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it's my great pleasure now to introduce our next speaker Jim Richards Jim as a principal and director at Cornerstone government affairs based in Washington DC and he joined the firm in 2005 after serving in both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government of the US he's had a wide range of varying roles including as chief of staff to a US congressman the director of the Office of intergovernmental relations at the USDA and as the appropriations staffer for succeeding chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on agriculture rural development FDA and related agencies prior to being in the government Jim was general manager of a multi-million dollar wholesale and retail business in New Mexico and a small business owner in Arizona he's also had time in the military and he grew up on his family's fifth generation cattle ranch and Southwest New Mexico we are very very lucky to have someone with such extensive knowledge and experience in the US government on agriculture it's Jim's first time in New Zealand so please join me in giving him a very warm Kiwi welcome [Applause] good morning everyone we'll start off this morning and I'll cover quite a bit first thank you for having me it's a pleasure being here and as someone that grew up on a cattle ranch in the desert anytime I say green and water it makes me envious one and two appreciative of what you do on the production side and Michael the subsidies saying you need to qualify that because that's the ROE croppers that have the subsidies you know the production style and on livestock we prefer to blame the ROE coppers for all high feed cost and so there's all sorts of differences in the u.s. AG policy and their implication would be on the livestock sector or on the production AG sector but corn in traditional agricultural production is key for poor livestock on the feed out process and ethanol you may have heard about that is not very popular with livestock producer in the US for the understandable reasons of the market distortions so we just got to qualify the subsidy basis there Mike I'm gonna go a little bit back down on me to kind of put it in context the way that I approach things a little bit different than than most in the world that I've found myself living in and a brief overview a cornerstone or clients because we're very heavily engaged in the agricultural policy sphere in the US and then touch on US politics a little bit and how that leads into trade and the regulatory challenges that your counterparts in in the u.s. face particularly the sheep industry and then touch on fake meat a tad bit and I was I was looking at a little data this morning on on New Zealand and I found it really interesting that there's a lot of correlations in some ways and a lot of difference than others and in the size to my home state of New Mexico New Zealand is the nation is about 103 thousand square miles my home state of New Mexico is 106 121 thousand square miles so we're tad bit larger on land mass basis my hometown is 3300 square miles and the populations about that a heck of a lot more cattle than there are people in the county but you also have 4.3 million people here we got about two point one and that ranks UHN about one hundred and twentieth and population of Nations and seventy fifth in size compare that to your GDP of six billion that's six in the world New Mexico's is 101 billion with half to half the people and and and a bigger landmass and a little population density that clearly indicates that the people in this room and the broader New Zealand economy punches way above your weight from a population in a land mass basis and that says something about the way that you do business so I think that's something that's it's worth congratulating and talking about as you might have gathered based on the introduction I grew up on a cattle ranch in southwest New Mexico and that's that's me a couple three years ago at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony I wasn't inducted in the Hall of Fame unfortunately for the pro rodeo cowboys Association which is one of my clients but I grew up on a ranch in the southwest corner in Mexico and the ranch was about Tim's sections and a section is a square mile as most of you probably know the difference in our production in southwest New Mexico which we settled that ranch in 1880 my great-great grandfather settled that and everybody's heard of Geronimo right the Apache warrior he was captured about six miles south of our ranch on my uncle's ranch six years after my great-great-grandfather settled there he was the first settler in that valley during the regular relatively turbulent time but also worked on punch cattle on a ranch that was six hundred sections all deeded ours was split state federal and deeded property so it's even though we predated the state and we were the first ones there we ended up with split split split estate after I did that I went to school at New Mexico State University a land-grant University for a little bit and then I got bored and I said I was gonna go in the army and spent some time in the army learned a language Arabic and spent a lot of time in Southwest Asia where I had my first interaction and introduction to the folks of New Zealand Australia in the UK I was in Iraq and Baghdad from the spring of 1990 before Saddam invaded Kuwait until after he invaded Kuwait and I was introduced to hash house Harrier so you know those of you that everybody knows hash y'all serious I'll tell you what I fell in love with the folks in New Zealand Isle straited all the expat community they like to run there was pretty girls and there was lots of beer afterwards so it was absolutely phenomenal and Baghdad in the summer it's only about 120 with 80 percent humidity so it's easy to run a nap and so went through that had some interesting times and I got expelled persona non-grata along with the ambassador well the station chief and the defense attache after the invasion of Kuwait so that's kind of a badge of honor that usually is a badge of dishonor in the diplomatic circles because uh I wasn't army then I was traveling on a black passport as a State Department employee but got kicked out and I brought a group of people out there were some of the first hostages that were captured in in Kuwait City but after I brought them out I got stuck in Jordan for a while and we had a few other expats that were sitting there and a couple of we picked up to play on our Friday football game and they grabbed me and introduced me the Stuart called sport called rugby and I had no idea what the hell it was and they said that's a right yank you're fast will you just run on the outside we'll toss the ball and when somebody tackles you try and toss it back to us all right had lots of fun with that so I'll spend some more time in the army I came home this the summer of 91 and I had intended to go back to DC to work for an agency and I met this beautiful girl from farm girl from Iowa that was going to school in Mexico State and it changed my whole equation stayed there I end up getting married bought of small business in Arizona ran that for a little bit and then guy from home and my hometown of Las Cruces asked me to come back and be as general manager and a good friend of mine was the Secretary of Agriculture from New Mexico and he had been trying to get me involved in politics and I had resisted successfully for quite some time until the Republicans won the house and after the 1994 elections and my home state congressman a sheep rancher from New Mexico Joe Steen said hey I need someone from homeless got a AG in a business background to run the Appropriations Subcommittee for me and Frank said I got the guy for you I'm mistaken we took a pay cut and moved my wife and baby daughter to DC and everybody thought I was nuts and probably still do but I've been there since and that led to a series of opportunities and and engagements that have broadened my horizons and give me a tremendous amount of opportunities across the board and that led to corner and I'll touch on cornerstone a little bit but as you look at the clients here those are all the clients at Cornerstone and I lead AGA's our biggest practice group and we have a little bit different that I'll touch on momentarily but the sheep industry association we're there DC presents essentially and so we cover all their issues be a trade regulatory appropriation budgetary on down the works association in public land-grant universities they do the research the benefits of agricultural enterprise in the United States Cooperative Extension research stations and the education of the next generation of agricultural leaders so we focus on appropriations for the National Institute of Food and Agriculture which is a one point four billion dollar agency that is basically the extramural science agency for USDA most of which goes to the land grants to do research education and extension American vet med occurs Veterinary Medical Association that's the they had ninety-three thousand vets in the u.s. we're they're uh they're hired gun their outside lobbyists livestock marketing associations the sale barns everybody knows what the sale barns are I'm sure you have something similar here but that's where the producers take their livestock to sell either the dealers or to feed Lots and that's part of that that system that that the u.s. works through and on the online and I'll touch on a couple others pro rodeo cowboys Association that's kind of my favorite don't tell the other clients but I grew up Rodion and so that's that's a passion of mine I don't get to do much in DC you really don't see Cowboys there and if you do they're probably wearing a hat that is not similar to what I would have worn but they've got transportation injuries Bish's because they're environmentalist and the animal rights folks Boeing and Microsoft I'll tell you right now when they unground the 737 max I'll be the first one to stand at the front the gangway to get on it it's a heck of an aircraft just make sure they're in one of the g20 plane g20 country plant it's an aircraft company of a g20 country before you get on it because the training standards are substantially different for pilots on those emerging economies just to point there and Microsoft you think Microsoft just a small company but they're in agriculture they do a tremendous a lot of work at USDA they're pushing out broadband deployment in America which is a major policy priority across the country right now and so you go through those and trade and politics and policy all interact policy and politics say the same share the same route for a reason you can't do one without the other just last week I had from the Republic of Korea I had five members of the assembly there because you may have heard there's a little thing going back to World War two on slave labor this is a Korean Supreme Court provided a ruling the Japanese are retaliating in a trade basis by holding an embargo in semiconductors Korea can't do business with outlaw semiconductors and we've had a series of high-level people from Korea coming into the u.s. to lobby members of Congress and administration to help intervene in that why because they're looking at them as innocent arbiter a third-party arbiter that can help make a difference cornerstone we're about 92 people across eight states twelve offices and four divisions we've got congressional affairs at DC at the mothership about half our people there another half are in the States and doing public affairs and upstream energy consulting for energy producing companies AG is our biggest practice group and you can see some of the locals there in addition to what I talked about and some of the logos they're United egg producers which is about 90 percent of domestic egg production in the US as a client National Milk Producers Federation as well so it's a very key part of our practice group and there's a heck of a lot smarter people as part of our practice group than nine that that can speak to trade and policy matters that I can only dream about when I'm wishing that I was cognizant of what was going on as they were but AG is not just that it's it's a supply chain whether it's Cisco foods on the distribution channel from the producers to the distribution to the marketing it's a supply chain whether it's organic whether it's free-range whether there's traditional agriculture you still have to have that integrated supply chain system to ensure that those products get to market but policy interacts with that on a really regular basis and so the rest of what I'm going to kind of get into is a little backstop about what's going to happen over the next 15 months and what are the driving issues and as you can see on the screen I begin an end with Trump he's kind of changed the dynamics in the US and in many ways around the world interesting character to say the least I will tell you that back when he walked down the stairs of his hotel in New York City to announce presidency presidential run my sister-in-law Carmela Mirabal Richards like eighth generation they're one of the original Spanish land grant families that came over to New Mexico called and said that's the new part next president United States Jim like it's just what have you been smoking this morning my guy Marco Rubio is gonna be the next president United States she said no no no that's gonna be it well lo and behold she has never let me forget that she called it from the day one and that my daughter's wedding I'm a member of trump National Golf Club in DC and my oldest daughter's wedding they all came in the family and president helped them to be there both days that we had the rehearsal and the wedding and they all he was a very gracious and took a lot of pictures with him my sister-in-law almost mugged him the Secret Service was getting really nervous and it was she would just so happy to go meet him but he came back over to our table a little bit later to my brother and said hey are you that gals wife that was hugging me and he said yes mr. president I brothers serve in the army as well and and he said what I'm not worried about that I just want you to know because you kind of a big tough looking guy she was hugging me I was not hugging her my brother said thanks mr. president I got it I know she was hugging you so it's an interesting dynamic but the issues they're gonna drive the debate up for presidents of politics which means congressional politics for the next 15 months are kind of in that order beginning and ending with Trump his personality is large which is relatively evident budget is substantial we just had a budget agreement that's good that was announced last week be signed into law this week that sets the phrase for discretionary spending for the next two years and also raises the debt limit until July of 2021 which is a key legislative backlog tool that would get locked into a lot of time us NCA u.s. Mexico Canada agreement that is fairly well negotiated there was there's lots of political leveraging going on but I will tell you right now that if I were betting money I would bet money that it gets ratified in the latter part of September every part of October this year they're spending a tremendous amount of political capital there's a substantial amount of free trade Democrats that want to get it done and there's 33 Republicans in Trump 133 Democrats in Trump won seats in the house that also want to get it done Pelosi Haslam speaker Pelosi has to do some things to make sure that works for her caucus but I fully expect it to be done this this fall this late early this fall particularly seeing how the Mexican Senate has already ratified it including with some of the labor protections that the Democrats are looking for in the house in the Senate so that's going to be a big driver Mexico the wall national security if you have if you've not seen the media coverage in the u.s. you're blessed you're lucky to consider yourself blessed again that's going to continue to be a driver the economy the economy is is humming along nicely in the u.s. in spite of the the trade wars that will touch on shortly and if it continues on that route it's going to be very difficult for anybody to beat the president because of all the other factors t
at are involved but when you throw trade in you throw Iran Russia and China everything associated with it I mentioned how well Huawei and all the other issues 15 months is I had a lifetime in electoral politics lifetime in electoral politics so stay tuned why does that all matter because this this is what you saw in 2016 election and you'll notice that the the blue states are fairly well centralized west coast East Coast with a couple in Upper Midwest 56% of the eligible voters in the US voted in the 2016 presidential election hillary clinton won the popular vote forty eight to forty six forty to forty six percent but what that doesn't tell you is those deep red states what happened there and this next slide is going to look a little bit archaic if you will but the two is is the amount of the the gross number of votes that were greater than 2012 election which was Mitt Romney and Barack Obama across the country that 2.5 million was different that Donald J Trump had compared to Mitt Romney he had a 2.5 million dollar 2.5 million vote greater margin than Mitt Romney got in 2012 the key number is the point three the 300,000 because in America you have to have 270 electoral votes to be elected it's a constitutional republic in the form of a representational democracy by design clearly he end up with 306 about 300,000 Michigan Wisconsin and Ohio that's the margin of victory that Donald Trump had in those three states collectively Hillary Clinton had to win all three of those in order to have 270 electoral votes she didn't what's really interesting is when you look at the bottom numbers there the 2.6 million dollar vote variants she exceeded his total vote collection by 2.6 million votes and you heard that constantly well we won the popular vote well what that when you put it in context when you take the four biggest states in the u.s. California Florida New York and Texas Hillary Clinton won those states by 5.2 million votes net her 2.6 million vote national margin was buttress by winning by five points two million nationwide well in those four states that means that she lost by two point six million in the other 46 states Trump only one Florida 110 thousand votes and Texas by a hundred thousand votes she racked up huge numbers in two states that were going to vote Democrat regardless and didn't pay attention to those red states that on the previous slide that went deep read particularly the Rust Belt that's where the Trump vote was delivered and that's that blue collar union labor worker that switched from where had been since Ronald Reagan in the 80s why is that important because it leads into all the policy discussions that we've been talking about from across the board as you're looking at the balance of the year every every two years you have a third of the US Senate there's a hundred senators that are up for reelection this year you've got 33 the majority of whom are on the Republican side right now it's a 5446 margin for Republicans in the Senate Democrats have to win four net seats in order to have a tiebreaker if they win the white house in order to have the majority in the Senate that's a tall order when you've only got right now you see the light red numbers for for Cory Gardner from Colorado and martha mcsalley from arizona those are the most likely pick up States for Democrats in the Senate however if you look at doug jones in alabama that was a safe that they wanted because there was a really really bad candidate that they shouldn't want and they won't win again so that's going to loss that means that they really have to win five net seats to have a chance at having a majority in the Senate the Senate's key because it ratifies trade agreements and it can lead controls who has the gavels therefore who sets the agenda stay tuned on that there's a couple of Dark Horse's depending on how presidential President Trump does in Minnesota in Michigan that there could end up being a couple Democratic senators in trouble there on the Republican side there's probably not any others so you're looking at a worst case scenario two or three seat net loss for a Republicans best case scenario one seat maybe two seat net gain for them that means that that that that is impacted by the presidential when you look at the house 435 seats are represented there the Democrats in the midterm elections in 2018 just a little bit by about seven months ago now seven or eight months ago captured the recaptured the house for the first time since 2010 elections and that means that you have a new leadership dynamic there but when you look at the four and thirty five seats in the House and what that leadership dynamic means it's it's it's not as big a playing field as you would think because at the end the day if you take the competitive seats you're looking at about 55 seats right now that the house that are in play for Republicans and Democrats at a four and thirty five that means that the rest of those - a wave a substantial wave election are safe for their respective parties of that 55 33 are held by Democrats that are in voting congressional districts that's a targeting basis of those there's there's 13 that are in heavy Republican districts Republicans need 18 to take the majority back in the house and if you're starting with a baseline of thirteen likely pickups you got fifteen other seats to play with and depending on what happens on the national and the senatorial races you have coattails so I say all that because that's the only thing that people are gonna be focusing on for the next 15 months its electoral politics at the presidential level at the Congressional level at the senatorial level that drives everything which means the ability to get stuff done on a substantive basis [Music] not really that good I would put us NCA the regular appropriations process and maybe some infrastructure deal that could come cobble together but trompe has an agenda the house majority has an agenda and it's largely based on opposition of anything Trump elated whether it used to be something they supported or not because of the electoral politics then you've got the Senate the the presidents are primary in the in the on the Democratic side that is a very interesting primary with Joe Biden former Vice President Joe Biden plan trying to play the role to moderate and he is a true moderate you can see it's almost painful for him just take some of the positions he's taken right now to try and win in a left left dominated primary basis it'll be interesting to see how long he can maintain that and who rises out of the the rest of the candidates out there but again first primary is not until January there's a long ways and a lot of winning in the field on the Democratic side of the equation before we know who they're really gonna be focusing on and as soon as that field narrows if Donald Trump's past is any prologue you watch how he focuses like a laser on the ones that he deems to be the biggest threat and starts to run against them before they even have the nomination it's going to be an interesting process for substantial period of time and with all that you have to look at it and go what are the implications for trade relations nationally internationally and if I could tell you that I had a hundred percent certainty as to what drives the president's trade agenda I don't but I will tell you that without a doubt his agenda is joined by Donald J Trump vice president pence secretary palm bail are major players in that then it starts to fall down but in what comes to trade light hyzer is a extremely well-liked and regarded person by both sides of the aisle Republicans and Democrats in in DC and he is working extraordinarily hard to get us MCMC a done and he's doing ago she ations in China but at the end of day although you go back to that map that I showed you the 2016 presidential elections those Rust Belt states were the difference makers for Donald J Trump that's manufacturing that's people they've been hemorrhaging job for decades and he's starting to turn that dynamic and if you think he's going to walk away from trade confrontations that amongst a community that feels like they have not been treated fairly over the last couple decades then you're mistaken because electoral politics that I just talked about he has to have them again in order to be elected president for a second term conversely the Democrats need to figure out a way that they can move off the the the kind of the left-leaning side in order to recapture some that blue-collar Upper Midwest this traditionally Democratic Union vote that cost them the election in 2016 can they do that without ratifying us MCA can they do that without finding on some ways to get some trade winds for that that mean that they can talk to those people that's a big question that's going to be driving a lot so if I tell you one thing though underpinning motive behind President Trump is his perception of what fair trade is and that translates down the road particularly in agriculture sector who has on at least on the road crop side and two-degree on the livestock side had some hits by the trade activities that have been taking place over the last several months so in almost the last two-plus years but there's still a high degree of support for the tactics here are is using with China and other other trading partners because they had there there's an inherent free-trade bias for those for those organizations be it soy corn cattle beef not so much on the sheep side but they felt like they've been playing with one hand tied behind their back how long patients will last - any new agreements particularly with China Japan and USMC a ratification it remains to be seen but right now it's still holding strong across the countryside when you get outside the Beltway the 495 Loop in Washington DC and quit watching CNN or fox or MSNBC what you find is that the foundational support that the president got the president elected in the first time which was a combination that foundational support for him and lack of endearment with with the Democratic candidate is still there and those dynamics going to drive everything going forward so when you look at what we're gonna be facing China the tariffs are going over there they got negotiations going on right now I think the Chinese are probably gonna slow walking a little bit until they see what the electoral trends are starting to build up if they think that he's going to win again then I think that you're more likely see some some real substantive agreements over the next 12 months with China Japan there's their strong strong consideration that at the end of the day there's gonna be an agreement announced this week it's a big deal China is the largest US market for for us actually exports it was 26 billion dollars in 2012 it's about 20 million dollars right now yeah so it has shrunk something that's due to Chinese economic contraction something that's due to the tariffs that we just talked to you in the trade wars are going on China's got some real issues on w-with WTO some weakness there because the subsidy basis they're doing on the agriculture sector is that gonna be resolved I don't know are sheep producers in the u.s. really want it to be resolved sixty-seven percent drop in price for their pelts eighty percent drop in price for the coarse wool and China is the biggest export market form they're actually gone from a dollar 50 of Pelt profit to a dollar disposal cost right now it's costing the money and it's solely related to the tariff battle that's going on and with the Chinese that course will market is a big challenge for my ASI guys you know us MCA that's 27 percent of our domestic x of our exports in those two countries and you throw China an you throw yes Japan agreement which is the first and the third largest economies in the in the world those things come together that means that there's market share and export opportunities that's you're really going to solidify a political support basis for the president and help him going forward so they're gonna be very very aggressive on trying to lock Dill's down and in the meantime the rhetoric will remain high because they think that works for and they point to the Mexico border agreement that with the interior forcement as an example of that and that was driven by the President and the Vice President Mike Pompeo literally personally involved the EU is going to be interesting I you know the discussion previously on the brexit was was fascinating and I'm really not sure how that's going to work out I I do think that if Boris Johnson can get his ducks in a row which is evidently going to be very difficult that the Donald Trump's affection for him will lead to try and do something that is UK and us specific but whether the brexit process allows that that negotiation to actually take place and produce a product is an entirely different thing lamb and and MPC are big challenges and when it looks the the interaction between the US and New Zealand is Michael said earlier you guys are looking as the good guys free traders that take care of business and do it right now my sheep producers may not be a particularly fond of some of the import volume that comes from this particular country but that's what it is we have to get better we've lost in the u.s. thanks to world war ii and mutton being served in sea wraps everybody that fought in that war we lost three generations of American consumers on lamb because they came back and they couldn't stand the thought of lamb because they ate that crappy mutton and sea rats while while in horrible conditions that means that the baby boomer generation that they beget didn't eat it because they weren't exposed to it the baby boomers kids started to get a little bit into it but literally it takes a lot of time to build up a consumption basis when you've got three generations of people that never consume lamb its changing in the dynamics of the elimination of the wool lock also have implications because to be perfectly honest our focus was wool as you all know for a long time it wasn't meat so there's been a transition over the last 25 years in the u.s. that's gonna take some time to do you put all those factors together and have the economic challenges and it makes it difficult on the regulatory front to give you a little bit of a feel for what we're dealing with it's not dissimilar from what you're facing on the folks policy makers trying to put the onus for global warming whatever the cause may be on agricultural production are we having a roll in it I absolutely believe that we are but also know in my home country of the u.s. that the finger lakes in upstate New York and the Great Lakes were caused by what receding glaciers long before mankind was populating in in the Von's are are long before the Industrial Age we've been warming for a long time there is climate variability and are we having an impact absolutely can we legislate away economic activity to not to not provide a solution that's a big question that will be decided in the u.s. at least in November of 2018 elections have consequences as President Obama once said for us on the gradient its challenges grazing a big chunk almost half of us land production is spend some time on federal lands in the US and of that 30% spend the majority they're tunneling federal lands there's an ongoing effort over the over the last several years by animal rights folks and environmental communities to eliminate propane protein production on federal lands so they can do it there then they can start to take it out of the store place and off of private lands it's it's a progress that they're working through and that's a real battle for domestic producers we've got public private partnerships big sheep bighorn sheep they're there hunting which are typically conservative organizations that are blaming domestic lamb producers for a disease in movi that is fatal to some big sheep it's also endemic in bighorn sheep herds that have no relation whatsoever to domestic sheep but they've been successful in blaming them we've got some science now that's saying wait a minute it's also endemic in other species and it's endemic in herds I have no interaction whatsoever with bighorn sheep like an island in the middle
f the Salt Lake in Utah there's no domestic sheep there and yet you have that disease endemic but they've used it to take away federal grazing permits and the federal agencies Forest Service and BLM are somewhat complicit in that we're pushing back on but those are regulatory challenges climate change see what happens over over the next 18 months animal rights it's an annual fight for us there's a large community again there's a goal there that is broader than the care of animals that they want to take away our ability to control predators we have coyotes we've got bears we've got Eagles we've got blackbirds and and they're a big issue particularly for domestic sheep producers they want to limit our tools to do it and there's a constant battle that we fight in Congress with Congress every year to prevent them from doing so cool country of origin leaving you know it's we're going on 16 years of that y'all have done a heck of a job for far longer than that branding that on a voluntary basis and there's a split in the domestic livestock industry over well over that over cool and where there has or has or will have any value mandatory price reporting is a whole other interaction that we have between domestic and international producers and I've got to touch on on what dr. Leroy said earlier that's phenomenal information that he provided this morning and I really hope I get a copy of that PowerPoint because I want to share with a heck of a lot of people it's excellent information but he referenced Dietary Guidelines there's a whole another effort to socially engineer what is socially acceptable to consume in the last dialect area guidelines in the u.s. eggs were bad protein because of cholesterol in the last Dodger guideline we actually got it to be recognized as good protein salt was bad salt is now neutral meat was horrible there's a concerted Lobby effort to have additional restrictions you'll look at the egg you example what do we do the Inuits out of the goodness of our hearts we knew what was better for them than they knew for themselves that's a crime but that's what's happening to us as an industry if we do not use the data that dr. Leroy provided in our collective political capital to push back we want to be progressive we want to be engaged but we have to utilize it otherwise what we know and what we've multi on a multi-generational basis will disappear and that's not a good thing for New Zealand the America or the future of the world because protein is what development societies have to have to reach that next level and if we can't provide it for them that means discourse strife and instability and what happens in discourse driving this ability you get dictators you get conflict you get war food is the foundation of national security an effective productive efficient food supply that meets the needs of all is the best national security defense mechanism that there is whether it be in New Zealand the US or developing country so that's something that I just we're all fighting the same battle from different context in different points in different directions but there's an underlying initiative and effort there that as goal is to eliminate protein from the from the human diet and I I shudder to think of what that means for us speaking of limitation of protein running up against the timeline on the faint baked meat side we've already got a regulatory structure set up basically US FDA will regulate it up to the point that it's for harvest and USDA then takes oversight on post from harvest and collection and moving forward there's still got a lot of things to work out on that the challenge is it's fake protein it's fake meat it's manufactured cell-based harvests how do we do deal with that going for theirs country of origin labeling their standard identity there's the utilization of what we've gone through it with milk we've gone through it with sugar in the US I don't know if we have here their tremendous amount that you have to join the cell culture side there's an even bigger challenge on the fake meat side we're seeing a lot of activity in specific states that thankfully their production organizations their state livestock organizations are pushing back and prohibiting the labeling of meat but at the end of the day it's the interstate commerce clause and so you can't have a patchwork of state by state regulations it's going to have to come up to the federal level on the fake meat side what happens with that what happens with the civil culture those are big questions that we as a nation in the US are gonna have to do with and it clearly based on the discussion that I seen this morning and and around the tables y'all are gonna have to deal with I know I've covered a lot of different fronts and I have a tendency to speak really rapidly if you haven't noticed so I hope you've managed to capture at least 10% of what I said if not Corner me afterwards and I'll try and slow down on my speech and but at the end of the day I want to thank you all for having me here I look forward to going out and seeing a couple of sheep operations tomorrow places with grass and water dreams of mine for a lifetime and the continued exposure I have the people of New Zealand and everybody this room thanks for having me and good luck on the balance of the conference thank you thank you so much that was fantastic some questions from the floor I don't like the cake I thought much of where they were all that complement they're catching a belief one here oh great yeah any McFarland Ensco just interested in your you meet you you just referenced CPT PP and obviously the US well Donald Trump took the usl of it how do you see the dynamics do you think Donald Trump will continue to do one-on-one trade deals or could you see him rien gauging with a group of countries like like the CP TPP oh yeah that's a good question at least for the next 15 months I fully expect everything to remenham by little potentially trilateral basis but a broader TPP you know I was one of the first things that he did was sign an executive order pulling this out of the negotiations that's not going to change I can see a scenario where where you've got the the free trade community once he gets as if he gets reelected that he'll look at engaging on a broader basis but no not until then another question am I have a question for you we talked quite a bit about the trade issues that are occurring at the moment between the US and China other trading partners where do you see that ending what where does it take us I don't know I think this this round of discussions are taking place currently will give us a little bit of a crystal ball insight and where we'll end up Chinese economy as you all know that is slowing substantially and that's know in no small part due to what's going on between them in the u.s. right now how long they can forbear that and continue to shore it up with state-run enterprises and state-run funding is a question that they're gonna have to determine I think at the end the day there will be some agreements it will be as broad as we expect it to be but the next round will retaliatory tariffs are probably not going to be the work to the final ways to forestall it until they can do commodity by commodity agreements but I think it's going to be a painstaking process but everybody recognizes and it's not just on the agriculture side there's always a huge national security cure and there's not a day that goes by in DC this you don't hear while we mentioned and for justifiable reasons as some of the Nationals so Microsoft Google CenturyLink those are all impacts on them so it's not just AG it's much broader than that but I think there'll be small incremental pieces enough to force all an additional escalation of the trade battle that's going on right now yeah yeah no no nicely nice presenters if you're comfortable to answer this question I'm really powerful you can tell sorry yeah you may not you know help me so I'm sort of quite connected to a woman in the States and certainly the feeling over the eras as as they feel a little bit threatened by their status over that Trump administration and himself have been quite derogatory of woman you can't have an opinion on that but we can talk about it over lunch if you don't know I'm likely I do I do understand that ya know it's it's a great question well I refer you back to my aforementioned sister-in-law my wife who was when I married her she was a public health major her dad is lifelong MMR never voted for Republic in his life she's a she's become quite conservative over time what you hear in the press and what the the go back I'll go back to the 2016 election Donald J Trump did better amongst women and married women then Mitt Romney did yeah because for a multitude of factors and it depends on where they're at he surrounds himself with strong women he says some really challenging things on occasion but at the end of the day I go back to what you call the Bradley effect which is named it's a political phenomenon after the former mayor of Los Angeles ran for governor all the polls had him winning that he was an african-american gentleman and people were telling the pollsters that they were going to vote for him and yet they didn't we had the Bradley effect and in full force in 2016 the demographics his vote among Hispanics his vote amongst african-americans and his vote amongst women were stronger than Mitt Romney's in all categories both on a gross value and a percentage basis there's a Bradley effect going on there and I think there's a an in general a willingness to in to vote for somebody even though you don't like what he says because he does what he says he's going to do on a policy basis and I you know you look back over the last two and a half years he's tried to do everything and in a lot of ways has succeeded everything that he promised in the campaign and people like that be they're women or be they men but there is a we see it in our office to be perfectly honest we're bipartisan bicameral office and we've got Republican Women we've got Democratic women and the difference between their perception of the president is substantial and you see it across the country it is really bifurcated and it is really a hard dividing line there it's a surprising amount that are willing to vote for what they they expect out of him versus what he says and you saw that in 16 and you may see it again next year hi I'm not gonna ask a question about women I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about what the impact of the us-china trade war has been on US agricultural industries and you know there has been some quite significant I guess compensation packages to some sectors and what impact long what long-term impact do you think that's going to have on Pro trade sort of protectionist sort of views on newest agriculture around you know because you know our sort of experiences you get used to kind of compensation packages and it sort of changes your perspective a little bit around around training I just would be interested in both the direct impacts and maybe that long-term impact on on the pro trade or more sort of shift back around us you know u.s. agricultural industries I think you know that you're gonna continue to see it's gonna be a trust but verify as it relates to China you know the soybean community has highs and lows but at the end of the day there's there's a you Brazil and other soybean producing countries they can't ramp up to fill the gap so us productions are gonna go somewhere you're losing some of the premium on it by and large they're still they're still tolerant of it because they believe and are hopeful that it's going to be a better market for them in the long term if you eliminate some of those barriers that are to be perfectly blunt have been there for a long time manufactured and otherwise conversely mminton progress the the MTP the market transition program there was another 16 billion that was announced last week for domestic producers in the u.s. that can only go so far and it doesn't cover all the impacted commodities you know wool producers we've got the data now that shows that there's substantial harm for our domestic industry based on the Chinese tariff retaliation whether they're going to be able to be covered going forward is a big question so it's it's still a wait-and-see cautiously optimistic and hopeful and the question is how long that patience level will last I think from an electoral basis the administration is going to want to have some wins particularly on that front between now and next spring because that means that those Rust Belt states where most of that is produced continue to be voting the way that they want them to vote so that that politics is everything in the politics as I said as a saying that shares the same rubric policy and you're gonna see them continue to be conflated between now and next summer but it's it's it's a work in progress Jim Allen Baba here I was just interested in the likelihood of a Democratic candidate coming forward who's actually going to be electable that seems to me observing it to be the biggest threat to the Democrats winning the next election that they won't actually have somebody who's certainly nobody has the charisma of Obama I doesn't seem as though they've got a hope in hell is that your feeling or would you disagree well what I would I wish and what I think sometimes are too different right now I think that's the case but Biden I think you would have some potential but I think he's gonna have a real hard time having a voting basis that will have the the the momentum and the energy to drag him across the line depends on there's a lot of factors because you got to go through the vice presidential nomination as well so whomever ultimately gets the nomination and I think this one could well go to convention and take multiple votes whomever gets the nomination will have to choose a really strong viable vice-presidential candidate so somebody like come all the Harrises she started to soften and move towards a few additional issues incredibly bright incredibly well spoken if she put pulls a Cory Booker as a vice president's nomination nominee if she gets it there's a chance there but they're still running in problems based on what the positions are taking now a media will translate those into the general election because those positions that they're taking now do not translate to the general election so as a Republican hey I'm off won't continue to talk let him go as long as I want as an American I'd really like to see a strong candidate come out that is looking at the middle-of-the-road that wants to make America truly better versus focusing on a small segment of the vocal minority for another Christian who pays well it varies you know in China everything is underpinned by the state there's no such thing as free market enterprise or state free market enterprise so ultimately the state is paying those tariffs so it varies on our nation by nation basis they go to US Treasury those are general revenue funds to the US Treasury yes great look well that brings us to the end of the session that was a fascinating presentation thank you so much and as you can see by it from all the questions and you've really been able to give us a great insight into what's going on so thank you very very much thank you [Applause]
