The Beef Imports, G20 Finance Meetings, and U.S.-Canada Trade Tensions

I'm Scott. >> I'm [music] Bill. And we're the Trade Guys. >> You're listening to The Trade Guys, a podcast produced by CSIS, where we talk about trade in terms that everyone can understand. I'm Alex [music] Kistling and I'm here with Scott Miller and Bill Reich, the CSIS Trade Guys. Thanks for listening to the Trade Guys. On today's episode, we look at President Trump's efforts to bring down beef prices by increasing imports and what it means for American ranchers. We then turn to the key takeaways from this week's G20 finance minister meetings. And finally, we check back in on US Canada trade talks as Canada's retaliatory tariffs are set to take effect. All that and more on today's [music] episode of The Trade Guys. Welcome back to the Trade Guys, everyone. We have a few great topics to dive into this week, but I want to start with beef today. Last month, President Trump announced that the United States would allow an additional 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef to enter the country at a lower tariff rate. The move is of course aimed at bringing down beef prices at the grocery store here in the United States, but it has generated push back from American ranchers and some of the president's allies in Congress. And there's another development happening today as we record this episode on Friday, September 4th. President Trump is reportedly preparing to sign a new executive order related to this issue to perhaps pacify the American ranchers here in the US. So I want to get to that executive order and possible areas of of relief in a few minutes, but I want to start kind of big picture here. And Scott, I want to go to you first. How did we get here and what exactly was the administration trying to accomplish with the beef imports? >> Sure. I think it's important to step back and look at why is beef so expensive? Ground beef is very expensive in grocery stores. People notice it. is it's been a cause of sticker shock for some time now and it seems to persist. There are reasons for that. It's a big and important complicated industry, but all agricultural products are driven by the basically the cycle that it takes to grow and harvest. And when it comes to cattle, it's less like a corn field and more like an orchard. If you have an apple orchard, when you put the saply into the ground, you don't have apples right away. takes time for the trees to mature and there's a much longer product cycle. That's true among animals that are in our diet. Cattle have the longest gestation cycle. So the pregnancy for cattle is months, not weeks. They're likely to give birth to a single calf. Twins are very rare unlike say feeder pigs where SAS can deliver big litters of piglets. So there's only only usually one calf per gestation cycle and by the time they're weaned it's almost sort of year and a half till the calf becomes what's called a heer and enters the herd broadly or a bull calf one of the other becomes a usually a steer but be that as it may once herds get small because of that long gestation cycle in comparison to other livestock it takes longer to catch up and catching up usually runs into other problems and that's seems to be what's happened here the herds initially became smaller during co when demand for many products changed with whether or not restaurants were open or closed how many people were preparing at home versus eating out so our diets changed a lot just because of the co restrictions so beef demand went up over co that's interesting >> well the herds got smaller because the certain cuts of beef demand changed as the most abort thing then they've been trying to recover since then certainly the postcoid inflation hit costs of the rancher quite high and so basically everything that was driven by gasoline or natural gas or petroleum of some sort became very expensive and that caused herds to stay small. So throughout this we we've been have we've had basically too much demand chasing too little supply. What the president was trying to do was remedy that at least on the ground beef side. Now I think going to call it scooter's loss. Production networks and supply chains are always more complicated than you think they might be. But in this case, beef is quite complicated. About half of what Americans consume from beef is hamburger. And hamburger actually has two sources. It has basically what are raised with along with the steers that are in the feed lots in America making choice and prime beef and which tends to be a lot more fat content is about half of the of what's available. That's called fatty trim. And then there's lean trim. And lean trim in US herds mainly comes from what are called cull cattle. That is basically dairy cows that are culled from the herd. M production is down. Ladies are getting old. However you want to think of that, but that is a relatively lean trim. And in your 8020 ground beef in the store, you mix fatty trim with lean trim. And so what the president's order of the additional imports was for lean trim. Now, it turns out because of different farming practices, Argentina, the pasture-raised cattle are always quite lean. So, it's a good source of lean trim. It's why it can be sourced relatively efficiently. So, you wind up which in trade you actually look for these kinds of synergies where it looks like the US production is complimentary because we have a lot of fatty trim. The US production is complimentary with the Argentina imports because they have the lean trim. So, the combination seems to work. The total imports of whether for this three-month represent 2% of annual beef consumption. So it's not a dealbreaker in terms of how the consumer market works. It looked like a pretty smart policy which made it easy to criticize for almost everyone. But the key is there aren't a lot of easy solutions. Once your herds get too small, recovery takes a long time. You know, the many things can interfere. disease, drought, lots of other things beyond just straight up inflation and the difficulties of what you're doing in the process. So that's the story. Now they're looking for other ways to free up the market. They've talked about allowing local processors more flexibility under USDA guidelines. All these things have been thought about before and tried occasionally, but it's complicated to unpack because of the inspection requirements and general food safety requirements by USDA. So, let me leave it there and get Bill involved. >> I just want to ask quickly, how much will this actually impact prices at grocery store? That's the big question here overall. >> I think it's small. Yeah, it's directionally right, but it is small only because the volume sounds big. The 300,000 tons sounds like a lot. It doesn't really put a lot of additional supply in the market. 2% or so of the total annual supply. So, it's a move in the right direction. Probably will not affect pricing materially, but rather at the sort of the margins. Interesting. Bill, jump in. >> The estimate that I've seen was which is only one is 25 35 cents cheaper per pound and not the 150 that has been advertised. So, we'll see. This is a rare case where I confess I have some sympathy for the administration. As Scott pointed out, they did not cause the problem. The problem has been around for quite a while. The herd is at its lowest level, I think, since 1951. So this has been developing for a long term. You can argue on several grounds Trump made it worse. The tariffs have made it worse. Actually, his immigration policies would make it worse because if you look at the meat packing industry, a substantial portion of their workers are immigrants. And to the extent that they can't get those workers and that the ones they do get, they have to pay more, that's added to the price increase problem. to the administration's credit, they're trying to figure out how to deal with what is essentially a long-term problem, as Scott suggested, with some short-term solutions, and most of them are not going to do the job. It takes time to rebuild the herds and I don't think we're going to see total relief for a while, but they've got some creative ideas in there and I think people that follow this sector ought to take a look at the USDA's ranchers initiative which Secretary Rollins rolled out on August 31st which has a number of innovations there. One is the one that Scott mentioned, which is making it easier for farmers to do their own processing or to sell to local processors. Because one of the issues in the background of all this is that the meat packing industry, the people who buy the cattle, slaughter it, then cut it up and market it, is highly concentrated. There really only four very large firms. Two of which are Brazilian. I mean, they're publicly traded. Petroleian shares Brazilian, which probably irritates Trump. But with only four big companies, farmers don't have a lot of choice. Which means in effect that the packers have a lot of leverage. And what the ranchers believe is basically that the packers are driving down the price that they're paying for the cattle and maintaining higher prices at the consumer end and doing very well, making nice profits. We'll see. As it turns out, the Justice Department is conducting an antitrust investigation of exactly those companies. And there's no announcement yet or no results. So, we'll see what happens, but it's indicative of the fact that people are concerned about the structure of the market and the idea of allowing other entrance into the market at smaller scale is probably one that will be effective because it gives farmers more choice and it will hopefully create opportunities for smaller packers to become bigger ones and create more competition. The other interesting innovation that Secretary Rollins came up with, it's called the brand endorsement. took me a long time to figure out how this would work, but basically it's kind of an insurance program. And the idea is that if your heer is endorsed, what that means is that the estimated slaughter price for that heer, which would be some time in the future when it's big enough to be slaughtered, there's an estimated price assigned for that. And then as that time approaches when slaughter might actually take place, if the price of slaughter at that point is higher, then the government will make up the difference. And the idea then is that will encourage farmers not to send the heers to slaughter, but to retain them for breeding and to help build the herds. >> Oh, interesting. >> Now, it remains to be seen whether that will work, but it's an innovative idea. >> Conceptually, it's very similar to the counteryclical programs the Department of Agriculture runs for the big grains. So, I think they've got some experience that says this helps put the incentives in place or at least takes away some some risk associated with moving too fast on building a herd. So, it could work. Who knows? Well, that's really interesting. >> The other thing that's pending out there that may be addressed, although I think apparently not decisively, in Trump's executive order today is the question of country of origin labeling, also known as cool co. And this has a long legal and litigation history. The Congress passed country of origin labeling for cattle in 2002 and then dealt with it again a few years later and then proceeded to lose several WTO cases from countries complainants primarily Mexico but other countries as well that complained that essentially country of origin labeling partly because of the complexity of the market that Scott described and the fact that you've got cattle moving back and forth across the border particularly the Canadian and Mexican borders because that's these are land borders that it's easy to move across. So they're born in one place, partly raised another place, and then basically topped off and slaughtered in a different place. That makes country of origin complicated. And the argument that the WTO bought was that this ends up in effect from a regulatory standpoint discriminating against imported cattle. And the US lost those cases. And back in the days when that mattered, Congress actually repealed cool in 2015, a few months after they lost the final decision at the WTO. I think now we're in a situation where people don't care as much about what the WTO thinks and certainly the president doesn't. So he may go ahead and try to reestablish it. I think it would probably take an act of Congress to do that, which is what has happened before. And there's a constituency in Congress in the ranching community in the West that would probably very much like to [clears throat] do that. They've agitated for this in the past. We're not happy with the WTO decision. We're not happy with the repeal, although there were enough votes to do it. So, this issue is going to come back and be on the table. I mean, Scott could comment on this. We were going back and forth before we started this broadcast about whether that will make things better or worse. I'm inclined to think it will make things worse. It will confuse the market. It will complicate things. and the labeling requirements will probably raise prices. >> I think that that's true as well and it'll cause opportunities for people to raise concerns about food safety, those kinds of things. Look, if you're worried about food safety and ground beef, cook it to medium well, okay? Cuz the one thing, while meat is inspected, it's inspected at the processing plant. You bring it home, it's up to you to make sure you've got it cooked so that that it's safe to consume. And most people do eat their ground beef pretty substantially, which which is the wise thing to do. Now stakes are a different story in terms of what's been exposed to the outside world and what hasn't. But well done is good advice from a food safety standpoint. >> Let me ask before we move on just about the political angle here. This seems to me, although you guys would of course know better, that there's been more push back from Trump's allies on the Hill and from red states over this move than really any other tariff move we've seen in the second Trump term. Was this issue just too hot at the time or is it a turning of the tide that we're seeing here? >> I think a lot of the ranchers and probably the people who worked for the protesters are Westerners and they're most of them are Republicans, >> right? >> So, it sounds louder. I would note, however, that the notion of custom butchering and special rules for custom meat processing has a big constituency in Maine. There have been bills introduced that both Congresswoman Pengree and Senator King have been original sponsors. So, the issue does not cut only toward Republicans. A lot of Libertarians have sponsored that bill that was introduced by Senator King in a previous Congress. So it's not purely Republican, but it just this one happened to pick an area of the country where these farming practices happen that's pretty much solid Republican. So yeah, I think what the problem here is that the ranchers and also the farmers for that matter were already under serious pressure. Record high diesel prices, which we've mentioned, higher fertilizer prices. I mean, the cost of their inputs products and the cost of processing have gone up. They're under a lot of pressure in the commodity crop areas like soybeans. They've lost the Chinese market. >> They're so they're not in good shape anyway. And then what comes along is a decision on its surface to let in 300,000 more tons of beef. So I'm not surprised that the cattlemen are outraged by that. But it's because they were in a bad place to begin with. You know, if they were doing fine and making money, then I think they'd just be complaining. But this has become more serious now. If you think about it politically, you if you read Charlie Cook, for example, which I do from time to time, he'll point out that, you know, this is mostly going on in red states, as Scott mentioned. So, some of these guys that are running for the House or the Senate, their margin may go from 65 to 55 because of things like this, but they're still going to win. >> 55 is still a win, >> right? >> It doesn't go to 40. You know, I'm not sure that all those Republicans out there, they may stay home. Few of them may vote for Democrats, but I suspect that these guys are going to win with reduced margins anyway. >> Yeah. Well, we'll do an update next week. As I mentioned at the top, we're recording this right as President Trump is reportedly signing this executive order. We'll see what the details are over the next day or two and then we'll do an update at the top of next week's. But I do want to move on now to other news from the past week and that was the G20 finance ministers meeting in Asheville down in Scott's neck of the woods. And there were a few notable developments on the trade front. The Trump administration won broad support for addressing China's non-market policies and global trade imbalances. While G20 ministers also agreed on a set of principles around using AI to streamline trade and reduce non-tariff barriers. And amid all of that, Russia's finance minister was in the house attending in person and drawing some concern from European allies. So there was a lot happening in Nashville this week. Bill, what caught your attention? It was a meeting of finance ministers. This is normal. The US is the host of the G20 this year. It's to be in December in Mara Lago, I think, or else somewhere nearby, >> I think. Dorado. >> Is that where it is? Okay. The host country then chairs preliminary ministerial level meetings leading up to that. So, this was a finance minister's meeting. There will probably there'll be one with trade ministers. I think there'll probably be one with foreign ministers. This is normal occurrences. Uh, three things did stand out from the session. and Alex just mentioned all three of them. One uh the thing they did agree on was a declaration about AI. It was mostly about using AI for essentially trade facilitation to facilitate commerce to get rid of barriers to make things easier to make trade easier which is not particularly controversial. Whether AI will do that or not is a separate topic but they could reach agreement on that. What the resolution did not address was sort of the mechanics of AI or the building blocks of AI. Nothing there about semiconductors, nothing there about other hardware elements, nothing there about critical minerals which go into the mechanics of AI compute. Those are much harder issues and much more controversial issues involve export controls, tariffs and economic coercion basically as we've seen from China. That wasn't addressed. But what they did was a useful step. I guess we'll see if it makes any difference. Sometimes these things don't, but it didn't cause any harm. The second thing was more complicated, although I'm glad it was a welcome development. of the G20 members, everybody but China agreed to a statement about the need to deal with non-market economy policies, which was essentially a slap at China and China's policy of over capacity and continuing to produce and export more and more and more despite declining domestic demand in China to the point where it's eroding or undermining the manufacturing sectors of lots of countries, particularly those in the G20. So you've got it's not just a United States problem. It's a European problem. It's a Southeast Asian problem. It's a Brazilian problem. It's a Mexican problem. It's a problem in a lot of cases. And it is not apparently a problem for the Chinese who descend agreement. But >> the only one that did >> the only one. It's a welcome sign in a way that other countries have figured out that this is a problem. For a long time, this was the United States sort of crying in the wilderness, you know, and now it's begun to hit other people. Ironically, one of the reasons it's hitting other people is because our deficit with China has gone down so much, thanks largely to Trump's policies and the tariffs. And the result is it's like pushing the balloon. You know, if imports Chinese stuff go down here, they just show up somewhere else. And so, we've seen an expansion of Chinese exports in the rest of the world. And now other countries have the same problem that we had for a long time. So it's good that they're recognizing it. The real challenge will come when somebody says, well, what are we going to do about it? And are we going to prepare to do something about it even with a single denter in the G20? And I don't think that's going to be resolved until the actual meeting in December. The last thing which was kind of both sad and amusing was and Alex made this comment is the Russian finance minister was invited. Russia is a member of the G20. He showed up. European countries were very upset about that to the point where they refused to appear in the usual family photo of all the finance ministers. So there was a signal being sent there. It does raise the question of who's going to show up at the end meeting and what's going to happen to the G20. Trump has already said that South Africa is going to be disinvited. We'll see if he sticks with that. Apparently Russia is going to be invited. We'll see if that prompts anybody else to drop out. China, of course, is a member of the group. Will Xiinping show up in December, coming to the US for the second time since he's due here in three weeks? >> Yep. >> We'll see. But it'll be interesting to see what happens at the end because Trump is not really excited about multilateral institutions and generally has not taken them seriously. This time he's the host, so it'll be kind of fun to see how he decides to handle it. >> Yeah. Scott, what do you think? Two comments. One is the overall message from Secretary Bessant and the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and the chairman of the biggest bank in the world who spoke right after Secretary Bessant that is Jamie Diamond was the banker was there. Yes. And Kevin Worsh was there as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. But they all had the same message which was growth is the only policy that gets us out of this mess. So, I thought it was actually constructive to say that and make sure nobody thought that another round of quantitative easing was in the cards or something like that. When you have finance ministers together, talking about growth is usually a pretty good thing for at least those of us who were one time in the private sector. So, I would want to mention that in case anybody missed it. But I also realized I reflected on my childhood when Bill was talking about the photo op changes and realized that one Thanksgiving my uncle had completed his third divorce and married his fourth wife. and he sat at the Russian table with the kids [laughter] set separate from but which was fine because he was a pretty good card player. So >> glad we could bring back >> these things happened and I think they handled it well. We had a lot of government planes it at Raleigh Durham airport yesterday because the commerce ministers were at Chapel Hill. Asheville does have an international airport but it's really small. So apparently everyone got in and out safely which is all we were concerned about. I think the Asheville Convenient was held at the Grove Park Inn, which is a wonderful facility. If you've never been there, it's worth a visit. Oh, it's fantastic. Yeah, >> it's a beautiful place. I mean, it's just spectacular mountain city. They should have had it that built more. I mean, that would talk about a spectacular venue. >> Not enough space. >> I know you're probably right. >> Yeah. I don't think they could have pulled off the meeting itself, but that's building how God would have done it if we' had the money. So, pretty impressive. >> Well, it is remarkable. We went down there for a trip a few years ago and loved every minute of it. Well, let's turn to our final topic here. And I recognize we dedicated all of last week's episode to US Canada talks, but it's worth revisiting here for an update. You know, we have had a lot of back and forth this week. A war of words continues and it doesn't seem to be a lot of progress being made, but maybe there's some stuff happening behind the scenes. So, Scott and Bill, what have you guys been tracking this week? Well, I tried to sort of separate the meme wars and the sniping and the all the back and forth and find out what's really behind all this. I think there's one issue that was raised a lot in the few days after the negotiations stopped which was the French language issue and I think that was a lot of politics involved and has very little substance as best I could tell. It's a working paper that was part of an intellectual property discussion that didn't really have anything to do with the core issues. So I think Ambassador Greer's statement right immediately to both CBC and American news media was this was never a dealbreaking issue. There are a couple of issues that I do think all tie to the elephant in the room which is trade with China. The US claiming some right to limit Canadian trade deals. As best I can tell this points to a provision that was already in USMCA as we spoke last week with Dennis Derby. Section 10 does create this obligation to review, but the language reads free trade agreements, which is kind of in my mind different than what Canada managed with China when it came to getting a little more canola oil into the country and accepting some electric vehicles in return. I do think there's an exceptional sensitivity to that issue with the Trump administration. and they're looking for ways to solve Chinese circumvention issues. And I think that was the overwhelming push from the US. That's going to be a big issue. That is Trump administration's number one issue for North America. And they're working on it positively with Mexico. Mexico appears to have the same concerns. I think there's a concern that Canada's going a different direction. So finally the heavy trucks issue as best I could sort out is an issue that also affects China because it's Chinese components in the vehicles. And I would point out in this case I think the Americans made the correct argument which is going back to 1965 Canada did a very Trumpian thing which is they said if you America want to have access to our Canadian auto market you got to build cars here. That was the original auto pact which called hails from the 60s and it was cars and light trucks. The auto chapters of USMCA much like the auto chapters of DAFTA are still cars and light trucks. Heavy trucks are considered separately. They're an independent part of the negotiations in USMCA. They're separate in tariff classification. But also the US does have a concern which I think is not unfounded about Chinese components which would then find a way into the US market duty-free if they were incorporated into the auto chapter. So I think both those issues, the limits on negotiating with pre-trade agreements with non-market economies and the Kevy truck issue, which both seem to be deal breakers or problems at the last minute, are both basically China access to the North American market issues and I don't think they'll be resolved easily. Bill, what are you track? And I recognize we're, you know, up against the backdrop of the Canadian retaliatory tariffs going in place next week on September 8th, I believe. So that's going to be the big headline next week. But what are you thinking behind the scenes here? >> Yeah, I think Scott's right that you're not going to see an early resolution of this. The American view from the beginning and still is that we're big and they're small and they can't do much to us and we can do a lot to them. So eventually they'll fold because the pain will get too great. That's kind of an unproved thesis. We'll see. You know, right now Canadian public opinion is strongly behind prime minister. 73% I think back to his rejection of the deal. They just won some bi-elections that strengthened the Liberal party's very tiny margin in parliament which made it a good week for Carney. So right now politically he looks strong and the country seems to be united behind his policies. The American view seems to be that well once the tariffs start to hurt and people start to go out of business or lose money that's going to change. You know, who knows? Maybe it will. I think what we've seen in other cases, maybe this is why Carney actually phrased it as a war. When we've seen it in other cases where there actually is a war, like Ukraine, people who are at the short end of the stick tend to resist because they think their livelihoods are at stake. Everything is at stake and their honor is at stake. And I'm not sure that you're going to see the Canadians fold quite as easily as the American side thinks they're going to, but that remains to be seen. One of the American arguments recently has been that the reason Carney pulled out has to do with Canadian politics and two upcoming ballots in Alberta where there's going to be a referendum on considering succession. An election in a provincial election in Quebec where the separatist party maybe they have a good chance of winning the election. I don't know enough about Quebec politics to say that definitively. But the American argument, this was put forward by Secretary Lutnik, was that China just wants to get past those, unite the country, trying to make sure that the Liberals do well in Quebec and that the referendum goes down in Alberta. I'm inclined not to buy that. I mean, I think those things are going to go out there. I looked into the Alberta issue talking to actually Albertans a little a while ago and nobody seems to think that this is going to get a majority of the votes. It's actually one of these cases of a multi-step process. All this would do would be to start a process. It wouldn't end the process. I'd be surprised if that initiative prevails. As for Quebec politics, I wouldn't begin to comment on it, but I just don't think that it's driving Carnage Train. I think Scott's right. There are serious substantive differences between the two sides. Arguably, some of them are based on misunderstandings. It appears in the heavy truck thing. The Canadian argument has been we've been saying all along that we believe that they're in and should be getting the same treatment and the Americans view is essentially no you brought that up at the last minute. You think that's kind of an empirical question either it's you know either it's been on the table for months or it hasn't. But it also suggests that another example why it's going to be hard to resolve if they can't even agree on when it's on the table and how it's being handled. The idea of being able to handle it substantively is difficult. You know, it's clear from the rhetoric though that what makes this complicated is what Trump wants, and this is going to be a Mexican issue, too. We just haven't gotten there yet, even though the those talks are going better right now. What Trump wants is he wants autos to be made in the United States. He doesn't want them to be made in Canada or Mexico. He wants them to be made here. He doesn't care if the Canadian industry dies and he doesn't care if the Mexican industry dies. That's going to be hard to settle. is particularly going to be hard to settle because those other industries, it's not just a question of they make finished vehicles in Canada and Mexico and then ship to the United States. It's an integrated supply chain. We get parts and components from both countries. They get parts and components from us. Unraveling that would be exceptionally difficult for everybody, you know, including Ford and GM and Stellantis. But that seems to be what Trump wants to do. And if that's the goal, I think it's going to be very difficult to achieve agreement ultimately with either country. >> Thank you both. We're going to leave it there for today. Although I realize that today is the last episode we'll record before the football season starts. We haven't talked sports in a long time. Bill, how are the Bears looking this season? >> I have no idea. I have no idea, but I could do some research and look into it. I think the only issue that I follow there is whether they're going to move to Indiana or not. >> Well, I mean, it looks like they are. Are they not? But that was final. >> Well, it's a power play. You know, it's one of these things where they threaten to do that and then they wait for a better offer from the city of Chicago and I think if one's not forthcoming, yeah, they're going to move to Indiana. But if one is forthcoming, then I think they'll stay there. We'll see. But as for their chances in the NFL, I don't know. I'll have to do some research. Yes. The local newspaper here just published what it cost to attend the Charlotte NFL game and the NFL game in Charlotte and noted that the most expensive ticket in the league was not in Cleveland. In fact, that's the least expensive ticket in the league at the moment. Since the Cleveland Browns seem to be the feeder school for LSU at the moment, I [laughter] we'll see what happens. As a Bengals fan, nothing delights me more than to talk trash about Cleveland and their [clears throat] miserable team. >> And the Buckeyes take the field Saturday. So >> that's right. >> All is well in the heartland. Who are they playing? >> I don't agree with the NFL having a game in Australia. >> Yes, >> I love Australia and we have a lot of work we do around Australia. I'm not sure I love a game being all the way over there. But >> are they really doing that? >> Yeah, it's the second game of the season. I think it's on, you know, Thursday. Is it Rams 49ers? I might be butchering that, but that's a long haul. I can see them doing Europe games and elsewhere, but that that seems to be a long haul, but I'm sure it'll be fun to be there. >> It's a shorter hall from the West Coast than it is from here by four or five hours. >> Yeah, it's still a long haul. >> It's still a long way. [laughter] It's still a long haul. Yes. >> All right, guys. We'll leave it there. Thanks as always to our listeners for joining us and we'll be back next week. See you then. >> Thanks. Thank you. [music] You've been listening to the Trey Guys, a CSIS podcast. For more audio content, visit csis.org/podcast. Thanks for tuning in. [music]