Tech Industry 'Optimistic' About Trade Talks

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00:00Within your trade industry, there are the likes of NVIDIA, there are the likes of Apple.

00:05How are these companies going to be reacting today?

00:08Very positive reaction. I think you'll see today and in the days ahead and great to be with you

00:13with this breaking news. I think the most important element, and Mike alluded to this in

00:18your conversation, is the statement that came out jointly from the U.S. and Chinese negotiators

00:24in Geneva. Now, in the trade world, the joint statements are really something that we want

00:28to look and parse at and see what it really means. But the fact that the statement was issued jointly

00:33by the negotiators, they didn't put out separate statements, they put out one together. And the

00:37very opening language of that joint statement that was put out this morning is about the importance

00:42of the economic relationship, of the trade relationship between the U.S. and China,

00:47about the importance of a sustainable, long-term, mutually beneficial economic and trade relationship

00:53between the U.S. and China. So today's announcement of the tariff pause is obviously enormously important.

01:00But I think what it what it suggests for the negotiation in the months ahead is that the

01:05parties are very focused and very dedicated and believe that a mutually beneficial agreement can be

01:10struck. And so looking even in the medium and long term, I'm feeling very optimistic and the tech

01:14industry is very optimistic about where we're headed.

01:17Now, interestingly, Scott Besson, Treasury Secretary, who's been negotiating this in Switzerland over

01:21the weekend, joined our colleagues on Bloomberg Surveillance a little bit earlier. Just have a

01:25listen to what he said.

01:30China was the only country who escalated their tariffs in response to our reciprocal tariff level.

01:37So that resulted in an unfortunate escalation. So we now have a mechanism to deal with that.

01:46Neither side wants a generalized decoupling. The U.S. is going to do a strategic decoupling.

01:54I want your take on what strategic decoupling now means, Jason, for your key members of your trade

02:02association, NVIDIA, who wants to sell into China, Apple, who wants to bring phones from China.

02:06Yeah, I think it's a really important statement from the Treasury Secretary. It means that we're

02:10returning to a place where we look at national security issues separate and apart from

02:15economic issues where we were in a bad place, as the Treasury Secretary said, with the reciprocal

02:21tariffs and the escalating on both sides was heading toward decoupling. Where we're returning

02:26to, and I think we'll see this in the negotiations going forward, is a place where we look at national

02:31security issues like the highest security need to make sure, for example, that the Chinese Communist

02:37Party military doesn't get access to the latest generation of AI technology. But at the same time,

02:42China, which is an enormously valuable market, one and a half billion people, top three economy

02:48in the world, can get access to other U.S. technology. The semiconductor space is a great

02:52example of that. We're going to make semiconductors here in the United States going forward. President

02:57Trump is very focused on that. You've seen the tech industry announce hundreds of billions

03:02of dollars in investments here in the U.S. But if you can't sell any semiconductors to China,

03:07that investment in the U.S. doesn't make as much sense as if you can. So if we focus very narrowly,

03:12not on the total decoupling of the economies, but just on that national security issue to make sure

03:18that, for example, the military doesn't get the next generation of technology, then we can make sure

03:22that the economic investment that's necessary to trade with China continues to happen. And that's

03:27what we're seeing today. I mean, it's interesting that we had President Trump saying he's already

03:31spoken to Tim Cook about that 500 billion that's being committed. We understand a lot of that was already

03:35committed into the United States, but that in some way is about semiconductor production

03:40here in the U.S., Jason. Have CEOs like Jensen, like Tim Cook got the clarity they need to invest

03:47and to invest locally right now? Yeah. And you saw it in the White House just the day after the

03:53president was inaugurated a 500 billion dollar announcement in AI manufacturing here in the U.S.

03:58from OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank. Since that time, you've seen over a trillion and a half dollars of

04:04addition announcement in investment. So you're absolutely right. The tech industry is very

04:08focused on bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. This period of uncertainty created by the

04:13escalating reciprocal tariffs could have been harmful to that investment. No question about it.

04:18But what we're seeing today is getting back to where we need to be, where the tech industry is very

04:23focused on that investment. Semiconductors, AI manufacturing, data centers, servers, all of that

04:29happening in the U.S. to the tune of over a trillion and a half dollars, close to two trillion dollars

04:34that's been announced in recent weeks and months. And I think we'll see that investment

04:39only accelerate going forward now that we're getting back to a place where we know that trade

04:44with China is going to happen. It's a huge market. We need to sell internationally. You know,

04:4795 percent of the people that live on the planet don't live in the United States. So if you're

04:51manufacturing in the U.S., you need to access the world. So moving to trade agreements that these

04:56technology company investments can use in order to sell to the rest of the world, that's going to

05:01drive more manufacturing investment in the U.S. So just on that point, it feels as though

05:06you're currently voicing the issue that Jensen Wang has, that he wants to be able to access the

05:11Chinese market, not with the most sophisticated chips, but at least some. Do you think that he'll

05:16manage that? I do. And here's the second reason. In addition to accessing global markets,

05:21it's really important for U.S. companies. We want the U.S. to lead in the world in A.I.

05:26and manufacturing. So if manufacturing in the U.S. means that companies that manufacture in

05:31the U.S. can access the rest of the world, that's only going to encourage more manufacturing

05:35investment. But the second thing it's going to do is make sure that we don't provide a perverse

05:40incentive for Chinese manufacturers to step up their game and access global markets. We want

05:46the rest of the world to buy from the U.S. as well, not just China. So if U.S. technology is not

05:51available to the rest of the world, if the U.S. is not a reliable trading partner for manufacturing

05:57that happens in the U.S., we're going to see other countries take advantage of that opportunity.

06:01We want NVIDIA and all the other great U.S. companies, great technology companies that are

06:06manufacturing in the U.S. to lead the world and making sure that these trade agreements that we're

06:11moving to very quickly make that access possible. That's going to encourage them to invest in and

06:17manufacture in the U.S. and it will make sure that U.S. AI leadership continues, a clear Trump

06:22administration priority.

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