Welcome to today's webcast entitled America in Perspective, the 1st 100 Days. I'm David Young, the President of the Committee for Economic Development, the public policy center of the Conference Board. Ever since Franklin Roosevelt entered the presidency in 1933, the concept of the 1st 100 days has been a theme of every new administration. This year, the new Congress and new president take office at a time of great uncertainty for the world and significant challenges at home. The US economy is generally strong, yet many urgent issues in domestic policy remain. This time of transition can also be a time of great opportunity as well, if political and business leaders can work together to address immediate concerns and position the US for a strong, prosperous economy and global leadership for the long term. And so today we feature a discussion on how current geopolitical, economic, and social developments will impact businesses, governments, and society in 2025, and offer suggestions for policy priorities in the year ahead. We'll consider a few issues today, including what is top of the agenda for the new Congress and the new administration. What will the 1st 100 days look like? How will the US economic and fiscal outlook influence that agenda? How will the new administration respond to geopolitical challenges around the world? What key areas of domestic policy should Congress and the administration address? And how should business leaders seek to exercise leadership in public policy in this new environment? I'm joined again by a distinguished panel of experts including Ron Klein, the former US Representative from Florida and delighted to say ACED Trustee Tom Davis, the former US Representative from Virginia, Sofia Gora Ahmed, lead global public affairs at APCO Worldwide and also a non resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Welcome to all of you. Thanks. Now, if you need attendance, if you need an attendance certificate for this webcast, please click the icon shown to download your certificate at the end of the webcast. You can use that to claim continuing education credits if you hold a certification. So straight into the conversation, and we have 3 chapters today. Firstly, we'll start by setting the scene of the new administration and Congress. We'll then turn our attention to the new administration and the economy. And we'll round it out by looking at some of the global geopolitical issues that are concerning the United States. And so now let's turn to our panelists. Just as the Constitution begins with Congress, so let's start with understanding the priorities of the new Congress before turning to the administration. And Tom, I want to turn the conversation to you. To start with, we now see a new Republican majority in Congress. From your perspective and your understanding, what do you see to be the main priorities of the new Congress? I think it's important to understand that a unitary government, one party holding the presidency, the House and the Senate is actually not the norm 70% of the time. Since 1980, we've had divided government and the majority the Republican holds in Congress right now is the lowest that we've had in over in about 9694 years. So it's a very slim majority. With the resignations of people going into the administration, it'll be 2:17 to 2:15 in the House. So there's not a lot of margin for error. Secondly, in for most things it takes two parties because to pass most legislation, including appropriation bills, you need a democratic votes because you have a 60 vote threshold in the Senate due to what's called, you know, the the filibuster, which is widely used by both parties. As we've devolved into parliamentary behavior in a balance of power structure and we're still learning how to deal with that. Administrations have ended up basically governing through executive orders, the regulatory agencies, and then testing in the courts because legislating anything big is very difficult in a very partisan polarized environment. But the major exception to that is something called reconciliation, where you can add or subtract dollars. And so Obamacare, the IRA, these were party line bills that went through in in administrations where you hold everything together, the Trump tax cuts, which now expire at the end of this year. And so Republicans are going to try to extend that and through the reconciliation process, which is generally a very partisan process. As you can see, the margins are very low and very they're not a lot of time for error. They've got to deal with the continuing resolution keeping government open, which on March 14th expires. So that will take a bipartisan vote that they're going to have to negotiate. And I'm sure as part of that, if you're bringing Democrats into whether the coalition to pass this bill, they want to get the debt ceiling resolved so that this isn't held over the American economy. But after that, I think it goes moves, right. April 1, you'll have special elections in in in Florida, in New York. The Republicans will then their majority in the House will shoot from 2:17 to 2:15 to 2:20 to 2:15. That will give them a little more leverage. And I think at that point, you're going to see them moving on a reconciliation #1 priority is the border. This is something where there's a lot of unity in the Republican Party to get tough and pass some very tough border measures within the confines of the of reconciliation rules. And then now we're going to move to extend the Trump tax cuts. That is much more difficult. Overlaying all of this is the fact we're running about a $2 trillion deficit without doing anything. And as we refinance debt, that gets worse. So you're talking about extending tax cuts, which are about up. You extended the bill as it is now it's about 4.6 trillion additional deficit over 10 years. And you've, they've got to figure out how you can do that. So it's going to be, it's going to be difficult. But if you look at the 1st 100 days, that's what it looks like. Thank you, Tom. Ron, I want to bring you in on, on the conversation just for your, your reflections. It seems that you know there's, there's a pretty substantial list of, of issues to resolve. Tom mentions just the slim majority, the need for both parties to work together. It'd be interesting to get your thoughts in terms of what lies ahead for the US. Yeah, well, thank you for inviting us. Tom and I work together as a Democrat and Republican at Holland tonight, so it gives us a chance to spend quite a bit of time together and talk about these issues. First of all, I would agree with Tom's assessment. A split government, which we don't have right now, is one way of creating consensus. If you think about the appropriations bills, the funding bills for government over the last few years, the Senate was controlled by Democrats, the House by Republicans, and it forced them to have to come together to sort of split the baby and and come up with something that worked. They didn't get to that at the end of the year because of the elections, everyone to see what was going to happen with the elections. And now we have government that is controlled by Republicans, although it's a small number. So I think at the end of the day of funding of the government is obviously something everybody wants. They don't want to shut down the government. The debt ceiling issue is a big deal and nobody likes to vote for it when you're not in control. Who wants to go home and say, I just added another trillion dollars to the, to the unfunded debt of the United States? But that is a responsibility of serving in, in Congress. I, I would say that the issues that I break it into two buckets #1 there's all the issues that came through the election, immigration, which obviously Donald Trump made a, you know, his, his signature issue. If you look around the United States, probably most people would say it's not really impacting me in any big way, but it obviously affected the outcome of the election. Donald Trump wants to run with it. Republicans want to run with it. So the parts the United States that are very much impacted and most the United States is not, but that will clearly be one of the issues. But the obviously the tax cuts again, difference of views on this and because it's such a small number, it only requires 50% + 1 in both the Senate and the House have used the reconciliation process. It's a very slim number in the House to have to hold everybody in. That's why any given tax policy could sort of throw things off. And it will take some time to put that together. But I do believe it'll happen probably later this year. Another issue that's out there, but nobody's talking about it. But if, if Donald Trump goes forward with some of the things he wants to do and everything from public health and vaccines and, and public health care in general and what we just went through and COVID, everybody has a short memory. But Healthcare is a big deal in the United States and it always has been and will continue to be among parts of our population. Right now. They most people have been getting a lot of what they want. But if a lot of these cuts go into place in terms of funding of healthcare, public health, all these other things that will quickly arise into another issue. But again, it's not being talked about right now. But those are a couple of few things to think about. Ron, thank you. One one additional question and then I want to bring in Sophia on this. But this is around leadership within the Republican Party, notably Speaker Johnson and his ability to, you know, given the slim majority, his ability to govern on critical questions of budget, debt and taxes, the necessity. Can he, can he do that just from the Republican Party perspective or is there going to be an increased need to work across aisle with the Democrats so. David, it's a, it's a very good question. And I think the difference between this time and last last two years where he's was really struggling is you now have the White House occupied by Donald Trump who will probably be willing to twist arms to get people to stay in line. So even though you have a very, very small majority, you know, he'll probably be able to push real hard. Now, what Tom and I know is former members is at the end of the day, you still have to get reelected back home. Now there may be some pressure the Donald Trump can say, hey, listen, Republicans back in your district, if he if he doesn't support me, I'm coming after him. But at the same time, you can't vote against your district. If your district has a particular issue that you really they really care about and you vote against them, that's going to come up in either in a primary or a general election in the future. So with a small number as it is, it's going to be tough, but I think it'll be a little easier. But it's still, it's going to be tough on, on big issues like taxes and other things to to bring everybody together. Can can I add to that a little bit? It's a little more complicated on the Republican side. When you start dealing with Democrats on a continuing resolution, for example, yeah, you'll see open rebellion among many conservatives if you have to cut a deal with Democrats because their demands for spending are very different than Republicans. And they wrote they let many times the perfect be the enemy, the good. To the extent Johnson has to go to Democrats to get votes, he loses votes within the Republican conference. They've changed the rules. So nine members, it will take nine members to bring him down and put a, a, a petition up there to recall him as speaker. But if you watch this, people can get angry very quickly. So he has to manage this in such a way that not to shut the government down, but to keep enough members happy so that they don't try to to recall him as speaker. This is what led last time the continuing resolution instead of getting the appropriations done for the year. So keep your eye on that. He has a tough balancing act. And of course, if you take him down for speaker, as they found the last time when they took McCarthy, and there's no Plan B, the House just sits there and can't get anything done. So he's trying to negotiate that as as as well as he can within a pretty raucous caucus. And last point I'd make on that, that issue is that at the end of the day, last time he was dependent on Democrats and pulling these issues across the line. You know, Tom's correct that there was a lot of aggravation over that on on the Republican side. But it's not necessarily a bad thing. I think most Americans would say, hey, they would expect the parties to work together, even if it's by by duress, they get to that place. Great. Thank you both. And again, welcome to Sophia. Sophia, I want to bring you into the conversation now just for your broad reflections and perspective on how you're seeing and analyzing the new Congress. Will this new Congress be able to accomplish what they need to given the significance and the time frame that they're working against? I'm also thinking here around the debt ceiling, which is so important to many businesses and the global economy. Thanks, Davy. It's lovely to be a part of this conversation. You know, I largely agree with with many of the comments that that the other panelists have shared and I think turbulent times do lie ahead given the slim the majority that the Republican Party has, even though, you know, the House and Senate are both controlled by the Republican Party. You know, I think that we've talked a little bit about the priorities outlined by the leadership right now, which include immigration reform. I think energy policy is also going to be a big priority and adjustments to energy policy and extensions of tax, tax cuts from President Trump's first term. But I think the intra party perspectives and the point that was made about the the how this will resonate with voters and the districts back home are going to be very, very tricky as some of these policies are trickle back to to what as tangibly impactful to constituents back home. I think members are going to have a really tough time sort of aligning themselves with the policies in DC and how it translates back in their districts. So I think these intra party perspectives are going to, you're going to see more of these, you know, fissures take place in Washington making it very difficult for House Speaker Johnson. His leadership is already under scrutiny when he tried to maintain cohesion within the party earlier. So we saw that the check the government shutdown saga, which which sort of brought out these fault lines within the party. And so I think it tests the unity of the Republican Party quite a bit around these shared objectives and goals. And I think right now, you know, four days into President Trump's second term, you're seeing a lot of alignment and you're seeing, you know, things fall into line. But I but I'm really, you know, sort of thinking about what happens one month, two months, six months down the line and, and whether, you know, how this impacts businesses. And you asked specifically about, you know, we're seeing a lot of companies right now trying to navigate Washington, both global companies and U.S. companies alike. And of course, economic issues, most notably the national debt and impending debt ceiling decisions add to that complexity right now. So the government's operating under the continuing resolution, which extends the current spending levels into early 2025, but it pushes the major decision of the budget until into March. So that gives the temporary measures, provides the new administration a little bit of time to organize, but it also sets the stage for really intense debates over those spending cuts and fiscal policy that are set to to sort of push the Republican Party to sort of see where where those fault lines take place. So I think it's it's really going to be an interesting conversation over the next few months. Thank you, Sophia. I want to turn our attention now from Congress to the new administration. Have a conversation also around the economy. You've all mentioned the fiscal health of the US Obviously the, the debt level now exceeds 36 trillion. We spend more on servicing that debt than we do on, on the defense budget. And to Tom's point earlier, you're looking at adding to that, that deficit of, you know, close to 5 trillion / / 10 years. So we'll problem the conversation, but I'd just be curious. We can go back to the the top here. Tom, we'll start with you just in terms of your thoughts, in terms of how you'd characterize the tone of the new administration and of Trump himself. He's obviously, I think learned a lot from his first four years in office. He's hit the ground running, whether that's around executive orders, memos and and kind of, let's say, getting people in the right positions of leadership as quickly as possible. So just be interesting to get your thoughts and reflections on on the tone from your perspective of the new administration. Well, it's very different than eight years ago when Donald Trump first came in. He was viewed as a disruptor, a novice. I think a lot of his opponents didn't take him seriously. Then he went through a defeat and a resurrection after being indicted 4 times. I haven't ruled off the ballot efforts to take, you know, get him into bankruptcy, all these issues. So he's come back. I think you could see moving very quickly with a plurality of of the national vote, this time an electoral landslide. He has all but three Republicans in the House. Donald Trump carried their district. That was not true eight years ago when you had over 20 Republicans that Trump didn't even carry their districts. There's only one senator who sits in a state that Donald Trump didn't carry. So he's riding high. His his numbers, if you will, have never been better. He's hit the ground running at this point. He's got a lot of momentum and if you will, money in the bank to try to move ahead and they want to capitalize on this early. One of the difficulties, as I noted before, is you it's a slim majority and you've got some vacancies in there that don't get filled until the 1st of April. So Republicans have to move very cautiously. But but Donald Trump did, as I said, the the government's model is to rule through executive order regulations. Donald Trump hit the ground running with more executive orders, I think in the first day. Then it's most of his predecessors combined, but that's not legislation the legislative side comes later with and and his first Test is going to be March 14th and see what Congress sends him in terms of getting the debt ceiling, if you will, resolved at least for his term. That's his goal and the appropriations bills done for the fiscal year that started last October. So still a lot to be done, but I think right now he's, his popularity and his ability to work with Congress has never been higher than it is right now. Ron Reflections Comments. All right, you may be on mute. Sorry about that. I apologize. Yeah, I think the the issue is, you know, in the Senate, for example, you've got a majority of three plus the plus the vice president on a Thai vote. So, you know, this doge effort, for example, you know, the the notion of cutting costs in government, which I think everyone generally supports as a concept, it's it's what government has tried over and over again over the last 30-40 years. Different presidents, different Congress efforts have tried to do this. And with some greater or lesser degree, the concept of putting Elon Musk in front of this as the face of this thing has obviously gathered a lot of attention. Tom is picking up on the fact that, you know, the election took place. Trump claimed the mantle of the winner. He's four days into this. Executives are are, you know, sound nice, but you know, when the rubber meets the road in terms of whether there's the authority and these get tested in the court for a president to do this versus it takes a Congress to pass legislation to do this. That's a big question. It's a question also, some of these things are pretty controversial and not necessarily what probably the majority of people voted for when they voted for Donald Trump or however they voted. So he I believe he's probably going to push the envelope hard. It's a lot of the Project 2025 things that they we talked about during the campaign, some of which are fine and some of which are, again, probably outside the the lines of what most Americans would like. So it really depends on how these things filter out what the public perception is. And I think in the Senate, it is a question of having a small majority there. Also 53 votes, which again, if you're outside reconciliation, it does take 60 votes to really pass a lot of legislation. So yeah, I think we have to wait and see overtime how this plays out. But for the moment, have a lot of executive orders for us to focus. On let me, can I just add to that look, these are not de minimis the border going back to returning Mexico. Some of his policies on that are major changes in policy. He's going to take legislation to do some of these others he's pulled out of the Paris climate accords that his DEI initiative in government. He's limited in what he can do, but I think what was, you know, what was in his bandwidth, I think he's acted at the executive level as much as he can. Congress is going to have to try to clean move forward if he wants anything else done. Sophia, you're, you're in DC, you've been in DC this week. You've got plenty of clients of APCO that are are trying to understand and navigate Washington DC and and the new administration reflections thoughts with regards from APCO and your own perspective on on the new administration, but also what you're hearing from some of your clients. Sure. You know, I think one of the things that businesses seek of course is stability, right? And so, you know, what we're hearing over and over again is, is, you know, over, you know, 100 executive orders which have come out are, are sort of changing the landscape. Many of them have were, were sort of forecasted by President Trump and many of them are not surprising, right? He's been talking about immigration, he's been talking about trade and tariffs. He's been talking about sort of energy policy. So he's been forecasting a lot of these things that are going to change the business and economic landscape. But one of the things that we've heard over and over again is the tax reform, right? Significant tax tax reforms which are under consideration will impact, you know, the business landscape, including a shift from income tax to consumption based tax system, so and the national sales tax. So these things are really going to change the domestic landscape globally. I think trade, trade and tariff policy and and the sort of shift of the geopolitical dynamics which are going to shift supply chains are really, really front and Center for businesses. And what we're hearing about is, so one of the surprises was that tariffs did not happen on day one, right? And so there's more of a review and an investigation and a look into some of the trade policies and the, the trade deficits and, and where, where we're understanding the US China relationship that, you know, renegotiation of USMCA. So I think that creates a little bit more space for, for, for the rather than the immediate tariffs which were expected on day one. But you know, it's impose a 10% tariff on Chinese imports or a global levy or tariff on European the European Union is, is was creating a lot of anxiety. And so I think that that is something that is still on the horizon and very much a part of his agenda. The third thing that I would highlight is the regulatory changes, right? So the deregulation agenda of certain industries creates obviously flexibility and lowers compliance costs, which is good for business. But on the flip side, we have clients who are concerned about sort of the uncertainty around pics, which is, you know, personal policy, right? So people like RFK Junior and, and what that means for FDA policy and Make America healthy again. And what does this mean for the regulation regulations that will come out of FDA and, and on food and AG policy, the ripple down effects of immigration and what that means for agricultural policy. So we're seeing a lot of anxiety I think around the uncertainty of the policies. So, so thinking about how we can mitigate risk for for our clients is what, what is, what has been, you know, the last four days and the last several months during the transition as well. Yeah. I want to come back to tariffs and trade and also regulation momentarily. But we mentioned DOGE, the the Department of Government efficiency earlier. It'd just be interesting to have a quick conversation around this Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy. I believe Ramaswamy has now left to pursue his own political ambitions. So you're seeing Elon with his own office in in the White House. I think if anyone that's seen the news in the last 24 hours has seen whatever tension is arising between Trump and and Elon around this. But just going back to Tom, it'd be interesting to get your thoughts with regards to real true expectations of what people can expect from Doge. I've had this $2 trillion figure floated out there around around savings. And so just it's a two-part question for you. One, how realistic is that? But also, and this came up in the conversation earlier, will Congress actually be receptive to such significant spending cuts? And how do you balance spending cuts against your own individual members interests back in your own districts? Well, this has been tried before. We had the Grace Commission under President Reagan. We had reinventing government initiatives, you know, under President Clinton. And you get some savings and efficiencies with this. But, and it will be, I think, largely recommendary, most of this will take some kind of legislation to initiate. And that's kind of where the rubber hits the road. Remember, most of the spending is not in the appropriated dollars. It's in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, what we these are government mandated spending that Congress has just been unable to touch over the last generation or two because these are dispersed among a wide variety of voters. And many, even Republicans have said I'm not going to cut Social Security, I'm not going to cut Medicare. Makes it very difficult to put these tax cuts in, particularly with the SALT tax, which is going to be a difficult thing to include, again, given the Northeastern Republicans resistance to that in the slim majority. It's going to be interesting to see how they are able to work this out. But I will tell you at the end of the day, it's done committee by committee. They will put this all together in a bill. These things are generally written in the backroom. And when it comes out, they'll be beaten members up to try to say you have to vote for this. We need to, we promise the voters even extend the tax cuts. And there may be some things you don't like it, you'll have President Trump endorse it. He'll put a lot of pressure on these members, even though there are things in there that parts of their constituency aren't going to like to vote for this. And I can tell you is a former campaign chairman. I chaired the Republican campaign committee in the House twice. The only thing worse than a bill that hurts your constituents, or maybe contrary to some of their wishes on something is passing no bill. Then your base kind of collapses. So I think they see basically their political viability wrapped up in extending these tax cuts in one form or another. But right now, when you take a look at what's on the table, it's like trying to fit a size 8, size 12 foot inside the 8 size 8 shoe. And they're going to have to try to see where they get it. So they're looking for Doge to give them some suggestions that are that are less pain, painful, and some of the other things they might have to do. Ron Sophia thoughts on on this high profile and ambitious Department of Government efficiencies? Just to say that it's, it's pretty much what we're all discussing. It's it's, it's theoretical. It's getting a lot of attention. Elon Musk gets a lot of headlines. There's a joke in Washington about the over under, if you will, on a betting basis of how long Elon and and President Trump will hang out together. We'll see what that, but I'll give you one simple example on energy tax credits. So there are a number of energy tax credits that have gone throughout the United States, rural areas, Republican states, Democrats all over the place and many businesses, many communities are getting the benefits of these things. And they may not be so thrilled on a local level saying, hey, we're getting rid of that. So we'll see. I mean those, that's an example of where when, when you get into the nitty gritty details and you start saying, hey, we saved, you know, $44 billion here, but you know, we again get rid of that program and that program's too important to me in my district in Florida. Then I'd think twice about it, even in the even in the face of a lot of political pressure to say I what I'd fight for is to make sure that doesn't come out of the of the law. Yeah, I would agree, I think. Yeah. I just think, you know, it'll be interesting to see the fissures that we're already seeing between Elon Musk and what sort of pushed the Victoria Ramaswami or what was rumored to push him, push him out of his role at Doge. You know, I think, you know, no one will dispute the fact that there's an efficiencies and, and in government and we need to, you know, sort of figure out where those are. I think part of it is the process of how we do that and how, you know, where this sits and how, what is, how is this process being run and who are the people running this process? And how are we assessing where that expenditure is? And, you know, I think that's, I think that there's still a lot of questions to be answered. And so I think that's where we, we see a lot of anxiety around doge and, and the process around it. I don't think there's the question that there is, you know, waste and, and how do we reign that spending in? It's more around, you know, the priorities of of how and how we, we, we do it. I will say to to Ron's point, it will be very interesting to see how all these personalities mix with, with one another, especially the tech Titans against not necessarily against Trump, but obviously for Trump, but just how they how they blend and how they mix. Well, I just want to come back to you. Yeah, Go on. Can I add a color to that? Rob Swamy wanted to be the the next senator from Ohio, and that would have cleared the the IT would have. And the problem was, I think some of the senators in Washington called and said this is called government. We want, this is just unacceptable. We don't want this guy in the Senate, so he's running for governor instead. And the Lieutenant governor got the appointment. A lot of ego in this business, a lot of backroom maneuvering over how do you fit these people who are outside of Washington coming in making cuts. But personally, I think it's always a good idea to get some outside eyes on a problem and see, look at something we get caught in. Government speaks so many times that things that are possible, we don't think are. So we'll see how it shows up. It's going to need congressional action at any rate. Yeah, interesting. Thank you, Tom. Ron, I want to come back to you on a on a question around just people working together, personalities, bipartisanship. Last year, the Senate worked in a bipartisan fashion to adopt, at least at the committee level, 5 appropriation bills. Do you think there will be a similar effort in the Senate this year, even with the change of control? We have a new Senate leader, John Thune, different than Mitch McConnell, who had been there for a long time, very institutional guy, sort of saw the big picture of hey, we got to get things done at the end of the day. And I think John Thune is a reasonable guy. So I, I suspect he will, he will be thinking constructively, but he is dealing with a president, President Trump, as opposed to Biden, who, you know, was, was a Democrat and, you know, had a different view of certain things. So in that old model last year, you had a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate and a Republican House. It forced the parties to come together. They don't necessarily have to do that this time if they can keep everybody in line. So I think it'll be more difficult for him to keep his senators in line. Many of them who really want to take a hard line say, listen, we don't need to deal with the Democrats. We have 53 votes, quote UN quote. And again, filibuster, you know, creates a problem for these things. But again, 53 votes, we don't have to take the same conciliatory position we did not that we're we just have different views. And we're going to take our majority out in both parties of both the houses and the the presidency for a spin. And they will try to do that. But listen, at the end of the day, it may be more difficult than all that just because of the narrow majorities. But we'll see. It'll probably have a lot to do with the influence of Donald Trump has over both the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate, and how he can literally hold all those people in place to get a Republican only bill. Interesting last question on on this topic. Before we move on to the topic of geopolitics, Sophia kind of teetered up brilliantly earlier mentioning just the uncertainty from the perspective of of the private sector and businesses, especially when it comes to tariffs and trade and and regulation. Just I'd be really curious just to get your, your thoughts from from all of you with regards to this broad area of trade and tariffs. There was a a lot made a lot made of it in the build up to Trump taking office. 60% tariffs on China, 2025% on on Canada and Mexico. You know, the, you know, those are three of the EU s s biggest trading partners. And there was this big conversation around the EU having a trade surplus and Trump adopting his approach of kind of his negotiation style and, and unhappy of, of the EU surplus and, and how does that impact, you know, transatlantic trade and and tariffs. So just back to we're going to sort of Ron Tomer then conclude with Sophia on this topic. Just your thoughts with regards to just this concept of, of tariffs. There's been a lot of conversation around the price increases being passed to the consumer, how it impacts GDP, how it potentially increases inflation. So I'm just be, I'd be curious to, to get your, your broad initial reflections with regards to tariffs and trade and how that impacts the future of the US economy. Yeah, I would say probably in the last week at Holland and Knight, our law firm, that was the, that was the conversation I had the most with clients calling up and saying what do I do? Some of them because it's not as simple as, oh, you have a whole product coming from China or a whole product coming from Canada. It's pieces and it it's things being sent back and forth over borders create a lot of complications on tariffs. And that's what we're hearing a lot of questions. Are there exemptions? I like the word of the last time is this. So you know, is this for certain? So uncertainty is as was said earlier by Sofia that that's exactly what it's all about and that's what they want assistance with. But no, I, I do think I'm not a big fan of tariffs and there's, I think a targeted way of using tariffs is fine, but they do get passed through. That's just a reality. That's how businesses operate. Some things you could argue that more, you just can't pass it through because of the uniqueness of a particular product or service. But generally speaking, they get passed through. And so, you know, if we're trying to control inflation and those kinds of things, you know, big tariffs, particularly on our friends, our allies, it sends a very poor message in terms of our foreign trust and relationships and long term views of things. Yeah. Just to jump in here before we move to Tommy is also I forgot to mention this, just to renew the renegotiation of the USMCA that obviously replaced NAFTA, which comes up for renewal next year. And if you're already taking off your friends North and South of you, I I do worry as to how that starts to shift the conversation with regards to renegotiating terms of the USMCA. I think that's Donald Trump's way of sort of playing, putting out his cards. He likes to keep people guessing and he seems to think that everything is a real estate deal and that's how you keep your your opponent off balance. My experience in foreign affairs is that trust and anything that said verbal, non verbal that comes from our leaders. Our leaders, their leaders really play into long term relationships and trust and all that. Doesn't mean you can't change policy, but that's a style that is is you know, some people feel outside our country is somewhat reckless, but we do have a big negotiation and those are our largest trading partners. Tom, thoughts thoughts on this topic? Yeah. First of all, I don't think you're going to get much from Congress in the way of tariffs. Many Republicans are absolutely, you know, they're free traders. They're not going to support higher tariffs. But the president has a tremendous amount of flexibility that he can do on his own through different sections of the of the code. Some of them require studies before you do it, but I think he's going to test that at this point. As far as Canada goes, my own feeling is that once Trudeau is gone and the Conservative government gets elected in Canada, which appears likely, that can change that whole relationship in terms of how we act and how we interact at this point. And then underlying everything is the fact that he was one of the major reasons Donald Trump got elected was inflation. Inflation effects voters, particularly down the down the economic scale. You know, disproportionately they turn to him. He carried them heavily. And you got to be careful if you do tariffs in terms of what's this going to be doing to the cost of goods, inflation and the like. But he's been using this and said he's a dealer, he's a deal maker. He's using this, I think as a club as he goes and talks to countries about doing other things. I think the same goes with sanctions as we look forward. So there's a lot of speculation at this point. I'm not sure where it's going to go, but this is the one variable I think that Donald Trump is is is holding the club at this point and Congress is going to sit by watching. Yeah, I'll. Chime in on this your to your question, do tariffs raise inflation Yes, usually they do the, the, the cost of the goods that are being tariffs passed to our every economist will agree they're passed down to the consumer. But the bigger problem is that tariffs harm economic growth and innovation and I think that's in the long term. What's the bigger issue here? You know, I, I do think I, I agree President Trump uses tariffs and trade deficits as a way to, to sort of negotiate. And, but the biggest sort of concern that we're seeing from clients is the, the sort of integrated supply chain in North America with Mexico and Canada. And because of NAFTA and USMCA, our supply chains are very integrated. And so for him to to to sort of use the stick to say we're going to impose tariffs against Mexico and Canada is troubling for many, many U.S. companies and. I think he's going to use that as a way to get what he needs on immigration from President Sheinbaum. And I think that's, you know, he's going to say, look, you want, you want me, you know, renegotiation of USMCA and all of these sort of, you know, you need all of these things and USMCA for free trade and I need all of these things on immigration. So let's make a deal. I think he does the same thing with Canada and and he's doing the same thing with Europe is to is to sort of threaten tariffs to get what he needs, you know, and I and I think he sees everything from that bilateral lens and he sees everything from the trade deficit perspective. So, but I do think that many companies are very concerned about and they're forecasting and their quarterly reporting that that that these price increases will be passed on to consumers. I want to turn now to foreign policy and geopolitics. The title of today is the webinar is America in Perspective. So I think it's kind of important we look at what's happening in the world and the future role of the US in that world. So Sophia, just back to you on this, just be interesting for you to characterize from your perspective the the early actions of the new administration with regards to foreign policy and also multilateralism. There's obviously been the withdrawal from the Paris agreements. There are conversations about withdrawing from The Who, from your perspective, from that because perspective, from the conversations you are having with clients, thoughts with regards to what this new Trump administration means for foreign policy, geopolitics, and the US role in the world. Sure. I think, you know, President Trump's foreign policy objectives focus on strengthening US sovereignty, right? It's about America first, you know, making America. And that's been the focus. And that's what really resonated with the American public and and what brought him back into office. But that does entail countering strategic adversaries. It does reassure. It's sort of reassert, reassessing international commitments, you know, and it re emphasizes this unilateral action like I mentioned earlier. So, you know, we did see a withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, from the World Health Organization, but also from the OECD global tax treaty. And so we're seeing sort of the withdrawal from a lot of these multilateral agreements, which are which are sending a clear message that the president wants to sort of, you know, it's a shift towards this multilateral approach towards a bilateral or an isolationist approach. I don't think President Trump is an isolationist. I think he he wants to set a bilateral tone with different countries. One of the things that we noticed was, you know, for the first time, the inauguration included many foreign leaders and dignitaries. He invited heads of states from from all over the world to to participate. I follow very closely US, India relations that the foreign minister of India was seated in the 1st row in the front seat right in front of President Trump. Not a coincidence. It's, it's a very strategic move on his part to sort of counter China and to send a message that, that that he wants to create a counterbalance in the Indo Pacific. And so I think he's sending a clear message that there, there are friends and allies and there are adversaries and he wants to sort of send that clear message from day one. So I, I, I do think that in the withdrawal from international agreements does sort of argue that it's trying to counter sort of China's influence. And it's, it's, it's it, But it does seed sort of the US position on a lot of these international issues. Ron thought thoughts on this with regards to what the administration hopes to accomplish. Kind of on the on the global scale and with regards to conflicts, whether that's in the Middle East, whether that's in Ukraine. And also feel free to jump in on, on anything that Sofia has said. I think her her commentary with regards to India is fascinating. Yeah, I, I as a foreign policy person, that's sort of where I come from and where I served in Congress. I believe that multilateralism historically has served the United States well, pulling back from major treaties, seeds, authority seeds, leadership interests, seeds positioning for our businesses. You know, at the end of the day, if you think of just the business side of United States interests alone, you know, we're a small percentage of the overall economy or the overall world's population. Yet we have a huge amount of trade that we depend on to run our economy, you know, exports and things like that. So it doesn't serve us well when we throw tariffs or we pull back from organizations which, you know, our shared interest with with countries, they will turn other places. So, you know, when we pull back China, who which has a a very Longview of all these kinds of things, Russia, which may be weakened right now, but you know, they're they're not going anywhere and other countries step in and China in particular a worldwide they've been doing they took our Marshall Plan and have been running with that model for quite some time in in building infrastructure in Africa and South America, cornering markets on on minerals and things like that. So I think the United States pulling back and by the way, a number of people that have been placed in positions in the Department of State, not necessarily Marco Rubio, but but some of them are isolationists and some some of the military people that are being put in place as well. So whether he's an isolationist or not, I think he's giving signals that, you know, America first means pulling back from a lot of places where we we could do things. And as it relates to Ukraine, obviously any kind of signal to Putin in my view, big mistake. I mean, any kind of pullback there, it will it will invoke Putin's move in the future at some point and then NATO will absolutely be kicked into this. And if he wants to pull out of NATO, that's all another isolation is very, very strategic, you know, matter that he would take on to himself. Middle East, obviously a lot of big changes over the last number of months there, opportunities, I believe, but also a lot of hazards. You know, there's something that's been going on for a long time there, but opportunities and hopefully there can be some some things that we can take advantage, but we have to engage. We can't pull back out of Middle East. Thank you, Ron. Tom, I want to expand this question just a little bit, but just your thoughts on, you know, EU s s role in the world, whether we are moving away from multilateralism to to other forms of relationships. Also just be curious to get your thoughts with regards to the influence and the role that the new Congress should play in foreign policy. Then also maybe any thoughts you've got with regards to new appointments, whether it's Marco Rubio, the National Intelligence Council, DoD and and CIA? Let me start by saying I don't think Trump is an isolationist. He is America first. He'd like some of our allies to bear more of the burden than just the United States. But I think the key, the proof is going to be in the pudding. I think he's going to spend more on defense than by. I think he recognizes that if we're going to have a role in in the world, we need to have a strong defense and people fear us. And look, to a great extent, I think Trump is less predictable than Biden in terms of what's happening. Look at how governments are treating him this time versus how they treated him eight years ago when he was almost a pariah, where members heads of state were making slight comments. They know he's going to be around for some time now. They're here at the inauguration. We get requests from people. Why wasn't our Prime Minister invited? Where it's he? It's a different atmosphere all together. I think that the president has learned a lot in eight years. Coming back to Washington for a second time on Russia, Ukraine. I think he wants to seize a deal. He sees these two countries stalemated in the United States, bleeding $100 billion every year, every every year or so for a war that's going nowhere and and that this needs to be negotiated even if the parties don't want it. And I think he'll take a stab at that. I think in the Middle East, he's been hands on and we got the Abraham Accords because he was willing to do things other presidents were unable to do. So I don't feel he needs the same kind of constraints. And he recognizes China's inroads across the world and lining up key ore materials, these kind of things. We need to be more aggressive in Africa and places like that and not cede this to China. So I don't think it's isolationist. I just think it's a different worldview. You look what he did last time with Iran, He was starving Iran. Iran was they weren't bankrupt, but they were in in huge bad financial straits. And Biden came back in and they start feeding terrorism. And so they just have different worldviews at this point as it goes on. But he's not an isolationist. He just takes a very a completely different view than the previous administration. Davey, I won't. I won't go point by point, but I disagree with most of what Tom said. I'm glad you guys are friends. Definitely disagree on Iran so. I'd also be remiss here also if I didn't throw in here Panama, the Panama Canal and and Greenland. Just any any thoughts reflections? Is this is this a serious topic of, of policy that Trump will look to move forward, whether it's Panama Canal or Greenland or is this is this is this just a, you know, a distraction from from other topics and policies taking place? Sophia. Is like a female ally. Yeah, Denmark's a NATO ally. So I think, you know, who knows if he's negotiating for another base. I I've been there. There's not, not a lot there except for, you know, some of the natural elements that exist there that we haven't been able to find. Panama. It was interesting that in his speech that he really went after the canal in that speech. And I think there'll be an effort there to sit down and and try to see if we can get a bit something more out of the canal than we have right now since we seeded it under car. I don't know how he's going to go about that, but I think he's serious. Yeah, I would just add to that that, you know, Secretary of State Rubio is, is now planning to go to Panama and it's just announced that he'll be traveling there for discussions on this. I think he's quite serious about this. I think this is part of his sort of asserting his agenda and his authority and sort of American, you know, America first agenda, part of his, his sort of strongman approach. So I do, I do take it seriously. And, you know, I, I, we have yet to see how, how, how, where that goes. Maybe I'll defer to the former members of Congress on this question. Yeah, I, my, my opinion, I mean, listen, Panama, the the canal has, has been there. We, we work, we use it. Our companies use it regularly. This is nobody's been complaining about this all along. I haven't heard any major business that I represent talk about trade issues there. There's a certain amount of shiny object theory that Donald Trump operates. Look over here, Greenland, why we're going to take it over. We're going to use military force if necessary, you know, and then here's what's really going on behind the scenes here on other subjects that maybe he wants The media. And the media is particularly complicit on picking up the fun stories that sound a little more outlandish, but we'll see. I mean, all this is subject to what what what happens here. Yeah, Greenland's strategic, but I'm not sure that he can't get what he needs, you know, without having to buy Greenland or anything like that. I have no idea what Denmark wants. As I said, I, I, I've been there. It's not, not a lot there, at least in terms of, of population. It's look, the one thing you've got to remember with Trump, if you're looking at it from another world viewpoint of view, it's, he's unpredictable. And that unpredictability can be an asset or it can be a liability, depending how it's utilized. And, and keeping in mind that people have their finger on the button around the world in different places with different levels of capacity to do damage to the United States and our interests around the world. You know, I think there's a certain amount of it's OK to be a little unpredictable, but people have to know where you stand, too. Thank you all. As we approach the top of the hour here at this point in the series of webcast, we normally turn our attention and introduce a solutions brief from from the Committee for Economic Development. But instead today and given the nature of today's event, I want to invite our panelists, each each of you just to give your your final remarks in a, say a flash. Around what 1 issue do you most wish the new Congress would address? And what 1 issue, domestic or globally, do you hope the new administration will address? Well, I'll start. Look, the extension of the Trump tax cuts is paramount to economic prosperity in in the country. You can start raising this corporate rates back to where they were and the like. I think you're facing some, some huge headwinds. So they've got to try to extend that. But at the other hand, hanging over this thing as you described in your opening remarks is the, is the national debt and the debt to GDP ratio, which is as bad as it's been in a, in a since World War 2. And it's just completely unsustainable how they balance that, what they're able to do. Most of this will be accomplished on a one party vote under the reconciliation measure. It is, I think, or be indicative of where the Republicans sit going in the midterms in 2026. So that's what I look at it. It's you got to steer between the civil insurance at this point. How can you navigate that? And that's going to be their real task appropriations less so that those will be bipartisan votes. They have to be because it's not subject because it is subject to a a filibuster. But but steering what you do, you know, with the national debt and these tax cuts is going to be critical to the economic outlook for this country over the next couple years. And Tom that that sentiment, just so you know, we conducted AC suite survey of over 1700 C-Suite executives around the world. And from a USCEO perspective, that was the number one issue that all of them raised was US fiscal health. And you mentioned that you know, the, the debt to GDP level is currently 100%. Estimates are by 2035 it will it will reach 118% which is the highest in history. So again, your, your thinking and and words echo that of CCE executives in in the US and globally. Ron, any any thoughts to to conclude with well? I'm gonna I'm gonna also support the same notion that Tom just explained. The national debt needs to be resolved and it and it shouldn't be done in a, in a partisan way because it needs to it, it really requires everybody to focus on this. And a new president has an opportunity to come in particular in their first year and show that, hey, this is important enough. I'm going to put this on my on my block to say I want to get this done. For those of you familiar with the BRAC commissions, those are the military base closures. Always a very who wants a military base closed in their district? Nobody did. So they finally came together and said, listen, we're going to create a Commission. We're going to evaluate the whole defense system, see what we need to close and put in one bill. It's an up or down vote for Congress to come back and vote on. They need to do something like that to bring together some type of expert Commission of how we can resolve this, which will probably deal with some tax issues, some spending issues, some tough medicine for everybody, but it's necessary. We're spending out of control. Both parties are totally at fault. Whoever's in charge spends more. So this is something that this is a moment of national leadership and a president, it doesn't matter who the president, but in this moment, Donald Trump can be that person if he wants to put some capital behind it. The only other point I'd make is again, we've already beaten this one up. Leadership around the world is really an important thing. the United States, we may be at a precipice here of of a lot of changes going on a lot of views in different European countries and we haven't heard much from South America and Africa, but I assume many of those things are also brewing up in some of the South American countries for sure. But these these are moments where the United States and our form of government or form of leadership, the values, the principles that we believe in should be put forward and they can be done in different ways, doesn't have to be the way we did them in the past. So Donald Trump can take those as opportunities to do it another way. But our national, international leadership is essential at this moment. And I don't want to see us back away from that. Sophia, you get the final word here. Thank. Thank you. You know, I I definitely agree on fiscal spending. We definitely need to rein that in. But I would turn to the last point on the geopolitical point, which is, you know, there's a convergence of risk that is out there for companies and for the world. You know, right now with US, China, tension with the Russia, Ukraine war. And there's a real position for President Trump to make good on his ending war, you know, ending sort of that geopolitical tension that's been on the rise over the last several years. And I think there that convergence of risk that it creates for the US and for the globe and for consumers and for our clients is, is, you know, we've seen it come to a head. And, you know, I think there's a real point where it can be deescalated. And, you know, it could be President Trump's legacy is, is that's what he does with the Abraham Accords and what he's done. And, and, you know, and trying to sort of whether it's bilaterally or whether it's taking on China and bringing in new, new allies. I think there could be a real role for him to play in the next several years as he tries to, to sort of wind down some of these long standing wars and, and bring an end to to some of this global tension and, and risk that we're seeing. Thank you, Sophia. It's, it's obviously it's of course very early days here for both the new Congress and the new administration. But it's already clear, especially from this conversation that they both have a very full agenda of important issues to confront and solve from CED's perspective. We will of course continue to follow these closely as well as other important issues both domestic and foreign. To that extent, we did release a leadership letter earlier this week to the new administration. We've also turned that into another one of Ceds solutions briefs, America in perspective policy priorities for 2025. I also want to bring your attention to an upcoming webinar that we have February 20th. This is entitled Reforming the Broken Federal Budget Process. The last thing for me to say is thank you again for joining and our sincerest thanks to all of our three panelists. Thank you for the discussion and your insightful remarks. We wish you all the very best. Thank you again for joining. We'll see you soon. Take care. _1738193309118