mike, hang on the line.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Rachel Slade, any follow-up questions?
unidentified		No, I hear you loud and clear.
unidentified		Absolutely.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		So what are your thoughts on that story, Rachel Slade, and business owners making decisions like that?
unidentified		Yep.
		I mean, that happens all the time, every day.
		It's been happening for 30 years.
		These are the decisions that we're making every day.
		I can't blame you for taking the lower cost option.
		Again, you know, there's the moral, ethical, and political question of is that a good idea?
		The cost of those bags, though, remember, is artificially deflated, right?
		It comes from subsidies that the Chinese government gives to all of its industries to keep those costs very, very deflated.
		And this is a kind of long-term picture, but the idea was originally to get us dependent on those goods coming from China and put us out of business.
		And man, have they done a great job.
		Again, this wasn't punitive.
		They weren't punishing us.
		They were merely asserting themselves into the global economy as best they could.
		And these are the ways that they could do it.
		And so the question is, what are we going to do about it?
		Are we going to decide that this is such a serious problem that we need to bring American manufacturing back?
		And in doing so, raise prices, but also raise wages at the same time.
		Or do we just give up our hands and let go?
		You know what?
		That doesn't sound American to me.
		We put people on the moon.
		We develop the iPhone.
		We've done incredible things.
		We take the hard road when we decide it's important.
		This is going to be a hard road.
		This is going to be difficult.
		This is reshaping, rebuilding our economy.
		But I do want to mention that all of this offshoring happened within my lifetime.
		I am not that old.
		This stuff went away.
		We've just spoken to several gentlemen who were in manufacturing.
		They got out, but they were in it.
		They made good livings.
		They were middle class.
		We can do this again.
		But it's going to require weaning ourselves off of really cheap stuff because that is super tempting.
		Basically, we're being offered things that prices we can't resist.
		And so we need to level the playing field.
		The prices need to return to the level to the real cost.
		And that's the purpose of tariffs.
		Because the real cost for that bag was probably $45.
		Or, you know, the Chinese bag that you said was $15, but it was actually the price is full of five.
		That's the real cost of that bag, but it was artificially displayed.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		How much do you buy American in your own life?
unidentified		A lot, a lot.
		And actually, it's been wonderful because trying to find American-made brands, which, by the way, has been somewhat of a hobby of mine at this point since I started doing this.
		I have met so many makers, so many Americans who understand these problems fundamentally deep in their heart.
		And so we are like politically aligned.
		We care very much about the environment.
		We care very much about how workers are treated.
		And so I've met all these wonderful people around the country who are now my friends.
		And I feel good when I receive a package from them.
		But I have to say, I buy, I thrift a lot.
		Like I buy a lot of used things.
		It's just part of what I do.
		And I don't buy a lot in general.
		I buy for quality, not for quantity.
		And I do want to say that there is a statistic that says that Americans over the past 20 years spend about the same amount of money for consumer goods, believe it or not.
		They're just buying a lot more.
		So we are volume buyers instead of quality buyers at this point.
		And I would ask viewers to think about the things that they're buying.
		Are you buying more because, well, it's less expensive and you can stock up.
		You can buy poorly made things because you know that there's just this flood of poorly made things that will continue to come to your door through Amazon and others.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		About 10 or 15 minutes left today.
		Rachel Slade is our guest, Making It in America is our book.
		And Jim is in Frederick, Maryland Democrat.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning.
		Thanks for taking my call.
		I'm just concerned about the practicality and realistic of these sort of long-term goals that we have, because that's really what they are.
		I just feel that a lot of things that were talked about, I know China isn't necessarily the bad kid on the block, but I do think that I always think of China as China Inc.
		And in other words, they chose certain industries, especially at the high end, like solar panels or batteries that they had to source exclusive rights to mines in Africa, for example.
		I just don't know if America will ever be able to, from an industrial level, I shouldn't say from a federal level, to say, here are things we really want to invest in.
		Because we know they'll bring high-end jobs and improve the, you know, move us away from just service businesses.
		It all sounds great on paper, but it's a free market issue.
		And I do think that a lot of Americans are, I don't want to say, you know, living paycheck to paycheck.
		And I do agree we buy too much of low quality or low price versus less.
		But I just don't know if it's ever practically going to happen.
		It takes a long-term thought.
		And a lot of Americans are just not, as much as we're all Americans, we all like to get more for less.
		And to get Americans to change their attitude and practicality of it, I think is just unrealistic.
		So I guess my only question then would be is how can we achieve this sort of change in America?
		I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
		A lot of it sounds great if you're taking a class at a university about, boy, let's lay out a plan.
		But I just don't know if it's actually going to realistically be possible here in America.
		I don't mean to sound negative.
		I just don't know how easy it will be for us to be able to live with higher prices.
		Americans, just we want to get what we want for life.
		Just our nature.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Frederick Marilyn, Rachel Slade.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
unidentified		Hi, Jim.
		Well, first of all, thank you for that.
		I know there are a lot of people who think this is difficult.
		I agree with you.
		I've been saying it for a long time.
		This is not easy.
		What are the things that are stopping us from doing it?
		And then what are the reasons why we should?
		You know, those are two things that I think we need to teach each other.
		But in terms of the practicality, let's think about the CHIPS Act, for example.
		The CHIPS Act actually was about bringing high-tech manufacturing back to the United States.
		And it provided tax incentives and all kinds of incentives to get people reinvested in high-tech manufacturing here in the U.S.
		It worked.
		It worked.
		You can argue with me what it worked.
		There was billions of dollars, some of it foreign investment, coming into the United States because we're a huge consumer economy and people wanted to manufacture here.
		They wanted the products made here.
		So that worked.
		We know it can work.
		But these can't be kind of, these can't be political decisions.
		These can't be things that kind of blow with the wind.
		You know, we need policy that feels firm, that's on firm footing.
		And that will require, I think, Americans to start looking around and saying, we're all in this together, all of us.
		There's been so much divisive rhetoric that's pulling us apart, making us see differences where probably there aren't any.
		And it's turning us against each other, which then makes this kind of effort very difficult.
		So I hear your pessimism because the rhetoric right now is divisive.
		It's difficult to see how benefiting my fellow Americans in all, you know, in all colors and stripes all around the nation would actually benefit me.
		But then I remember that these are taxpayers.
		These are people who care about the air and the water because they're breathing the same air, they're drinking the same water.
		I think we need to start finding common ground among all of us and start to think about the common good.
		Why are we American?
		What is special about being American?
		I agree with you.
		These are difficult problems given the rhetoric, the level of rhetoric right now that we're hearing online is, and sorry, on TV.
		It's difficult to hear that stuff.
		And certainly social media elevates these angry voices, these divisive voices.
		But again, when I talk to manufacturers, when I talk to people in manufacturing, when I talk to workers all around the country, we have so much more in common than we have difference.
		And so I hope that since you're watching this program, you care, you give a damn.
		And that means other people care.
		Those voices need to be elevated at this point.
		We need to come together.
		It can happen, but the rhetoric needs to change, in my opinion.
		That's where we can start.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Just a few minutes left with Rachel Slade this morning, her 2024 book, Making It in America, your previous book, Into the Raging Sea.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What was that about?
unidentified		Oh, thank you.
		So in 2015, an American container ship called the El Faro sailed straight into a hurricane when it was carrying goods between Jacksonville, Florida, and Puerto Rico.
		She sailed straight into a hurricane and went down.
		She went down deeper than the Titanic, 15,000 feet of water, killing all 33 mariners aboard.
		And I was shocked that in 2015 we could lose a container ship with all the sophisticated navigation and weather reporting gear on board.
		It was a fascinating story for me, but it also introduced me to the supply chain issues and how vulnerable we are to something as fragile as shipping.
		And it also introduced me to the fact that we don't control shipping anymore.
		Americans gave up shipbuilding.
		We gave up our own shipping.
		You probably know that China has a very robust government subsidized shipbuilding and port building program.
		These are programs that Americans used to have.
		My whole realization was that when you control shipping, you control your trade, you control your future.
		And so that's where this whole concern about American manufacturing began.
		And it also raised my awareness about the importance of unions and the role of unions throughout history in supporting American workers.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		What was your conclusion on the causes to that ship going down?
unidentified		There were multiple reasons why that ship went down.
		It takes a lot to sink a 790-foot container ship.
		One of the major problems was that ship was actually very old.
		It had been built in 1975 and its life-saving equipment had been grandfathered in.
		So they had open lifeboats on that ship, just like you would see on the Titanic instead of the enclosed lifeboats.
		So that was one problem.
		These guys were working with very old equipment.
		Another problem was that the captain felt a lot of pressure to deliver goods on time.
		And unfortunately, that's kind of where we are sometimes, that American companies just put a huge amount of pressure on workers instead of considering their workers as stakeholders in this operation.
		So the captain knew the storm was there.
		He knew he was sailing into it, but he thought he was going to be like a corporate hero by doing the corporation's bidding.
		And then finally, the final question or the final problem was just climate change, where we have these major hurricanes really coming out of nowhere and then sit.
		So when you have a hot ocean, hurricanes don't move.
		They sit and they dump water on you.
		And that's why we're seeing a lot of flooding during hurricane season on the coast these days.
		And in this case, it was a small, powerful hurricane that just sat where it was and churned up the water and churned up the air and ate a ship.
		As horrible as it sounds, it was a terrible hurricane.
		And we're actually coming up on the 10th anniversary of the loss of the Alfaro this October, October 1st, 2025.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		You can read that story in the book Into the Raging Sea, Rachel Slate's latest book, Making It in America.
		Time for just a couple more calls here before the end of our program.
		This is Paul in New York, Republican.
		Thanks for waiting.
unidentified		Hi, thanks for taking my call.
		I live in upstate New York.
		And back in the 90s, I worked at General Electric.
		And We had two manufacturing plants up this way.
		And the CEO of our company was a guy named Jack Walsh.
		And his push was to stop paying these high wages, you know, to people that lived in the United States.
		So they moved all the plants.
		And the reason they moved all the plants, ours went to Juarez, Mexico.
		And the reason they moved all the plants is because it was profitable.
		And the way it was made possible was through Congress.
		Congress, bipartisan, passed NAFTA.
		They also passed these trade deals with China that made it possible for what's going on today to go on today.
		So it's kind of hard.
		I mean, I really appreciate you coming on and discussing this, but I don't see how the average American worker is ever going to get any kind of manufacturing that'll pay a living wage when both parties are in the pocket of big business.
		Big business is what runs this country.
		Speech is now donations.
		So, you know, that's my comment.
		Good luck.
		I'm totally with you.
		I'm totally with you 100%.
		That is the problem.
		There was a time, it's hard to believe, but there was a time when Congress worked for the American people.
		They didn't want to pass environmental and labor laws.
		They didn't want to.
		They had to, because the American people were the voice and they were working for us.
		And I completely agree with you.
		So what are we going to do about it?
		I'm asking you, how can we change that?
		Because you're right.
		Corporations and money have outsized power in our government.
		We need to change that.
		So let's vote that way.
		But I agree with you.
		That's a major problem.
john mcardle ▲ ● ▼		Many of these issues taken up in the book, Making It in America, the Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the USA and how it got that way.
		Rachel Slade is the author.
		We appreciate your time this morning on the Washington Journal.
		Come back again and we'll talk about it down the road.
unidentified		Thank you.
		I would love to.
		It's been a pleasure.
		Earlier today, House lawmakers examined ways to improve access to veterans' health care through modernized scheduling technology.
		You can watch the full House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee hearing tonight at 9 Eastern on C-SPAN.
		It's also available on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We're joined now by Jim Townsend, who's a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO policy during the Obama administration, now currently at the Center for a New American Security, where he's the adjunct senior fellow at the Transatlantic Security Program.
		Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
unidentified		It's great to be here.
unidentified		Thank you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So let's talk about the latest in terms of the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
		And the United States and Ukraine signed a deal on Wednesday about critical minerals after months of tense negotiations.
		Can you talk about this deal and what it says about U.S.-Ukraine relations right now?
unidentified		Well, it's certainly something that has finally come about.
		There's been so much talk about this, back and forth about this.
		It's caused great tension between the United States and Ukraine and also between the United States and our European allies.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		So this has been a bit of a breakthrough in terms of the relationship.
		And it is much better than that original agreement that was given to Zelensky a month or two ago by the Secretary of the Treasury who traveled to Kyiv.
		This is something that gives Ukraine control over their natural resources.
unidentified		And it's a much better agreement for Ukraine than that first one.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So let's go into a bit of what is actually in this deal.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Can you walk through why Zelensky was refusing to sign some of those earlier deals and what's different about this one?
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		Well, the earlier deals had a lot of provisions in there that did not make it through to this last one, which is good.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		One of them was that this was going to be repayment for what the U.S. had provided in terms of assistance to Ukraine.
unidentified		So this wasn't even future-looking.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		This was looking to the past and as if it was paying a bill.
unidentified		And so that is no longer part of this package.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		Secondly, it called for elections in Ukraine, which is a bit of a dog whistle for getting rid of Zelensky.
unidentified		And that didn't go over so well in Kyiv either.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		And so there is also much more control by the United States over the natural resources themselves and the kind of the rights that the U.S. industry would have in Ukraine.
unidentified		The new deal, it doesn't call for elections.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		It's talking about what the future income that would come in or profits that would come in from this deal.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		That would be part of this fund where both Ukraine and the U.S. would be equal partners.
unidentified		It wouldn't be something that would be controlled exclusively by the U.S.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		This is something that both countries would be running and would be focused on Ukraine providing 50% of this fund for reconstruction of Ukraine, and the U.S. would provide the other 50%.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		And so this is something too where in terms of control of the minerals themselves in the ground, that's going to remain with Ukraine.
unidentified		The U.S. doesn't get control of that.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		Ukraine also controls which minerals will be extracted and where that extraction would happen.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		So there's much stronger voice of Ukraine and control by Ukraine in this deal, which is much more of an equal partnership with the United States rather than something dictated by the U.S.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Yes, let's look at a couple of highlights from this deal, as reported by the Associated Press and NBC News, that this deal establishes a joint reconstruction investment fund, that it be financed by new Ukrainian oil, gas, and critical minerals licenses, and that Ukraine, as you mentioned, would contribute 50% of all future profits into the reconstruction fund, and that the United States would contribute in the form of direct funds and equipment,
		and then the full ownership of the resources remain with Ukraine.
		Now, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant announced this deal with a tone of solidarity.
		How do you think Russia sees all of this?
unidentified		Well, it's interesting.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		I think they might be a little concerned that the daylight that they thought there was between the United States and Ukraine over the past couple months, that maybe that daylight is beginning to narrow a bit, that the U.S. and Ukraine are beginning to develop a more unified approach to what the future should look like, Because now the United States has a stake in it.
unidentified		U.S. business is going to be given preferential treatment.
unidentified		It's going to take a while for the extraction to actually take place and for profits to be seen.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		But this is something where, if you're a Russia, this is not going to be quite as easy to separate out the United States and Ukraine as they thought earlier on.
		The second point is that some of these, or at least 40% of these rare earths, are in parts of Ukraine that are currently occupied by Russia.
		So I'm sure the Russians are going to say, you know, well, we're going to make sure we're going to, whatever peace agreement comes about, we're going to keep control over what's in these occupied lands so that they're going to have to deal with us so that Russia is going to get some of this profit too.
unidentified		I'm sure they're not going to want to give that up in some type of peace agreement.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, this is something where I think there's going to be a little bit more pressure on Russia, too, because suddenly it looks like Ukraine is able to conclude a deal, even though this doesn't have anything specifically to do with the peace agreement.
unidentified		The U.S. and Ukraine are able to at least put this together and to agree to this.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		And that begins to add some momentum to a future ceasefire agreement.
unidentified		So suddenly all eyes are on Putin saying, okay, the U.S. and Ukraine have done this deal.
unidentified		The next step is with you.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, this does come as the White House is trying to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia.
		And they've said that White House officials have said this is going to be a critical week.
		Where do you see things standing in these peace talks?
unidentified		Well, right now, they're pretty much at a standstill.
unidentified		The Russians extended an idea of a three-day ceasefire during their celebrations of the 80th anniversary of VE Day, the end of World War II in Europe.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		And of course, Ukraine said, no, no, no, we don't want a three-day parade just covering this parade that you're going to have.
unidentified		This is performance diplomacy, if you will.
		We want a peace ceasefire and something that's going to last longer than three days.
		So they rejected that.
		And so now Putin is able to turn to the international community and say, well, you see, Ukraine's not interested in peace.
		They've rejected this.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		So right now, we don't have in front of us any kind of ceasefire.
unidentified		There is something with the Baltics where there was some agreement about future talks about security in the Baltic Sea.
		There was also a ceasefire in terms of attacking Ukraine energy and Russian energy sources as well.
		And those have been violated, and those are really sweeteners more than anything else.
		It wasn't the complete ceasefire that certainly Ukraine was looking for.
		So really, in terms of teams meeting to discuss this, there seems to be now an emphasis on having Ukraine and Russia meet together themselves to work something out.
		I'm not sure how well that's going to go.
		But today, things seem like they're not moving along, certainly after Ukraine has told Russia that they weren't going to accept this three-day ceasefire during the parade.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Here's Ukrainian President Vlodymir Zelensky speaking through an interpreter on Tuesday and criticizing Russia's delay in agreeing to a ceasefire.
unidentified		Russia has consistently rejected everything and continues to manipulate the world, trying to deceive the United States.
		Now, yet again, another attempt at manipulation.
		For some reason, everyone is supposed to wait until May 8th before ceasing fire, just to provide Putin with silence for his parade.
		We value human lives, not parades.
		That's why we believe and the world believes that there is no reason to wait until May 8th.
		The ceasefire should not be just for a few days, only to return to killing afterward.
		It must be immediate, full, and unconditional for at least 30 days to ensure it is secure and guaranteed.
		This is the foundation that could lead to real diplomacy.
		We reaffirm this proposal.
		The American proposal also remains on the table.
		Russia knows exactly what it needs to do and how to respond to genuinely ceasefire.
		And we believe that global pressure, pressure from the United States of America, can push Russia toward precisely the kind of response that is needed.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now, Russia's attacks on Ukraine have continued, even though President Trump has repeatedly complained about those attacks and asked them to stop.
		I'm looking at a post from Truth Social on April 24th saying, with President Trump saying, I am not happy with Russian strikes on Kyiv, not necessary, and very bad timing.
		Vladimir, stop.
		5,000 soldiers a week are dying.
		Let's get the peace deal done.
		Another Truth Social post from April 26th, President Trump said there was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities, and towns over the last few days.
		It makes me think that maybe he doesn't want to stop the war.
		He's just tapping me along and has to be dealt with differently through banking or secondary sanctions.
		Too many people are dying.
		Now, President Trump said that he could end the conflict on day one, but now we're 100 days in.
		Do you think the president's opinions of the war and particularly how he sees Putin have changed?
unidentified		Well, I think they're in the middle of changing.
unidentified		I think you're absolutely right.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		He certainly has acknowledged that trying to arrive at a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine is more complex and more complicated than he thought.
unidentified		And also, we know that he's frustrated.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		We know Marco Rubio and others have expressed that the president is willing to walk away if they can't come to a quick agreement.
unidentified		So we know he's frustrated.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		But I think what you pointed out is very important, which is his view about Putin, that perhaps he's being tapped along, that this is something that he's that to even admit publicly the way Trump has done, that kind of casts some aspersions on Trump himself.
unidentified		Like, how could you have allowed yourself to be tapped along?
		So, you know, Trump has a big ego part in this.
		He already said that he was going to do it in 24 hours.
		That hasn't proven itself.
		They've had a number of talks with the Russians, and that hasn't led to anything.
		I think he is beginning to see that Russia really isn't interested in peace, not right now.
		He's got plenty of fight in himself.
		They're on a war footing in Moscow in terms of the economy, in terms of defense industrial production, in terms of increasing the Russian army.
		So he's not really interested in a temporary ceasefire unless he can make good use of it.
		And he's certainly not interested in a peace agreement now when he's got some bigger goals that he hasn't even come close to achieving, like having U.S. remove troops from Europe.
		So he's not interested in that.
		And I think maybe Putin and his tactics right now, I think the president is beginning to understand that he's got to be a bit harsher on Putin than he's been in the past.
		And now he's talking like that.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's get to some questions from our callers.
		You can call in with questions for our guest.
		Democrats at 202-748-8000.
		Republicans at 202-748-8001.
		Independents at 202-748-8002.
		Let's start with Ronald in Boca Raton, Florida on our line for Democrats.
		Ronald, you're on with Jim Townsend from the Center for a New American Security.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		My thought is that this is one of the great ideas that could bring a country together if it's done properly.
		If we could get the minerals we need, and Ukraine could get the capital they need to restore their country, I would think that would be a Republican and a Democrat.
		That's the kind of things that would bring a country together.
		If I could make just one comment about your previous question, my friend is a principal out of high school.
		He has a budget.
		He came in 30% under budget.
		If he didn't spend that 30%, he would lose his budget for the next year.
		I'm sure that there are many departments in the country that have budgets.
		If you put qualified people in and they come in under budget and maybe get some kind of a small 10% compensation, I think that could help bring the deficit down without causing any problems.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		We do want to keep it to the Ukraine topic.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Jim, did you want to respond to the caller's earlier points?
unidentified		Well, you know, I think he's absolutely right.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		I think, you know, when the original agreement that the Secretary of Treasury went to Kyiv and presented to Zelensky, when that original agreement was known, there was a lot of criticism, certainly among Democrats, but even among some Republicans, that that was just too one-sided.
unidentified		And I think the agreement now that has been agreed, I think your caller is right.
unidentified		This is something where I think Democrats and Republicans can agree that this is something that particularly Ukraine really needs.
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		The recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine has always been a looming cloud out there that both in Europe and the United States we were wrestling with.
unidentified		How are we going to deal with reconstruction, particularly if Russia is not going to pay the bill?
		Do we use some of their frozen, you know, they have frozen funds in Europe and in the United States too?
		Do we use that?
		How do we go about doing that?
jim townsend ▲ ● ▼		So this fund has been set up so that it's going to be for Reconstruction.
		And there's going to be at some point when they're able to really extract those elements, the minerals, this could be something that's going to really help Ukraine recover from this period of bombardment for years now.
		And so, yes, I think Democrats and Republicans and the United States as a whole, I think we can get behind this and make sure that it works to the benefit, not just of the Ukrainians, but also to the American taxpayer, too.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Treasury Secretary Scott Beseund, who you were just referencing in announcing that deal, said this agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term.
		President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides' commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.
		Let's hear now from Beth in Shalimar, Florida on our line for Republicans.
		Good morning, Beth.
unidentified		I'll start out on a light note.
		Happy Star Wars Day.
		May the 4th be with you.

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