00:00The Trump factor seems to be an element in pushing these two, you know, mega trading blocks together.
00:09Should the U.S. be worried, Gray?
00:11I don't think so. In fact, you know, we were for the most part cheering this deal.
00:16You know, we want the EU and India to trade.
00:18We want we want to reduce dependency overall on China, especially for the U.S.,
00:23because we had these, you know, these choke point problems and plus a massive trade deficit.
00:28You know, the EU is also carrying a big trade surplus with the U.S.,
00:34and they sort of offset that, you know, because they had a big trade deficit with China.
00:39So there's a couple of moving parts here.
00:40But I think generally speaking, to diversify your trade and reduce dependency on on China specifically.
00:48But I mean, you could say that about a number of countries.
00:50But really, for the U.S., the troubling dependency and choke points was with China.
00:56So we're glad to see trade deals happening amongst others.
01:00And I saw a great headline on this particular deal.
01:02It said the EU-India trade deal is boring, and that's a good thing.
01:05And I agree.
01:06You know, the less the less traction or the less, you know, the fewer requirements, the better,
01:14you know, with with non tariff, non tariff trade barriers or, you know, exemptions for all kinds of different things.
01:20Just a great low or no tariff straight on trade deal is ultimately what we'd like to see around the world.
01:28Even though the U.S. is putting its tariffs up.
01:32Yeah.
01:32Yeah, because we are tariffs were so much lower than than those of our trading partners.
01:38So it's just really reciprocal at this point, even if in some places our tariffs might be higher than than the trading partner.
01:44But generally speaking, we were not we didn't have tariffs at all.
01:48We were enjoying the benefits of of no tariff, no tariffs or low tariffs because it was good for corporate profits.
01:56It was good for offshoring.
01:57And in the in the long run, it was good for keeping inflation down because of really cheap products coming in from China.
02:03But ultimately, that's not sustainable.
02:05Carrying these, you know, nine hundred billion dollars of trade deficit every year is just not sustainable.
02:11So so there's I think some corrective measures were were required.
02:15But this is not, you know, America first.
02:17It's surely not America alone.
02:19We want global trade to continue.
02:21We just don't want the dependencies that we in particular had with China.
Comments