Trade Compliance Made Easy: Lessons from Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg

Machine Automated:

Lalo  00:33

Hey, welcome everyone, and we’re off here to another episode here on simply trade. Really excited about this one episode. I’m kind of comparing it to so y’all have seen like some actors and authors and stuff, when they go to and they do their circuit, what they call their circuit, when they something new is released, they go, like, to the Today Show, they go to the Tonight Show. They go to all the late night shows or whatever because they’re promoting their, their their new project, whatever that might be. So this is my version of it. This is my version of it. I saw a LinkedIn post from one of our friends of the show and personal friends, also Larry Hansen, that he and his firm joined the Sandler and Travis and Rosenberg firm, which is also a friend of the show and a friend of the podcast, and ourselves too, and global training center, so we I decided I got to get these guys on. Let’s talk about trade. Let’s talk about what’s going on. If it’s not enough that they’ve already pretty much dominate the legal trade aspect of the world. Now here they go and acquire another leader in the industry. And so no, now they’re they’re putting people at a disadvantage. There’ll be a time, I guess, where, the, where the, what is it called the Securities and trade is going to get involved and say, no, no, that’s an unfair advantage anyway, but anyway, so, so we have on our show, we have, we have invited Lenny Feldman, which you all might know, obviously will know from from from the podcast, but also personally, maybe at icpa or a AI, and all these other conferences that he’s always attending. And of course, Larry Hansen. Larry Hansen has been around and done a few episodes with us as well, but I just want to welcome you guys. Thank you for joining me here. It was actually quite short notice. It’s been about two or three days that we planned this, and here you all are. Thank you all for joining us.

Lalo  02:42

okay. Great. Great. Okay, thanks. Larry, thanks. Thanks. Lenny, okay, so guys, so I don’t know, how do we want to start this? I mean, Larry, how did you go about this? What did you, how did you pull off this coup? Let’s call it, I mean, to me, it’s awesome. I mean, it’s, you’re, you’re hooking up with the biggest law firm in trade. You know that that that’s very reputable, it’d be it’s actually pretty nice to be able to be looked at by them, to be even acquired, you know, so you have a backstory or something on that

Speaker 1  03:16

can’t say it was really difficult. Let me we cross paths regularly at conferences, really, countless times per year on these different things that we started talking about, you know, future, where things are going. Lenny’s just a young kid, so he’s just a long future there. And I’m older, older the tooth, and thinking, you know, where’s my, where’s my, my end game on these things, after a few more years of working up Council, and I thought, well, we should talk about that. And so we did. I could not be more happy here. Sanders is a name as is an institution, so they’re really, really very few firm, but I would have even considered in San Francisville the top one. So I’m really so pleased at my associates. I have outstanding associates who are going to have a very good future with a very good firm. So I really couldn’t be more happy.

Lalo  04:01

So it’s a really good setup. So I mean, and then also a little bit of background, myself, personally, and my video producer, who y’all may or may not know, his name is Daniel from the show, but anyway, he him and I were contracted by stnr to do so to cover one of their events, or it’s actually their, I believe, is their annual meeting that they have with all their associates, all their employees. So the whole group was there in Florida, and so we got to meet pretty much everybody that works at Senator Travis, anybody and everybody that would want to come up and talk to us. You know, we talked to, but we were doing some, some some work for them. And I got to really know the firm. I really got to understand the culture of the company and, and it’s funny, because that was a very common theme of the whole weekend, you know, the culture, the culture, the culture is like, people really like working there. They’re not there because. It’s a job. They’re there because they want to be there. And so anyway, Lenny, congratulations. And we also have Nicole, by the way, on the on the podcast that just joined us. But congratulations to both of you, since I know you all are the managing partners of the firm in one way or another. So congratulations on that. But anything that you might want to say or feel and how you merged or talked to Larry and his firm on that? Sure, yeah, we’re

Lenny Feldman  05:28

just thrilled. Nicole and I and the team are just thrilled that Larry and his team agreed to join us. It technically wasn’t even a merger, really. It was Larry and his team coming over to sound like Travis and Rosenberg, which actually makes it a lot easier legally. That’s all another story. But you know, I’ve known Larry for decades. Nicole has known Larry for decades. We’ve all known each other, and over the years, we got to know his four associates as well. And like I say, Larry and his guys, they’re Texas gentlemen. They’re just such great people. They’re such professionals. You meet Larry, you hear him talk. He’s the consummate professor. He’s the storyteller. And people just love him, you know. And I said, Hey, we’re talking to Larry Hansen. People, I didn’t even get to tell Larry this yet, but people my colleagues saying, Oh, I love Larry Hanson. Is this really gonna happen? I mean, that’s just Larry, you know. So and then, and then I said on his associates, and I was talking to someone another firm say, like, Oh, I love Larry’s associates. They’re just such great guys. They’re great people. You know, they know their craft, they know what they’re doing. There’s they’re so dependable, ambitious, and they’re just such a pleasure to work with. So Lalo, you saw our culture that it’s about elevating people, it’s about lifting people up. It’s about mentoring people. And one of the cool things that Nicole and I always say, the mentoring always goes both ways. You know, I’m mentored by our associates, the people have been in business for a few years, because they get the technology they get. Ai if I don’t understand that stuff, I’m a dinosaur. So they’re our mentor, as well as our intergenerational team, where we have folks who have been practicing more than Nicole Larry or myself approaching 50 years, and they’re super relevant to our practice as well, and everyone in between. So that’s what makes it really cool. And Larry and his guys get that, and just, we’re just really thrilled that it’s it’s fitting, like hand and glove, and we knew it would, and it’s only been our first week, but just seeing the interactions and everyone working back and forth. Man, we’re just having a really good time doing this, and it’s going to get even more fun. You thought that you I wish I could have made it, by the way, Larry, we were trying to get this done so you can make it in November, so you could seem to let everyone do their thing. But, man, now we’re motivated to get everyone together even sooner, and they’re going to be coming out of Miami soon for some really cool meetings. But really so happy that we’re starting 2025 out with such a bang with Larry and his guys. Nice,

Lalo  07:47

nice. So, I mean exactly so Nicole, continuing on with what Lenny said. And again, just because it was my personal experience, and you might have caught this or not, but when I went out there and I, you know, y’all hired me to do some work over there for your annual meeting, etc, you know, when I met everybody down there, but I was saying how the culture, and that’s how Lenny kind of took off from there. But I remember, I remember the saying. I always remember this saying, and it’s appropriate. It’s really not a saying, but it’s, I remember what like they used to say that Steve Jobs used to say, he used to say, and I may watch this, but the idea is there. He used to say, we don’t hire smart people to tell them what to do. We hire them to tell us what to do. You know? So, you know, I mean, what do you think? I mean is that, like the consensus here, or the thought process with Larry’s group.

Speaker 2  08:41

Absolutely, one of the things is, for years, well, first off, I’m, I am at the law firm, but I am not an attorney. I, you know, I practice the the government relations, part of it, fortunately, because I’m in the District of Columbia, I can still be a partner in a law firm, because it’s not a state. But for years, you know, one of our founders, Tom Travis, used to always try to get me to go to law school. And I said, I don’t need I don’t want to go to law school. I don’t want to. He offered to pay for it. I said, That’s not the issue. If I want to be a lawyer, be a lawyer. And he goes. He said, You need to be when I said, I don’t need to be a lawyer, because I am surrounded by some of the most amazing lawyers and brilliant minds in this area that I’ve ever been around. So I don’t need that additional stuff. And what I think the culture has been and what Lenny was saying is, over the years, we want smart people. We want people who understand what’s going on, who get the trade, who live the trade, who breed the trade. And for them, it’s, it’s a it’s more of a passion than it is a profession. And so because they are so passionate about it, it has become their profession. It’s not that they went and this is their profession, and then they’re like, Oh, I like trade. It’s almost the other way around. And because of that, I think that’s when you see people really get involved and really care about. What they’re doing, and they are wanting to constantly learn, just like Lenny said, you know, the especially these young, young young people, and I can say this, they’re kids now, they come in and they have, they have different ideas. You know, they’re like, here, I can get that for you. And within seconds, you know, they’ve done whatever, click, click, click, research, they’ve done something, and they’ve gotten it, and you’re, I’m still going, Okay, now, which button do I push? You know, it’s just, it’s so nice. And so, you know, having Larry, he’s done a phenomenal job in recruiting and bringing up and training some really amazing young attorneys. So we’re so excited to have them and add them to our brain trust. You know, it’s just, it’s like the expanding, it’s ever expanding, so it’s very exciting,

Lalo  10:44

right? Yeah, and I got to see a lot of that, like I said when I was down in Florida visiting with you all, and got to talk to different folks. I mean, down from your paralegals all the way up to, of course, the founders. And it’s funny how the message was literally the same it was there, you know, like they take care of me and I take care, you know, because we take care of them and the firm, etc. Loved it. I loved it. Loved it and but thank you. So I guess just for the audience, you may or may not see, I don’t know how they decide to publish this, but we recorded a lot of really cool bio videos and and and segments of the the the managing partners and and also, you know, events that we’re going so I don’t know if they’re going to publish it internally or externally or whatnot, but you may get to see some of that and and a lot of the fun that we had out there. But anyway, so that’s coming soon. Let’s talk about this week, I guess, this week and next week, we’re winding down the current administration, and we’re kind of trying to figure out if any of these comments are going to be true or not coming up here in about in a couple of weeks. Is it a saber rally, or is it, or is it, like really happening? You know what I mean? So I know, I know. I know Larry personally, like I know he has some some opinions about that. I mean, what do you I mean, Nicole, I saw you’ve been posting meeting some of the new the new classes coming in, the new Congress and Senators, etc, that that is actually pretty cool. I wish I was a fly in the wall and some of those, you know, being a podcaster, I would love to, like, hear what you guys are telling these, these legislators, you know, like, what, what I mean, I guess you were also there part as NCB, FAA as well, or and just representing an organization as a lobby group, etc. So I that was pretty cool. I mean, so the floor is open, really, anything that you all might want to say or comment on, anything like that coming up, I know our audience would love to hear that. Well, I’m

Speaker 2  12:49

going to jump in first. So my mantra for this year is, Don’t take the bait. We’re going to hear things people. We’ve got to remember that things are going to be said, ideas are going to be expressed. The complete opposite idea is going to be expressed, and then a third idea is going to be expressed. And what we’ve got to do is refrain from what I felt we did in or at least I know I did. I know a lot of the companies did is immediately react to the tweets, immediately react to any pressers that the president elect and his team might have, and suddenly get all worked up. And so my thinking, and as I said, My mantra is, Don’t take the bait. Let’s look at what’s going on. Let me give you a perfect example. So there were there, you know, the President Elect has said, I’m going to put universal tariffs on everyone 10 to 20% and then there was a Washington Post article that came out and said, reliable sources in the course of conversations that they’re looking at priority industries to target, whether that be steel or computer chips or, you know, certain other very specific industries. And then about two or three hours after the Washington Post article came out, there was a truth social post which refuted that, saying it’s fake news, where I’m still going to put universal tariffs on everyone. So what that tells me is that discussions are ongoing, right? So first it was, Oh, great. It’s only going to a few industries, but the industries but the industries that were going to be impacted were really worried. And then it was, no, it’s going to be on everything. And so people are frantic. What? What does this mean? What’s going on? What you know? What’s the truth? The truth is discussions are going on. It tells me that clearly a decision has not yet been made, that they are looking at options. One options might be priority industries. They are still looking at the President Elect’s idea of hitting all industries, all nations, all products. So it’s and it may also depend on what happens in Congress, right if they pass this huge budget reconciliation bill that’s going to cost trillions of dollars right now. While there is some thinking of some members of Congress, including the incoming administration, that, Oh, we’ll just pay for all that by increasing tariffs. Well, we’ve never used tariffs, really, to offset budget spending like this. So it’s very different from the way that we’ve always tried to manage the budget process. And I think it depends on if the that is accepted as a way to newly manage and have pay fors for all of our expenditures, then we might see universal tariffs on everything, and depending on how big the spending is. So I think there’s just a lot of factors. And my advice, I think, to companies, is we’re going to see tariffs. Absolutely without a doubt. We’re going to see more tariffs, but we need to take a moment step back, realize how, how big they might be, and then, because we know they’re coming in place, start thinking now about ways to mitigate those tariffs. And I think that’s that’s to me, is sort of my my advice for going into these next four years. So

Lenny Feldman  15:57

my mantra has been the good old the best offense is a good defense, because I agree, DON’T TAKE THE BAIT, but someone’s going to take the bait, and it’s going to be a big old fish taking that bait. And we get Nicole and I talking about fishing, we’re talking big fish out there, and a flyer is a fisherman, but I have to say, I’m not really, but I play one on TV, but someone’s going to take there’s going to be bait and there’s going to be some fish in the pond that are going to be captured. I’m talking about those tariffs. So people, I feel importers, need to take stock of the current tariffs number one, and if they’re even applying them appropriately to their merchandise, and what may be ahead. And I start, I was asked this morning on another webinar, what is your starting point with everything else out there? And I say it always starts with classification. There are so many companies who are just still not classifying their merchandise properly, and that could be good and bad. It could be bad because if you’re going to owe more duty, customers could go back five years and they’re going to get very aggressive on some of these provisions that they might not have focused on before. When the tariffs go to 515, maybe 25% it’s going to happen. But companies may be missing opportunities putting their merchandise in the wrong provision, and maybe they are not in a position to take advantage of those that might be escaping the tariffs, there’s an opportunity now for exclusions 301, exclusions in Chapter 8485 that a lot of companies should be taking advantage of if they have their classification right. Okay, there was just a case that when it came out in December, the G and H case. This was my podcast last week on two minutes in trade that Nicole leads, and a lot of us support her on just about every day, thanks to Nicole. And there was a case as to Well, an exclusion went through the USTR. It was granted, and then, lo and behold, customs comes back and says, nope, your classification was wrong when you went ahead and got that exclusion right, Larry, I’m sure you saw that your your your scholar and all that stuff. And they said, Hold on a second. The fact that there was an exclusion that was granted, and CBP is part of that process, how to how to review the exclusion, means that I had a decision that equated to a ruling. The court said, not so fast. We’re not granting you what’s called summary judgment, you know, just on what’s before us, we’re gonna have to take this a little further, because there’s a dispute in the facts here. So not, not done yet. It’s going to round two, right? Larry, but the cautionary tale is ruling. You have to make sure your classification is right, even when you get an exclusion from CVP, from from usdr, this one actually might have been a 232, if I remember correctly, from commerce. But either way, the proposition stands. So classification value, you got to look at all that. And why is this becoming even more important? And this is something else everyone’s focusing on. The whole de minimis landscape is about to change. I can’t tell you exactly what it’s going to look like a year from now, in january 2026 but I will tell you this, it’s going to look a heck of a lot different than it does now. And I’m not talking a year from now, probably six months, eight months from now. We’re waiting to see if these Notice of Proposed rulemakings are going to come out before this administration sunsets. I have reason to believe it’s very possible, I’m going to say even more likely than not. Within the next week or so, one of the two rules that CBP is working on could actually come out so that this administration could say, we’ve been at this for years. We’re going to put our thumbprint on de minimis, and we’re going to start changing the algorithm to it not only the procedure, the data that’s needed, which is going to be very important for a lot of people, the efficiencies, what’s in the realm of the possible, what parties need to be reported, who can even file potentially, who do you need to report? But in addition, potentially looking at the 301 duties, and excluding those situations, the merchandise covered under China, 301 from de minimis, that is going to be. Be a duty levying event. As a result of those duties being levied on 301, people are gonna have to look at their classification. They’re gonna have to look at how are they gonna get those funds to CBP? That’s gonna be a seismic shift in the de minimis world. So there’s a lot going on in those fundamentals. That’s why I say gotta go on the defensive, get back to basics, make sure you have everything right, and if not, you really got to look at how you’re going to change that and improve it so you could take advantage of those opportunities that you might

Lalo  20:32

so that’s real interesting. Larry, let me ask you what you just said. Lenny, that’s real interesting. Do you think this year or this new administration, more than in previous years. The current administration might, maybe not the administration, but, but Congress and, you know, our government, do you all think that they might be pushing a lot of stuff here before the before Trump comes into office, just to get it in the docket or whatever. I apologize. I don’t know much about how you know a lot of how this gets approved or goes through the process. But as compared to other years like, oh, here comes Biden, we better get all these in or here comes Obama, here comes Reagan, here comes et cetera. Let’s try to get a lot of things here that like 11th hour type bills or ideas or whatever you know pass through. Do y’all think that that’s even more evident now than it was in the past? Or is this common, or what? What’s, what’s going on with that? I

Speaker 1  21:33

think the whole world’s holding their breath here. I have to apologize. I have a bit of a cold here, so they’re not a good voice here for this. I like Nicole’s comparison to today. I think it’s more like an hors d’oeuvre, because the real meat is the what happens next, 100% correct? Oh, we have a lot of talk, and this president talks a lot, and everyone knows he talks a lot. He’s talked a lot for a long time when he is the president, not the president. So he talks a lot. And the real the real meat of the thing is what he does on the first day or the first week of the first month of the first six months. That will be the real thing to look at here. And you’re right. Nicole’s right. If you follow all the bait, you’re going to miss the bigger picture here. The real meat will be what he actually does. He is using. He’s already positioned himself for using the law in a different way. The International Economic Emergency Power Act, or EPA, allows the president to have a great deal of power if he deserves by himself. That is an international economic emergency. And all presidents, going back to literally decades, Democrats or Republicans have used the same form I fill the name of the blame of the president find as an economic emergency with respect to film and emergency. And therefore I’m going to do this very broad power, but not really been used in this context at all. But we’ll see where that goes there. It’s good to compare what Nicole’s view and Lenny’s more like. Lenny, Nicole works in the inside the beltway. It looks at the policies of the bigger picture. Let me I work in the trenches. What does customs going to do about these things? Classification is certainly a very large one. Because if you customers are going to look at this much more closely here, and we’ve already seen this, frankly, where’s the sequence and see a lot more of this is not just have you classified correctly? How well was your exclusion done? We’ve already seen cases where customs have said, we see your exclusion. That’s a great exclusion. It’s for a different product. You describe this product wrong in the first place. You have a nice gold plated exclusion on the wall. But we need our 30 we need our 25% so this is an example where I think that the Lords can do a lot of good in terms of homework, doing the homework. And the homework does not begin on September, on January 20. It should have begun already. If you’re writing exclusions in the past or in the future, they’ve got to be crystal clear, very accurate, very complete and defensible going forward here, if your product changes, so now that it has the same tariff number, but your product changes, Customs has gone back to the original submission you made is that you envision Product A now you get a minus. Maybe that doesn’t it’s covered as well. And so now you’re gonna have the fight. And customs, frankly, it’s their job to do that. You know, customs is supposed to protect the revenue. And there are people who are going to be sloppy on exclusions. There are people who are going to simply misclassify purposely in order to to obtain a to avoid a negative result. Customs is a right to look at that very closely here. So my operator, my plan for the year is, I think we’re going to just see a lot more enforcement here in the core, 100% right? You got to look at the bigger picture, where the policy is, don’t, don’t, don’t pay attention just to debate or the order, but the real meat behind it, that’s going to happen in very short order as well. But most important of all is your homework. This is not a time to sit behind and wait think your answer is going to be found in the newspaper. It won’t be found the newspaper. It’ll be fine in your behind the scenes, attention to detail. What is your product? What tools do you have under the law to protect yourself? But when doing that, make sure you. Do it wisely, carefully to make sure you don’t have any unintended consequences down the road. So sadly, I have to say, I think it’s a really good time for lawyers, but not real good for real people out there who are going to have to do a lot more work on these things and have a lot more nervousness about going into business. So

Lalo  25:16

back on the trade. Are there any clues or any ideas as to how this might go with his current nominees for CBP commissioner and USTR, he nominated Greer and Scott, not in that order. I guess it’s Scott for CBP and Greer for USTR. I guess Greer served under Lighthizer, I guess and so I guess it’s a lot of similar, similar, unless he wants to go rogue and be opposite or whatever. But I’m sure not, because Trump nominated him. So any any clues or ideas on how trade may go like Is anybody going to go against his wishes and say, dude? I mean, because remember, usmca is coming up for renewal in 2026 so we need to think about that and and so we’re gonna have three new presidents or head of state, I guess, in Prime Minister, as in Canada, that that are, you know, needing to, I guess, kind of hold their positions and stuff like that. But anyway, I’m just kind of curious. I I’m looking way far into the future now. But, I mean, like any any clues or ideas on because of those three, I mean, two nominees, I’m sorry.

Lenny Feldman  26:28

I mean, I could start with Rodney Scott that, you know, he was the head of border patrol. And I had, I had predicted to some groups that somebody from border patrol, it could be Rodney Scott. He was on one of my list very well could be leading. CBP, so here we go, and that’s no different than what we saw in Trump. 1.1 1.0 I should say, with the nominees, there, there. Of course, they started with Kevin McAleenan, and then it moved to a few others, including Mark Morgan, who I had worked quite a bit with when I was co chairing the clock advisory group. But all real border people border focus. And we all know it’s Customs and Border Protection, so it’s really now border protection and customs, right? So we get it, you know, we understand, and that’s no surprise that that’s a priority. But of course, that is somewhat disconcerting, or at least concerning to the trade community as to whether trade is going to be really second fiddle, and there’s not going to be as much, if you will, attention provided to it, not as much of an interest in innovation when it comes to trade and trying to work in partnership with the trade community when You’re really focused on your migration flows. And you know, let’s just say, readjusting where migrants and people have come over might be at certain points in time. I will say, I like to always try to find an optimistic note. At least when we did work with Mark Morgan and others in the past, they did learn and understand that if they are going to lead that 60,000 person agency, they have staff who are devoted to the full mission, which involves what’s coming over the border, not only the people, but the goods. And I think there’s you could really thread that needle that if you don’t control what’s coming over the the border, you don’t enforce the bad, nefarious cargo coming in, you don’t facilitate the good cargo coming in, then that’s going to be a threat to economic and national security anyway. So you so I think there is going to be a lot of interesting discussions. And I would say to all of you, it’s an opportunity for the trade community to work with the c1 the commissioner, all the way through the executive team, and say, Hey, we understand it’s about border security. It’s about safety, but you cannot achieve that goal if you’re only focused on the individuals who are traveling through that border and not the cargo and facilitating the individuals who should be going over the border and the cargo that should be going over the border. So it’s gonna be interesting conversation. We had these conversations, what, four or six years ago, and I think we did get some traction attention. I’m hoping it’ll be the same way, but it’s definitely gonna be a bit of an uphill climb. Just to make sure that we get the leader from border patrol, formerly Border Patrol, focusing on the trade aspect as well, right?

Lalo  29:23

Yeah. So you got your work cut out for you, Nicole and the folks over at ncbfa, I guess, yeah.

Speaker 2  29:29

And you know, with respect to the question on USTR, I’d like to pull on a couple of other factors as well. So Jameson Greer, he was the chief of staff under Bob Lighthizer, former USTR under and Trump 1.0 he worked with Lighthizer at a law firm before he was Chief of Staff at USTR. He also went to the subsequent law firm where Bob Lighthizer was he is very much aligned with the same line of thinking whenever he. It. I think he is very much aligned in that lighthouse. Are always going to do everything by the book, he’s great attorney. I mean, he’s very, very much committed to the rule of law and ensuring that you follow what you’re supposed to do. That’s why I think there were a lot of controls that were in place with respect to some of the actions that went forward. I think James and Greer would would seek to follow that same path. However, I think that that path could be full of some hurdles that might not be he may not be able to overcome, and that two of those hurdles that I see immediately in my mind are the Secretary of Commerce nominee, Mr. Howard lutnic, and the Peter Navarro, who has been nominated to be the Special Assistant to the President on manufacturing and trade affairs. And if you look at the announcement for the Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Lutnik, he was Mr. Trump, said that he is going to be in in charge and have oversight of the USTR and tariff issues. USTR is an independent agency that is a part of the Office of the President. Congress gave authority for making tariffs or taking tariff actions to the President, and so USTR is the entity that has always governed that undertaken the 301 investigation undertaken, help implement the 232, all of those types of investigations and tariff issues and negotiations have been handled by USTR by the authority given by Congress. Now I’ll also say that probably since Reagan or Nixon, I don’t even know, I think it was Reagan, with the first one who was trying to get USTR under the control or guidance oversight of commerce, Congress has always thought them very, very hard to keep that independent agency looking at these issues. I foresee that to happen in this instance as well, because despite the fact that there is a majority Republican Senate and House. You don’t have some people who are willing to give up that authority that they that they’ve given to to Congress. So you’re going to have, he’s going to have to deal with Mr. Lunick, number one, number two, with Peter Navarro. Peter Navarro was the person who sat down the hallway from President Trump during his first administration. And according to some of my friends who worked in the White House and worked directly with Mr. Navarro, he is the one who was constantly, constantly bringing up more tariffs. Put on tariffs. Got to have tariffs, tariffs, tariffs, tariffs, tariffs, tariffs. If you look at the Heritage Foundation’s project 2025 there’s a chapter on trade. Mr. Navarro wrote one of those chapters on trade. His is, we got to do the tariff reciprocity Act, which would be the United States. If Brazil applies a tariff of 35% on apples, and we apply one of 15, then for Brazilian apples, we apply 35 if the Chinese apply a 45% tariff on apples, and we do 15 then we applied on Chinese apples the 45% so you can imagine the nightmare that would be for customs to try to implement number one. But he’s really focused on this tariff reciprocity act, and focusing on dealing with our the partners with which we have the trade deficit. So you’ve got a situation where these other people are very, very strong personalities. Jameson grill is a great guy. I worry that he doesn’t have the same level of energy, excitement, gravitas with Mr. Trump that these other two do and will have. So while I think Greer is is going to be someone who’s going to try to follow the law, I think it’s going to be difficult for him to try to keep these trains on the track, and there’s not going to be any guardrails, and just trying to keep him on track, I think is going to be difficult. And I and I hope he’s up to the task. Let’s put it that way. I don’t think he’ll have any difficulty getting confirmed by the Senate.

Speaker 1  34:06

Yeah, the discussions between commerce and USTR, I don’t think the President elect Trump really knew, knew that that subtle difference here about whether what office was under another office, I’m looking ahead toward what happens next on that debate here, because on one hand, it’s one thing about the tariffs, but the word not used here is the word retaliation. There will be retaliatory tariffs here. Retaliatory tariffs will be very difficult for the Department of Commerce’s other job, department Congress, other job is to really support exports. We are but we are big on exports, and if you are the same person, Linda’s in charge of export developments, but also handling retaliation because of against our exports. We saw this in 2018 with the soybeans. All sudden, there was a retaliation on the soybeans of the US. Farmers were also very, very concerned about this idea of tariffs, because some of them is not just the Tennessee whiskey was one of them, but the soybean. Beans and soybeans are an outstanding example, because when the soybean they encounter, soybean tariffs were put against us products the world market had to find another place for soybeans, and they found it in Brazil. They went to Brazil and said, well, Brazil said, you know, you know, we become soybeans too, and here’s our contracts, and some of that, those contracts are coming back to United States here. I mean, there’s retaliation here. So looking down the road, how they handle the retaliation will be of something to watch for, but Lenny as well that, I think that the having the US Border Patrol person gives us a very clear prediction of what they will be. But when I heard that, took that in stride, actually, I thought, okay, it really doesn’t matter. We’ve had quite a few, many, many examples in our lifetime of commerce, or customs commissioners who had nothing to do with customs at all. It was a political position for the longest time, and it was sort of rare to have somebody, but he knew what a tariff schedule was. And we all survived that because it really knew it was the professional customs staff has lasted over the decades, and you got to respect them for that. I want to know who will be the who will be the new Office of trade. That’d be the real, the real meat and potatoes. People really work on these things here. There’s sometimes talks about President Trump wanted to put loyalists in a high level, not really an appointed position, not office of trade, just a loyalist will be the President’s fly on the wall. That will that will disturb what is otherwise a very good agency. You can handle these things despite the politicians. So I’m hoping that customs is in the holes, right? They have a difficult job. Oh, well, this soybean coming to Brazil will have this duty, but not from this place, in a different duty. And then it’ll be a certain period of time, and then importers are trying to plan ahead for months about their product flow, their supply chain. It’s all very difficult for them, so it’s going to be difficult for everybody. For sure,

Lalo  36:47

exactly. Yeah. Well, in the interest of time, I don’t want to take too much more of your time for all three of you, any last words doesn’t matter. Trade, personal, whatever you know, whatever you might want to wrap up with your for you to anything else, I think

Speaker 1  37:06

it’s important for trade to talk. One thing we learned about the end of that and during the election, there is a general level of misunderstanding about trade that sort of shocked me. But that was the most shocking thing for me. There were a sizable number of Americans did not know that duties on Chinese goods are paid, are paid by the Chinese. There’s a fundamental misunderstanding about our international trade system, our procedures, our processes, why we do certain things, why we have Taro, why we have the WTO? There’s a good opportunity, I think, for trade professionals such as ourselves, but organizations like AI and others to to articulate the goals of trade, why trade is a good thing to have and know should not be messed with here. But I think some good vocal, vocal opposition to some of these things

Lenny Feldman  37:56

I was going to say, just really make sure that you get accurate information. There’s going to be a lot of misinformation. I think that’s going to go out there. There’s going to be a lot of opinions on things. But opinions does not equate to fact. It does not mean it’s accurate. Get out there. Go to the association events, whether it’s, you know, the Houston or Florida customs brokers, the national customs brokers, they work really hard in getting accurate information. The American Association of exporters and importers, AFA, footwear and apparel, where Nicole is a regular. A lot of us go there. A lot get on webinars, you know, and make sure the webinars, frankly, are provided by reliable sources. Sometimes, I think the three of us are shocked is that the type of information that’s provided at webinars or seminars, not always accurate, but go on webinars. I’d like, of course, to say we have some good ones. So, you know, go on listen to them. Brokers need to do this now under continuing education, go to your broker. Your broker is really a reliable source as well, and get your information. Read the trade report from STR read international trade today, whatever is your go to, because it’s gonna be changing really quickly. So just make sure you stay on top of it, so that you know what’s changing and again, what is real and what isn’t necessarily sending you in the right direction, which could lead you maybe to some unfortunate consequences.

Speaker 2  39:17

I’d add one more listen to our two minutes and trade podcast. It’s about two minutes. What’s what’s really funny one time, I was on a conference call with someone seeing them first face to face on a video like this, and the gentleman says, Oh, hey, you’re the you’re the person behind two minutes and train he goes, I listen to it every day at one and a half times the speed I go. It’s two minutes, and you listen to it at one and a half times the speed. So but we tried to, you know, I tried, and money has been some of my other colleagues, we try to cover like, what’s happening, what’s what’s really going on, what are some of the things, a lot of inside the beltway stuff, trying to give people an idea. And I think we also need. To remember that while we right now have talked today, really focusing on the administration, that a lot of changes are also going to be brought about by Congress, and so we have to watch what’s happening on the Senate and the House and what laws are actually going to pass, because those are going to impact the trading as well, as Lenny mentioned, we potentially have some notices of proposed rulemaking that may be coming out from the administration with respect to E commerce, but the law needs to be changed to make some significant changes. It’s very possible we could be seeing a 21 century, 21st century customs framework agreement. I like to say we should be talking about the 22nd century, since we are already in the 21st but you know, we could be seeing laws that are going to come out that impact, that we’re also seeing the tendency for Congress to try to pass different laws on China and on other countries. So I think we’ve got to watch not only what the administration is doing, we’ve got to watch what Congress is doing. And as both my colleagues have said, Lenny and Larry, that when you’re looking at the information like I say, Don’t take the bait, slow down. Get the right information, get accurate information, and then, you know, let’s think of a way to address it, educate it, mitigate it, or resolve the issue. So I think that’s sort of my advice going forward.

Lalo  41:21

Well, thank you all. I mean, this was a very informative I’m sure we could have gone another hour or so, but anyway, there’s so much to talk about. But thank you all for joining me, and hopefully we can have you all here in the future. And of course, I know for sure I’ll run into some of you at conferences, because that that time of year is coming here pretty soon. So so anything else you you all, whoever’s listening to this, you can catch how to contact any one of my guests today, Nicole, Larry and Lenny. We have their links or their contact information on the show notes. Watch that go down to that and or if you’re watching on on YouTube, you should catch that also on the on the description for the show. So thank you all so much. Hopefully this has helped you, at least kind of kick off here the year a little bit and get a better understanding. So I know everybody’s confused. I really love all these advices. Don’t follow the bait. I think that’s what we’ll call the show. Don’t follow the bait. So anyway, thank

Speaker 3  42:25

you all and have a good Have a good day. Great. Happy New Year. Thank you. Thanks, Lalo, thank you

Lalo  42:31

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