Hey, hello, and welcome to Stand Energy Man here on Think Tech Hawaii. And before I get into business, Think Tech is going through its springtime fundraiser. So if you like the shows on Think Tech and you want to contribute to it, go to ThinkTechHawaii.com and drop a nickel in the machine there. We appreciate it. Keep our shows going. We've got some hardworking staff behind the computers and the mixers and stuff that like getting a paycheck. So we'd like to keep them paid. Anyway, today's show is kind of a catch up from last week. We had some issues with some of the slides, internal issues. And so we didn't post the show to YouTube like we usually do. And we think we've resolved that. We're going to run through basically the same subject matter as last week. But I want to add a little bit of emphasis to it. I have a recurring guest, Dan Gohan, who I had to beg actually for almost a year to come on my show and he finally relented. And now I can't get rid of him even if I wanted to, but I don't want to. And the idea is he has a really big and close up view vantage point of global energy and economics and even things behind the scene that like computer software that runs systems like electric grids and insurance companies and things like that is rather unique personality. And what we're trying to do with when I have him on the show is to give people a kind of an advanced picture of where things are going that may not even be visible on the business news networks or whatever on TV. And so I think he's a really important guest and we have some important information that we like to put out for people to think about. We're not trying to drive a particular outcome or a particular opinion or vantage point. We're just trying to say here's the reality of the world and a lot of times people that get confronted by things like economic policy and stuff don't understand where those policies come from. But and does and he'll cite the source and he'll say here's where here's where it exists. Here's where it comes from.  So the the basically sub subtitle of this story today is Pitbull Diplomacy and I put that on there as an attention getter to to what's going on with the invasion of Ukraine. You know, in the world, there's different ways to solve international disputes or international disagreements. The worst one being war and invasion. I mean, even as a retired general, I can tell you that most generals don't think war is such a great thing. It's expensive. It's wasteful. It's brutal. It's ugly. And we don't want it. It's you know, military guys aren't warmongers. They know what the real cost is and it's usually in their friends and their own families that they have to worry about it. And that's a perspective that down and I come from on this. But the reality is that whether it's economic warfare or or military warfare or political warfare, it all gets pretty ugly. And some people are better at it. They're more like Dalmatians and and and maybe iris setters. But some people are like put pitbulls and we're watching a pitbull in Ukraine right now and it causes some problems. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. But the bottom line is and we can start throwing the slides up right now. Actually, next slide. Government policies do matter and you have a role as a citizen in determining in this country anyway, determining who runs your government and what policies they put out. And it all starts with your personal habits, what you like, what you don't like, what you're willing to accept and not accept. And then that's also a requirement for citizens to be informed. I think one of the most critical deficits we have in our society today is we don't have people that really spent time studying history in school or paying attention to it. I certainly when I went to elementary and intermediate school, I was not into history at all. And it wasn't until after I got into college that I really got and gained an appreciation for history. And when I got in the military, I gained a serious understanding of the importance of history. So if you don't study history, you're definitely doomed to repeat it. That's an old quote. I'm sure it's claimed by several people. But trade policies matter and debt matters and energy really, really matters in today's world. People don't understand how important the energy that we use today, the fossil fuel that we use today is needed and the fact that you can't just shut it off and say, we need to go green. There's huge implications on how you make that transition. And that's where I think Dan gives us a lot of great insight because there's other implications to shutting off the oil spigot and natural gas spigot and saying, we're just going to go with windmills and solar panels. So Dan, welcome back to the show. Good to have you on. And I'm going to turn it over to you and let you kind of get off and run it. Sure. Thank you, Stan. So I can go to the next slide, please. OK. So what that is, it's a slide that shows the amount of natural gas production per day and consumption per day. So for example, in the case of Europe, Europe consumes 31 billion cubic meters of gas per day. Asia-specific consumes 20 billion cubic meters of gas per day. The production coming out of Africa is 7 billion cubic meters of gas per day. United North America is 8 billion cubic meters of gas per day. The Middle East produces 12 billion cubic meters of gas per day, and Russia produces 24 billion cubic meters of gas per day. In addition to that, Russia also exports about 4.5 million barrels of oil sent into Europe on a daily basis. So as far as world capacity, the world does not have the capacity to replace the Russian gas moving into Europe. For example, the United States, if we were to replace it, we would have to increase our natural gas system infrastructure by three times. That's not just the compressors and pumping stations down in Louisiana that fill the ships. That's all we'd have to have enough pipelines here in the United States. Obviously, the compressor facilities down in Louisiana. But we'd also have to increase the ship fleet by three times. All that equipment does not exist. And nobody has the ability to replace Russia's gas. In addition to that, a shortage of 4.5 million barrels of oil today, the reason why you're seeing a lot of the energy prices is because the world production of oil and the world consumption of oil closely matches roughly right on 100 billion barrels every day of oils producing consumed. If you remove 4.5 million barrels of that, nobody has enough excess capacity to replace that crude oil. Right now, what they're forecasting is Russia currently is shutting in about 3 million barrels a day of oil production.  If it's not flowing, it sort of builds up in there. It'll take them at least three years to clear up those wells, put them back into production. So we won't see that oil for three years. The United States may be able to produce another million barrels of oil a day. Maybe the Middle East another million barrels of oil a day. The point being is there's no way to replace Russian oil. In fact, the OPEC ministers just got together and told the EU yesterday that if you did a full sanction on Russia, that nobody has the ability to replace something like 7 million barrels of oil every day. So that's just the truth there. Next slide, please. OK. Russia, two years ago, de-dolarized their economy. What that means is they have no treasure bills in reserves. Whenever they were saying that they froze Russia's currency reserves, those reserves were actually dollar reserves of Russian corporations. The Russian government itself has no dollars in reserves. They have more gold in reserves than anything. Well, you see there, they've got yon, they've got Euro, they've got gold, and a number of other currencies. And that gives value to the ruble. And we're going to talk about the whole issue when it comes to central banking and using gold as reserve to back your currency. And to pay for commodities like oil, natural gas, wheat, fertilizer, everything. One of the things that happened is when we took Russia out of the Swiss system, the ruble went from roughly 80 rubles to a dollar. It jumped up to another 180 rubles to a dollar. Meaning it was a crash of the economy. Russia turned around and pegged the ruble to gold. Understand Russia has the second and third largest gold mine in the world. Within hours, the ruble went from 180 rubles all the way back down to 80 rubles a dollar. And it's been stable since then. So since then, since last Friday, Russia has unpagged the ruble from gold, right, they're letting free-floating. But understand the Russian central bank still has access to the world's second and third largest gold mines, just to feed it right into the central bank. And I'll explain later why that's important. If I can get you to go to the next slide, please. Okay. So what's going on here? So this was a headline news about two weeks ago. The truth is, if you go back and look at the Chinese SIP system or more specifically the Asian Development Bank, it's the development bank that the Saudi Arabia, that China uses for the Belt and Road Initiative, you can go back and look at the records. It'll tell you that Saudi Arabia has been a member of the SIPS financial system since 2018. So this point here, it may be news to the Western media but the truth is the Saudis have had future contracts in the Shanghai Futures Oil Exchange since 2018 ever since they joined the SIPS financial system. So Saudi Arabia can trade their oil for Yuan with no problem. Yeah, well, they're selling futures on the exchange on the Shanghai, like I said, if you've got the Asian Development Bank, the records are out there for you to everybody see, you pull it down and we'll say Saudi Arabia has been a member since 2018. And there's records in there of all the different of the futures contracts that Saudi Arabia's been selling on the exchange since 2018. So the Saudis are already doing it today. So that's not news. Everybody thinks it's new, but if you just do your homework, you'll find it and it's the Asian Development Bank there in Saudi Arabia. If I can get to go to the next one, please. Okay. So why would Saudi Arabia consider this? Okay, so if you take a good look at that chart there, original and my original chart was from the IMF but this is a chart that we went ahead and we reformatted so it's a little bit easier to read. If you really look over at the top, you'll see the lowest cost per unit. This is the breakeven cost-producing crude oil. In the case I ran, it's roughly about $15 per barrel. They're one of the lowest cost producers oil in the world. And you see rushes there, they're about $20, $25 per barrel. But if you go down a look at Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia's breakeven is between $80 and $84 per barrel. What that means is between 2014 and 2020, what oil here in the United States was averaging about $50, $55 per barrel. Saudi Arabia was losing $30 in every barrel. Now, how will they were found financing it? And it took me a little digging to do it. Goes back to that Asian Development Bank there in China. And there's records in there and basically the Asian Development Bank, they've been loaning money to Saudi Arabia. So Saudi Arabia has been deeply in debt to the Chinese and that's why they're reacting a lot of the ways that they are. So whenever you give them a call, you say, I need for you to produce production.  That's because they're deeply in debt to the Chinese and they're already part of that whole financial system that's opening up there in Asia. Next place. So this is a depiction for the Belt Road Initiative. Those black marks you see there, those are as a combination of freeways and rail systems that the Chinese have been building over the last 10 years. You also see maritime routes there that's over the oceans. And there's also a pipeline system that goes through southern Iran, it links up there at the Pakistan border, there at Ghadar city. Okay. Notice that part of China's maritime route that none of those routes go into the Persian Gulf. The reason why is because when they built that pipeline, they're in, when they built the, this is a Gorham, Jaskirk pipeline, they're in southern Iran. Like I said, it meets up there at Ghadar city, they're in southern Pakistan. There's a mega oil refinery there. The Chinese and the Russian, the Chinese and the Saudis have went into building that new oil refinery. It's a 50-50 partnership between Saudi Arabia and China. And the reason why there's no maritime route there is because what they're planning on is not shipping any oil through the Persian Gulf. They're gonna be pipelining all the oil out of the Middle East, probably up to that new refinery there at Ghadar city and be shipping a refined product through either pipelines, gas pipelines, pipelines, trains, trucks. You know, how are they gonna ship it? And I would say with the maritime routes on that chart, they also, every place they touch land is a place where China has helped to build a port. They've got a port there. Basically, pretty much has full leverage over that country for what can go in and out of that port. So every place you see where that touches in a country other than China, China has a say in what goes on there. Yeah, the coloring in that map, you see every colored country, that's where China has hooks, financial hooks into some country. It's a type of diplomacy that China's practiced for probably well over a thousand years. China doesn't like to military engage with other countries. They'd rather control you through financial and business means. And that's just how they... That's a really important point, Dan. I'm glad you brought that out. Yeah. As far as the, there's an economic union with amongst all those countries. It's called the Eurasian Economic Union. It's a pre-trade zone. The members of it are Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Serbia, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, China and Vietnam. And they're probably adding India, Saudi Arabia, Iran and most of the Middle East will be added to it. And there's also talks of Thailand. We'll see how it all plays out. But this is a union that they've been forming for quite a while. If I can get you to go to the next one, please. Okay. SIP's banking system. The banking system that the Chinese put together, it was started in 2017. The first oil futures contract to trade on Shanghai exchange was March 26th, 2018. It was with Iran. So China has been buying oil from Iran since 2018. And of course they've been buying oil from Saudi Arabia since then. As far as member countries, Saudi Arabia is a member, Iraq's a member, Turkey's a member, Iran's a member, Pakistan, India, most of the countries you see. And you can see that there's quite a long list there of all the different banks around the world that are part of that system. And the number of banks in Asia and the Russian area, it's in the hundreds. Even here in North America, we're in the, with North America 28, South America 17 and the Pacific Island nations, like Cook Islands, French Polynesia, wherever, that's even got 22 banks in the system. And so basically what this does is when the US imposes sanctions on countries and starts squeezing them, that normally means because US dollars reserve currency that we can put pressure on countries to do things economically, kind of leveraging our strength in our dollar against their country. But this SIP system takes them out of our ability to really leverage them in, at least on the banking side. So we, it takes a tool out of our tool chest to try and get them to come into alignment of whatever policies the US wants to press. How that system works is it assumes that the US dollar is the center of the system. And one of the things I know I showed Stan is there's a place called the Bureau of International Settlements, the BIS, that's a central bank of central banks that's in Switzerland, here in Basel, Switzerland. And one of the things I have the computers do is I download this, basically it's a spreadsheet from them. And it's basically the values of other currencies relative to the dollar. So for example, it might be $1 equals 120 yen as an example, or maybe $1 equals 80 roubles or something like that. So that system assumes that the dollar is in the middle. So if you're going to convert one currency to another currency, you convert your currency to dollars and the dollars to the other currency. But the system assumes that the dollar is in the middle and it is one. There is an alternative way of doing the same thing and involves using gold.  And we'll step into that to hear, I'll show you how this other new system is evolving and why it's evolving that way. Next slide, please. OK, the BRIC countries, that's Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The reason why this new system is evolving that way is because the United States, primarily, our export product is pretty much the dollar. We don't really export anything. These countries are looking at export a lot of goods around the world, either raw goods or finished goods. And there's been an amount of consternation about the dollar and the fact that we issue out dollars. We give them dollars for their goods. And over time, there's been questions asked to our economic liability, asked to with our debt. Now, part of this has to do with how this system works. Dollars in our system is actually loaned into existence. So the dollar is actually a debt instrument. Our treasuries are a debt instrument. And other instruments are based off of our debt. And so to get our economy to expand, we have to increase, expand the credit. And therefore, that expands the number of dollars into existence. But these countries have been asking for quite a while, what value does it provide to us other than an intermediate form of exchange? And that's resulting in sort of a collision of two worlds of what value it is. And I guess we'll go to the last page, OK? OK, applications, world trade, and currency exchange rates of the dollar's status. OK, so what is this all based on? Well, there at the Bureau of International Settlements, there's a document called the Basehold Framework. And it's about a 1,600-page rule book on banks and what banks have to use for what's called reserves. So for a bank note, like the Federal Reserve note, like the dollar that we use, that's a bank note. For it to have value, the bank itself has to have reserves to show that it has value. So for example, when I showed you that pie chart where the ruble, the 20% of the ruble was backed by gold, that's what we're talking about. OK, well, in that document on page 192, it states the following. However, in national discretion, gold bullion held in own vaults and an allocated basis to the extent backed by bullion liabilities can be treated as cash and therefore risk-weighted at 0%. In addition, cash items in the process of collection or otherwise are to be risk-weighted at 20%. So what that means is that be at currencies are risk-weighted at 20%. What that means is, if let's say I have a bank and I have 100 million euros in my bank, I can only regard 80 million of them as my reserves because there's a risk of holding that currency. But if I have gold bullion in my vault to my bank, that has zero risk of holding that as reserve. So the reason why there's a collision of minds here is because those Asian societies are very old societies and they value gold. And one of the things they did last couple of years putting in a base of three is they had that paragraph put into the banking rules. And so all those banks are amassing gold for the central banks and that's backing their currencies. Unfortunately, here in the United States, our central bank does have some gold but our bonds and our currency is not redeemable in gold versus China's currency, Russia's currency, all those other currencies are redeemable of gold. So for example, when Russia was taken out of the SWIFT system and the ruble crashed 180 rubles to a dollar, they pegged at the gold. They quickly recovered back to 80 rubles a dollar. And the reason why is because there's still a good part of the world that considers gold a reserve currency. And as a point, it's actually in the Bureau of International Settlements basal framework as far as the legal document that governs banks internationally. And that's what it says, a gold-bladed is a zero risk asset. So now how does it risk the United States as a reserve currency? Well, I just stated to you that any fiat currency has a 20% risk. So a lot of those central banks, rather than putting dollars on their balance sheets to back their fiat currencies, they're switching out dollars for gold-bladed is what they're doing because it has zero risk. And right now that's setting up a situation and here's what the debate is amongst the traders. I don't know how this will play out but let me explain this to you and there's basically three different points here. One is, and they're giving here an example, let's say for example, China. China has something like 3.4 trillion dollars worth of treasuries and reserves. So China sells US treasuries to buy Russian commodity since the Russians have some dollar-based debts that they might do that, right? They might be exchanged with the Russians in some other ways, but we'll see how there that plays out. The problem is that if the Chinese starts selling off our treasuries, what that does that causes the price of the treasuries to go down, the interest rates to go up. But that will also flood our system with that many more dollars in circulation here in the United States. So it'll cause our inflation to go up and the interest rates and that'll have a pretty hard impact. It'll slow the economy down and have some pretty hard impacts on the way Americans are. But the other point is, the third point is what it means is because we basically force more of the Russian commodity trade onto the Chinese trade system, they're the SIP system, they're in the futures market and the different commodities market, the one will over time become a commodity backed currency, backed by hard goods, hard things and not based on debt. So it's a collision of two worlds in the central banking world. Now, last week, whenever Fred Chairman Jerome Powell was up speaking in front of Congress, when he said that we're moving into a world where you could have multiple reserve currencies, that is what he was talking about. Just because of the situation. And quickly, Dan, could you just talk a little bit about our national debt and the relation of debt to GDP and how that fits into this process? We got about a minute left. Yeah. Well, it's very simple. When we have high amounts of debt, that debt weighs on the value of our currency. So the dollar is worth less because of our debt. In order for the dollar to rise in value, we need to do a bunch of things to make it. Number one is not hold as much national debt as we have to increase the value of it. The other is to gather some wealth, do like what these other countries are and that is put some either less risk-weighted assets, behind the Federal Reserve or add gold to the Federal Reserve or something to reduce the amount of risk to increase the value of the dollar. So reducing the debt will help increase the value of the dollar. Yeah. So where the US used to have a leadership role in a lot of policy things worldwide, a lot of things that the US has always done to support nation building or to support famine in countries and things like that, we're kind of losing that potential because we are putting ourselves financially behind the eight ball by having so much debt. And that debt starts with the individuals buying more than they can afford buying bigger houses that they can afford to buy, a betting that they'll increase in value and all that stuff. But we basically put our whole countries stability at risk. And as far as we can see down and I look at this and we talk about all the time, this quote unquote transitory inflation isn't transitory. It's going to be here for a while and it could potentially get very, very ugly. So down just the last 30 seconds, what was the consumer price index announcement yesterday? The CPI today came at 8.5%. Has it ever been that high before in your lifetime? Not since the 80s, last time we had this and Paul Volcker jacked interest rates to 20% to kill it. But the other thing what Dan are talking about is the reason why you're seeing high inflation. It's not a monetary problem, it's because the dollar and its value relative to those goods and it's showing up in the commodities market. So as far as more and more of our currency to buy the same commodity. Right. So that leads us to the end of this. Today's stand the energy man, a little bit complicated, a little bit big picture but what we're trying to do is get you that big picture and help people understand that we're part of a bigger world than just the US or just Hawaii. And we need to understand what we do, the decisions we make, the state policies we make, the national policies we make and what that does to our own personal lives. So thanks for joining Dan and I today on stand the energy man and we'll see you next Tuesday at three PM on Think Tech Hawaii Aloha. Thanks Dan. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.


The most significant disease threat to soybeans in the United States is soybean cyst nematode, also known as SCN. And as this pathogen spreads in North Dakota and Minnesota, it's going to threaten our driving production. I'm Sam Markel, and as an extension plant pathologist at NDSU, I'm concerned about soybean cyst nematode on dry beans, partly because you can take a yield hit before you even see symptoms. In this video today, we're going to talk about SCN biology, we're going to talk about symptoms, and we're going to talk about how to manage it. Although this pathogen is relatively new to Northern Minnesota and North Dakota, it was first found in the United States in 1954 in North Carolina. Over the next half century, it spread throughout the entire soybean growing region of the U.S., and by 2003, it was first found in North Dakota. Over the next decade, SCN spread from Richland County North to the Canadian border and west to the Missouri River, and by 2014, SCN was confirmed in 19 North Dakota counties. But just because SCN occurs in these counties doesn't necessarily mean its widespread or the egg levels are high. A grower-based SCN survey supported by the North Dakota Soybean Council has given us a much better idea of where soybean cyst is in North Dakota. These maps, compiled from thousands of soil samples taken between 2013 and 2015, show that most fields do not have SCN, or are inconclusive. Although moderate levels of SCN occur in multiple counties, the very high levels are really only in the southeastern part of the state. I'm Berlin Nelson, a soybean pathologist here at North Dakota State University, and I've been working with soybean cyst nematode for about 20 years. In this pot right here, you'll see we have some dry beans growing. These are infected with soybean cyst nematode. As a matter of fact, this pot is sitting in a water bath because it keeps the roots nice and warm, because that's what the nematode likes. One of the nice things about soybean cyst nematode is you can actually see the nematode on the roots of dry bean. When you see soybean cyst nematode on the roots of a dry bean plant, you're looking at a little white or cream-colored female. Her head is still in the root and her body is protruding from the root, so you can actually see it. You have to get the soil knocked away to be able to see it, and each one of those white females is called a cyst. They will eventually die, they will turn brown, she will be filled with eggs, and she'll fall off into the soil, and those eggs will overwinter in the soil in the body of the female, and then in the springtime the eggs can hatch and they can infect a dry bean plant. The stability and hardiness of the cyst is the reason SCN can spread so effectively. Cysts are easily moved when soil is moved, on equipment, blown in the wind, by moving water and by people. In 2015, SCN was found in North Dakota for the first time on dry beans in a commercial field in Cass County. The level of infection was low, but in 2016, SCN was found in a commercial kidney bean production field in Minnesota. This time it was causing yellowing and stunning of plants typical of the very severe infestations that we see in soybeans. This field will definitely have yield loss from SCN.  This is the head of a second-stage juvenile larva of soybean cyst nematode as seen through a microscope. This is a stage that infects dry bean. The arrow points to a spear-like object called a stylet, which the nematode uses to puncture a hole in the root to begin the infection process. If you grow a susceptible crop such as dry bean on land infested with soybean cyst nematode, you will begin to increase the egg populations in the soil. Even though at first you may not detect any effects on your yields, and you may not even observe any above-ground symptoms of disease. Eventually, those populations will be high enough, and with favorable environmental conditions, you will have a yield loss. Research supported by the North Harvest Bean Growers Association has shown that soybean cysts can cause major reductions in dry bean yields. Most bean classes are thought to be susceptible, but black beans have shown some level of resistance. This image shows the damage to pinto bean caused by soybean cyst nematode. Observe the plants in the non-infested soil in the middle, and the plants growing in soil with 5,000 eggs per 100 cubic centimeters of soil on the left, and the plants growing in soil with 10,000 eggs per 100 cubic centimeters of soil on the right side. Notice the reduction in plant growth caused by soybean cysts and the lack of pods. There are many factors that will affect yield loss, such as environmental conditions during growing season, the soil type, and the bean class. One critical factor, however, is the egg numbers in the soil. Management strategies for STN on soybeans are pretty clear, and we can apply some of them to dry beans. The first step is to check your fields for STN. You do this by soil sampling. The best time is right around harvest when the STN populations are the highest. Concentrate in areas where STN may have moved into your field, like the field entrance, or maybe a low spot. Take 10 to 20 samples 6 to 8 inches deep and aim for the roots. Mix the sample up well and send it into the lab. Crop rotation is also very important to managing STN, and because soybean and dry bean are the only hosts, any other crop we grow in North Dakota should limit STN reproduction. You often see a 30 to 50% reduction in egg levels with just one year of rotation, but two to three years of rotation will likely reduce those levels even further. Resistance is not an option yet, but NDSU is working to identify resistance and incorporate it into dry bean varieties. Unfortunately, it's impossible to prevent the spread of the nematode, but you may be able to slow the spread if you know which of your cornfields are infested. Also, it's critical that if you purchase equipment from an area known to have STN, clean that equipment off where you bought it. NDSU has a team of scientists working on the STN threat to dry beans, and is thankful for the research funding received as we develop management tools and strategies for our region.


So with the US Open done and dusted, we have some predictions to go through, and I'm actually kind of surprised that I didn't do as bad as I thought I did. First half of the week was terrible, but seemed to come through in the end, but let's go have a look at what I got wrong and what I got right this time around at the US Open. So an interesting one to start with. Mehvedev-Cinna, a little bit of an interesting clash as well. They're both in the same half of the draw, top half, and Elcaraz is in their way. I'm going to go with Mehvedev to have a better run. So pretty happy with this one because Mehvedev of course had Elcaraz. You know, there was Veriv, there was Sinner in his section, but Sinner went down to Veriv and of course Mehvedev made the final beating Elcaraz along the way, so really happy that I got this one to start. The best of the qualities, I'm going to go with Tarot Daniel. He's been really good this year on the hard courts. And on the women's side, I'm going to go with Zvonoreva. Alright, so now things are going to get kind of bad. So both of these players lost in the first round. Daniel lost to Monfice. Zvonoreva actually lost to a lucky loser, Vickmeyer, in the first round. There weren't actually too many players on the WTA that did well from the qualities, but on the men's side, I should have gone with a striker or even a go-yo who made it to the fourth round. So the country that I think seemed to do the best at the US Open is USA. I'm just going to go with USA. So this was a no-brainer. They had so many players playing at the US Open and of course Goff winning the whole thing. Keys did well. The American men did well as well, you know, Tiafo, Fritz, Shelton making the semis of course. So this was a no-brainer. So many Americans playing at home and they always do well. The most aces, I'm going to go with Hercatch again. He's hit more aces than anybody this season. On the women's side, I'm going to go with Sabalenka. So I wasn't far off. Unfortunately, Hercatch just didn't get through enough rounds to get to the top of the ace count, but Sabalenka made the final and she took out the ace count as number one. So I'm happy that I got at least half the players. I know that this one kind of depends on how well they do at the tournament. If you're losing the first round, you're probably not going to hit 100 aces. So the one and two in the world, who's going to go further? I reckon Sabalenka might go a little further. Again, now I'm starting to get into it. This is good. To be on check, of course, losing to Ostapenko early in the tournament or early-ish. And Sabalenka made the final. Probably should have won the final, but we'll talk about that a little bit later. So the players that I think will have an unseated run, I'm going to go with Lehechka, who actually made a final last week in Winston-Salem. And I'm going to go with Sophia Kennan. She actually beat Coco Goff at Wimbledon. And that was short-lived. We are back to terrible predictions. Lehechka lost in the first round of carative. Straight sets. Winston-Salem meant nothing. And Sophia Kennan unfortunately lost to Kazakina in the tournament early as well. So it's a tough draw for Kennan. Maybe I should have gone with someone else. Probably should have picked Shelton. Obviously, right? He made the semis. Alright, top 10 upsets in the first week. I'm going to go with Garcia. She has had some really strange losses this year. But on the men's side, I'm going to go with Rublev. He has such a tough draw. So this one was kind of a no-brainer with Garcia, who hasn't been playing well for the entire season. Could have gone with Sakari as well, who lost pretty early. On the men's side, Rublev, he had a tough draw, but it just didn't fall that way. And he got away with missing a lot of players. The only real tough player in the first couple of days was Moffice. And he got through him. But made the quarter-finals play. Maybe I should have picked someone like a Ruiner, or a Sidney Pass, or even a Rude, who didn't do too well. So for the dark courses for this event, I've got to go with Hercatch on the men's side. And I'm going to go with Sampson over. She's played really well lately. So we're back to me predicting all the players that lost. There's no such thing as a camp curse. Draper actually beat Hercatch in the second round. Pretty unexpected. Draper has been injured for the most part. He actually made it into the fourth round and lost to Rublev. So he actually continued that run after beating Hercatch. And Sampson over ended up losing in the third round of Keys, which is not a bad loss. Keys made the semis, or probably could have made the final. Had she been Sabalenka so, Sampson over didn't do great, but man, Hercatch, he just let me down. So the big one, Djokovic Elkerez. Who's going to have a bigger run? I think I picked Djokovic the last two times. We're going to make a three in a row. I think Djokovic is going to have a better run than Elkerez. This one was going to be a tough one. This one wrong at Wimbledon and I got it right at the French Open. And this time around I got it right. Thanks to Mehvedev. He beat Elkerez, where Djokovic didn't have to play Elkerez. So made the easy choice. Pick the guy who had the better draw. So my hot take for the US Open. Usually it's who's going to lose or what crazy things are going to happen. It's going to be a little bit more positive this summer. I think Kasparud is going to surprise a lot of people and do well. Yeah. This is bad. I try to be positive with this one. Usually I'm pretty negative and go, I'm going to pick someone who'd be terrible. I try to be positive and he backfires. He lost in the second round of Rude to Song and really just couldn't replicate what he did 12 months ago. All right. So my semi-final lineups. This is the hardest thing to do. I think for me anyway, I've seemed to never get this right. I'm going to go to Svjontek taking on Mukova in the first semi-final and Sabalenka Bogula in the next one. On the men's side, I'm going to go with Djokovic taking on Kasparud in one of the semis, and then Elka has taken on Medvedev. And again, I'm picking three of the top four favourites. Pretty happy with these ones.  I got two out of four for the lady. Of course, Goff made it into the semis instead of Svjontek. Bogula didn't make it that far. Keys obviously took her spot there. But on the men's side, I picked three out of the top three players in the world and they all made the semis, which is really good. Rude, of course, being the exception and Shelton. I mean, not many people would have picked him. But I'm not too mad at these results. And the big one. Who is going to win the US Open this year? I'm going to go with Djokovic on the men's side. It's so hard not to pick him. And I'm going to go with Sabalenka on the women's side. And again, pretty happy with these ones. Djokovic won the whole thing.  Sabalenka also. I mean, she's been the most consistent grand slam player of the season. Of course, making the semifinals are better at every slam this year. So again, just picking the obvious picks. But sometimes you just got to pick the obvious picks if you want to point. But there are my predictions for this time around at the US Open. I'm going to go down the course. Boy, how did you go with your predictions? And don't lie, because I do read everything. But next year, we'll do the Australian Open. We didn't get to do that this year because this idea kind of came around at the French Open. I don't know. Let me go down the course. Do you think we should do them for other tournaments? Do you think we should do a predictions kind of like this for Shanghai that's coming up?  I mean, we can muck around with it there. It goes more often on the channel for other events as well. The US Open didn't do that badly.


These are three gentlemen who have had a real hand in building this U.S.-Vietnam relationship over the last 20 years from different perspectives. Scott, as you've heard from the very beginning as a career Foreign Service Officer, building the bricks and mortar of the relationship from a policy perspective. Chris Brose, who is with Senator McCain's office, I think everyone here recognizes that Secretary Kerry and Senator McCain are probably two of the pillars of the U.S.-Vietnam relationship. Their work on the relationship has been tireless and has moved from making critical assessments to trying to support some ambition and, I guess, as the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned, imagination. And Murray Hebert, who is my colleague here at CSIS, and for those of you who, like me, grew up reading his articles in the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Wall Street Journal, has been on this beat literally for a couple decades, really working on looking at the relationship from the ground up. These gentlemen have agreed to talk a little bit about the relationship as we launch our new study. And so let me turn first to Scott. You get the first cut, if you would, and then I'll invite the others to make their comments and then we'll open it up for question and answer. Thank you. Thanks, Ernie. I didn't make, prepare any remarks. I thought I would just offer a few observations. It's interesting that, I mean, we all know the history between the United States and Vietnam, and it was really in the mid-to-late 1980s that people began to work together between the two countries, focused first and foremost on the MIA issue, accounting for our missing servicemen from the war, which is, in a way, an unusual way of starting a relationship, but in this case, a very necessary and appropriate way. And the movement toward normalization involved progress on that front, as well as Vietnam agreeing to remove its troops from Cambodia and allowing people in reeducation camps to leave and some other things. That was a long time ago, but it was an important way of starting the relationship. And since that time, as I mentioned when I introduced the Deputy Prime Minister, it's been a relationship that's really developed based on a very pragmatic approach, I would argue, a very strategic approach from both governments, that there were areas in which we could work together that would benefit the American people and the Vietnamese people. Certainly on the trade and economic side, that's been a big part of it. First developing a bilateral trade agreement and, of course, now working on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which should create a lot of opportunities in both countries. As the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned, very much building the people-to-people relationship, including with a large Fulbright program, opportunities for Vietnamese students to come and study in the United States and more and more exchange programs back and forth. Certainly in the diplomatic realm, where we work together quite well in ASEAN, obviously we're not a member of ASEAN, but we work a lot with ASEAN in the East Asia Summit in APEC, basically trying to promote regional peace, stability, security, and cooperation, and we found Vietnam to be a good partner. But increasingly in recent years, we're working together on things like health and energy and the environment, climate change. Since Vietnam is a country that's already being affected by climate change and could be deeply affected by climate change rising waters. So these are regional and global issues where we've developed, I think, a very good cooperative effort. The security, the military-to-military relationship has gone a little bit more slowly, which I think reflects some caution on both sides. I won't speak for the Vietnamese government, but on our side, certainly continuing concerns about human rights in Vietnam, about which we have a pretty open and regular dialogue, as the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned. Nonetheless, we've seen continued cooperation in these areas. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey, was out recently in Vietnam for a very good discussion about very practical cooperation, including a lot on humanitarian assistance and working together in the region. So that's been, as I said, a slower area, but an important area. And last but not least, addressing still some of the legacies of the past and on the humanitarian side for us still accounting for missing Americans, very important. Also doing what we can to help the Vietnamese account for their missing, but working together also in dioxin remediation. I was visiting our project at Denang Airport on that just a month or so ago. So it's become a good, broad, healthy, and in many ways very normal relationship that I think there's every reason to believe it can continue to grow. Certainly, that's our commitment under the comprehensive partnership. The one area where we tend to have some differences and slows us down is human rights. We have to just keep working on that area in a very professional and appropriate way, and we'll do that. I'll stop there and pass it on to Kristen, it's my right. Well, thanks a lot. Thank you, Ernie, for giving me the opportunity to be here. You're very kind in your introduction. I am most certainly not a Vietnam expert. I'm surrounded by Vietnam experts. I commend the report that Murray has written along with his co-authors to you. And as you heard, Scott has been working on this relationship since 1993. And I mentioned to him, for my own sake, I will not mention to you what I was doing in 1993. Needless to say, it would further the argument that I'm not a Vietnam expert. What I want to do is just give you a couple minutes of sort of how the Hill has viewed the U.S.-Vietnam relationship recently. Some ways in which we have been engaging on this would completely agree with the comments earlier that from the very beginning of this process of normalization, the Congress has played a really critical role from the POW-MIA issue that my boss and then-Senator now, Secretary Kerry, helped to lead through the process of consultation all the way up to where we are currently. And I think where we are now is there's a lot of business that Vietnam has before the Congress, the 123 Civil Nuclear Agreement, which was just brought into force. The whole question of TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership this year, possibly next year, Congress has and will have, you know, obviously an important role to play in that. And then there's the question of the lethal arms embargo, which is not maintained under statute or in law. It's maintained under executive action. But the Congress will have a political role to play because this is something that I think the administration rightly recognizes as previous ones have that they don't want to move forward without a degree of congressional support. And what I'd say is just kind of a macro point on this is you look at a lot of these foreign policy issues and you see a lot of bipartisan rancor and a lot of executive legislative sort of pushing and shoving. And I think on this issue on the US-Vietnam relationship, and I think it's a broader point on US policy toward Asia, I'd argue there's a good degree of bipartisan cooperation and a good degree of executive legislative cooperation. You know, on this in particular, you know, I'll just offer one area where I think recently, you know, we have been working quite well together. And that is on the lethal arms issue. You know, this is something, as I mentioned, that the executive maintains under its own authority. And there are a number of people on the Hill who rightly look at this, as does my boss, through the lens of sort of how we balance on the one hand, you know, the sort of strategic and trade issues with the Vietnamese internal issues, governance, human rights, and the aspirations that we have on that. And I think where we've kind of come on the lethal arms embargo, which was sort of memorialized recently in a resolution, Senate resolution that Senator McCain introduced with Senator Pat Leahy, Senator Cardin, Senator Corker, and others, you know, is a prudent step of looking at the real national and sort of strategic interests that we have in deepening our cooperation with Vietnam in terms of regional security issues, mill to mill issues, and recognizing that Vietnam has recently taken some steps, you know, by no means what we would like to see fully, but certainly some steps to improve its human rights record. And this has essentially created some space, you know, the executive and the legislative branches working together to land at a point where I think we are saying essentially, you know, what we would like to see is the embargo be used for the purpose of maritime security and coastal defense. You know, it's very difficult to envision sort of human rights abuses occurring with maritime assets. So let's sort of move out on that for reasons of mutual interest, but we would expect to see sort of further improvements in governance and human rights for us to envision moving much beyond that, particularly getting into internal security issues and dual use items and things of that sort. So, you know, what I would say is I think it's a good progression, and hopefully it's sort of a harbinger of things to come as the executive branch works together with the Vietnamese government, as we work together with the executive to sort of move this partnership forward across all lines of effort. So I'll stop there and happily get into the rest of this with questions. Thanks, Chris. Murray? Thanks, everybody. You know, actually, ironically, the first time that I met Scott, I don't know if he remembers us, there was a, when he was in the, setting up the embassy, beginning the work on setting up the embassy, he hosted a congressional delegation and he, not hosted, but maybe he hosted, I don't know what your exact role was, but you were setting up meetings for them, visiting, and I think they were from the banking committee or something, and you asked me to come and meet with them, and I think that's the first time I remember meeting you in the old Metropole Hotel. It's had a considerable facelift since that time. We've gone the other way, at least me, I've gone the other way, but so what I thought I would do, we've talked a lot already about what all the stuff that's happened in the relationship over the last 20 years, a lot of it quite positive. I thought what I would do is pick up some of the points, some of the recommendations from our report that are very specific, that'll help, hopefully, as the minister, deputy minister alluded to, deputy prime minister alluded, would take us to the next level. And one that's kind of obvious, but maybe needs to be stated, is that it would be really good for President Obama to visit. Next year is the 20th anniversary, APEC and the East Asia Summit are both in Southeast Asia, so it's just a small jaunt to stop in Vietnam along the way, Scott. I was just kidding. The other, I want to get a little bit also into, the second thing I want to mention is the arms bar go, the lifting of the arms ban. It is really would represent a significant step forward and for many people as both Scott and Chris alluded to, human rights isn't as a key issue on this. And there's been an improvement at a lot of levels, there is a dialogue happening at, particularly between State Department and the foreign ministry, but as we were working on the report and working on this issue, one of the things we thought might be useful is if the US started talking more regularly to the Ministry of Public Security. I know they are in a little different place, they're not exactly involved in foreign policy and weren't foreign engagement with foreign diplomats, but I think this is a ministry that with which we probably have to learn to work more. And then I think it would also be useful for Vietnam to allow in more international human rights groups like it did early this year by allowing amnesty to come in, amnesty international. And I'm going to, the third point I want to make is about the TPP. I think everybody agrees that it would be good for Vietnam within a decade, its GDP would just by having a strong TPP would grow 36%. But there's considerable work that needs to be done, I think on both sides, to get rid of some trade restrictions and protectionism. Often, forgive me for those of you that work on trade here in the US, often a lot of the criticism is directed at Vietnam, which is probably warranted, but they have some concerns about the United States that probably should be well mentioned in an environment like this. But for Vietnam, they're in the process of proposing an excise tax on carbonated drinks. That really only affects a couple of foreign investors. That's really not a terribly smart non-tariff barrier to introduce. But at the same time, the US with some members of Congress have introduced some highly protectionist trade, is highly protectionist health inspection measures against the import of catfish from Vietnam. That is clearly aimed, it's clearly very protectionist and aimed at protecting US catfish farmers and is not a very competitive trade policy. I'm not sure what the administration can do about that, but it is, as we don't recognize often the differences that within Vietnam, how trade policy gets formulated, they'd often don't understand, and to them this looks like a move to keep out one sector of Vietnam's economy. Vietnam wants to address issues like state-owned enterprises, labor, or the US rather wants Vietnam to address state-owned enterprises, labor, environment, and the TPP. But when you talk to the Vietnamese negotiators, they say, yeah, we recognize particularly on the state-owned enterprises we need to address that, but we need to make it politically palatable and Vietnam, we need a good market access offer from the United States on garments. And we know why that's sort of bogged down right now between the US and Japan, but that's also an important issue to recognize. And then the other thing that sort of sticks in the Vietnamese craw is this issue of US having imposed or there was an agreement when Vietnam entered the WTO that Vietnam would agree to having non-market economy status. As Vietnam liberalizes its economy, as the two countries launch their comprehensive partnership and move toward a TPP, it really would be incumbent on the US to find ways. I know there are very specific regulations to get Vietnam lifted, but when you talk to the Vietnamese, they say we can name you probably about 80 countries in the world that are less free than us that don't have the status. And so it would be good to start talking about this non-market economy status for Vietnam. Then I'll mention a few things that we talked about on the people-to-people side. One thing that would help on the education side is allowing in Peace Corps volunteers to teach English in the countryside. It seems rather mundane, but it would really boost, help boost the Vietnamese education system. The other thing, we've mentioned Fulbright here several times, there is now the setup in 1994, the Fulbright Economic Teaching Program. There's now talk of expanding that into a full-fledged Fulbright University. It would be good. And does President Saang mention that when he was here? Secretary Kerry mentioned this in Vietnam. It would be really good to start looking for ways to, for both sides to work together from the public-private sector to fund this thing. And for Vietnam's education ministry to agree to have a fully independent Board of Trustees. And then Scott mentioned this already, as did Chris, the dioxin cleanup. It really does go a long way to improve some of the image after the war. And there's a good remedial effort underway in Da Nang, and it'd be good if the similar program was started soon in the Binghua Airport. So with that, Ernie, I'll turn it back to you. Thank you for the thoughtful comments, all three of you. I'd like to floor two questions and observations. David? Have a microphone coming, sorry. Thank you. It's David Brunström from Reuters. I was wondering if I could ask both Scott and Chris on the arms embargo issue. For Scott, what specific progress may be necessary on the human rights issue to allow a decision to be made on that from the administration's point of view? And as far as the Hill is concerned, what sort of process, this is for Chris, are you talking about when you say there needs to be sort of more political activity on that? I mean, how does it actually, I mean, what actually practically needs to be done to clear the way? Thanks, I'll start on the first question. What we've said consistently to the Vietnamese for some time is that the overall, that progress on human rights is important to our ability to continue to strengthen the overall relationship, including on security relationship. We've tended not to do the sort of, if you release three dissidents, we'll do X for a whole host of reasons, because what we want to see is broad progress rather than, and we certainly don't want to get into, you know, if a couple of people are released, we'll do X, YZ, we don't think that's a healthy thing. So we're looking at basically is the overall trend on human rights, and as is usually the case, there's some positives, there's some negatives, I mean, and different people would debate. My own view is that there are, there is a lot more space in Vietnam than there was five, 10, 20 years ago for people to debate and talk and express their views. That said, there's still clear restrictions and people who get detained for advocating multi-party democracy. There's certainly area for improvement on the legal side, criminal justice code, these sorts of things. So we, you know, are hoping to see as we continue to build a relationship, hoping to see continued progress, but it's not a specific explicit quid pro quo link. Yeah, thanks. And on the US side, I mean, it's not, because this embargo is not maintained in law, it's not a matter of congressional action to repeal legislation, to change something in statute. I mean, it's more nebulous than that in the sense that this embargo is maintained under executive action. What the president and the administration, I think, is looking for is some degree of signal from the Congress that they will have the political support to move forward. What moving forward means, I think, is very much, you know, up to the administration and the Vietnamese government to work out what that process looks like. I think what the Congress has said, you know, is generally, you know, the kind of framework by which we're thinking about this is, we recognize that there is a, you know, immediate strategic interest in maritime cooperation. We also recognize that there have been things done by Vietnam that we think warrant easing the embargo for the purpose of maritime security cooperation. But in order to go forward, we are gonna need to see additional steps from the Vietnamese government. That's something that, you know, the Hill is not gonna get into the business of writing into law, you know, the following 15 demands have to be met or else. I think it's more a matter of, you know, congressional leaders, members of the Congress who are visiting Vietnam, many of whom are visiting, you know, quite, you know, with sort of increasing regularity because of events in the region and events in the bilateral relationship. So I think more members of Congress are paying attention and are interested. And I think just the broad point when it comes to human rights, I completely agree with what Scott said.  It just doesn't make sense. I think what we sort of continually try to make clear is what we hope to see are the kinds of changes to law and policy in Vietnam that will eliminate the sort of arbitrary use of power, which is what ends up with the sort of abuses that we've typically seen. So I think it's really a matter of sort of, you know, the institutional change going together with the sort of immediate steps of releases and actions that can be taken like that. But I don't think Congress certainly is not gonna get into the business of saying, you know, what specific thing needs to be done in return for what specific action. And in terms of the pathway forward, again, you know, there's nothing particularly to be done legislatively. I think the resolution that senators introduced recently, you know, be up to the administration to determine. But I think, you know, our view was to send a signal to the administration that there is political support for certain actions, but then also make clear that we also expect to see more done in order to move further with the sort of increasing easing of the embargo. To be determined. Sorry. You're agreeing with that? Yeah, okay. Thank you. Paolo von Schirach, Schirach report, in line with some of the other considerations that you've made about institutional changes, you were referring to the political side of things, on the economic side of things, given the opportunities for bilateral relations. I had the good fortune of being in Hanoi in 1997 to do work for UNDP about public administration reform, which focused primarily on ideas of, you know, the future of state-owned enterprises. And you can imagine what that was at the time, 1997. The entire country was owned by the government in terms of assets. How do you, gentlemen, assess the progress?  What does it take to get there? And specifically, how do you evaluate the process of privatization and what percentage of national assets and critical sectors are still controlled by the state? And is that, do you see that as a significant impediment in the bilateral economic and trade relations going forward, or is this something that we can deal with as things are? Thank you. As you know, in the TPP, there is an effort to have, to level the playing field between private sector economies and state-owned enterprises. So, but the Vietnamese also recognize that the TPP might help to jumpstart. It's really funny, you know, I've been going in and out of Vietnam for a long time, also, and as a journalist there in the mid-90s, I was writing these privatization stories, but I read them today and they sound exactly like what I wrote 20 years ago. And so, that's to tell you that the progress has been very slow, very slow. And they don't even call it, they call it equitization rather than privatization. It is a drag on the economy where it is a drag, particularly is on the credit side. They get the lion's share, the state-owned enterprise get the lion's share, a bank credit, means the private sector has trouble getting credit of significant quantities, and it really is holding them back. And a lot of officials recognize that and they hope the TPP, if it's implemented, will help them to give this whole equitization, privatization thing a jumpstart. Thank you. I'm gaining good voice of Vietnamese Americans. I'm an American, and I thank the State Department, I thank the Secretary. And I also like to thank Senator MacKinn for his leadership and Marie Herbert for all your work. I have three questions for the three of you. First, regarding the human rights, I agree with you of their approach. And, but I feel also that it's universal that Vietnam is a member of the UN and we feel that we need to support Vietnam together with the UN and the EU and many other countries also wanted to support human rights. And it's more importantly for the legitimacy of the current government that they show the 90 million Vietnamese that they honor the human rights declaration by the United Nations that they now remember. That will be tremendous confidence to the people first to uphold the current administration. And so that's the question that I'm asking the State Department in your dialogue with Vietnam, would you show that we have supporting them because they are afraid that we're turning them or whatever, we're supporting them by supporting civil societies. And I'm asking for more support from the State Department for the civil society if that is on the table. For Senator McCain, I thank him for his trips and I support the lift of the lethal weapons for Vietnam. But I want to ask if the senator in the foreign committee affairs of the Senate pay attention to what the foreign minister said that they are in a strategic relationship with China. Would that create a question for us as a United States if we happen to be in conflict, direct conflict with China and Vietnam is in the strategic relationship with China. So our lethal weapon would that in a way affect our national security, the US security. For Marie Herbert, my question is with the TPP, I thank you for all the suggestions you have including the Fulbright University, I think that's tremendous. My question has to do with journalism. So one of the key point for free market is freedom of information. So would you support freedom of internet? Can we have free independent magazines, journals, media in Vietnam, not controlled, not censored by the government? That's the only key to the free market so that we can exchange information. And also we need to have independent labor union, independent labor union, that's the key for the free market. Thank you. Thanks. Scott, you wanna start? Sure, thanks for your question. I would say when we look at Southeast Asia as a whole, not just Vietnam, what's the US interest? We have an interest in peace, stability, increased prosperity and broad-based prosperity and democracy and increased respect for human rights, whether it's Vietnam or any of the other countries. We wanna see a strong Southeast Asia that's doing well and that includes Vietnam. And our argument to get to your question specifically, when we talk to the Vietnamese, when I talk to the Vietnamese government, it's very much in the, we're not in the business of trying to change regimes or we're in the business of trying to create space and opportunities for people economically and politically, and we think it actually will make Vietnam stronger if to the extent to which they're able to allow people to have more opportunities, more space. So very much in that mode, including for civil society because we think it makes the country stronger. So I absolutely agree with you. Chris. Yeah, thank you. You know, just briefly, I think in terms of how we are thinking about this, we're not at all trying to say to Vietnam, you have to pick the United States or you have to pick China, nor are we trying to gang up against China with Vietnam. I mean, that's not what this is about. I think the way we're looking at it is exactly to the point that Scott just made. We want to see a strong ASEAN and we want to see the independence and sovereignty of ASEAN countries protected. We want those countries to have the ability to stand up for their own rights, and I think that's how we're looking at this in terms of the context of the relationship with China. Jeannie on freedom of the press and freedom of the internet, I totally believe in it. I spent a lot of time working in that space and I think it's really very important and it helps countries to have more transparent government and helps economies to work better. So I totally agree. Jeannie, you've got three questions, please. Next question, Andre. Hi, Andre Silverzo and I'm the partner and chief representative for a company in Detroit called the Interstate Traveller Company in Vietnam and some other things that you know about. Anyway, wonderful panel. Thanks for everything so much. I just, you know, maybe people feel it could be the human rights thing to death but I'd like to just ask, I'm asking for some intellectual ammunition because I'm a businessman, I go to Vietnam regularly as you know and this comes up with Vietnamese friends in the government and all. So what is a answer I can give when somebody asks me as they have? Well, the United States can export weapons to Saudi Arabia or countries that just, you know, for atrocities that wouldn't occur in Vietnam are pretty routine and so what do I, you know, what's the difference in, I mean, here we have 25% women in the National Assembly and you know, freedom from religion pretty much and just watch my answer. Nope, sorry, it's not. Andre, hey, are you still staying at the Army Hotel when you go there? I just got to ask you. I'm still staying at the Army Guest House. All right, man, I'm just checking on you. Some things will never change. Some things will never change. All right, it's a good question. I guess the answer would be, you know, every relationship has its own unique history and so on and so, you know, in an ideal world there'd be perfect consistency but the reality is that this relationship has a very unique history as you know, better than almost anyone and, you know, we started doing and having no relationship as you know and have gradually built up so I think it was in 2005 that we lifted the complete ban on any military equipment. So, you know, we're working our way forward to the extent that the relationship allows it but I mean, I think that's the point and I think you can tell your Vietnamese friends. I mean, we've been really good partners and we've delivered what we've said that we were gonna deliver for Vietnam and as they continue to make progress, I think we'll be able to move ahead as well. I'd like to say what everybody think. Nguyen Minh Ngong, Jackson Mason University. I have a question that is totally different. We talk a lot about maritime security. We also briefly mentioned dispute in South China Sea and the Asian country and America wants China to observe international law and you want dispute to be sold by international law and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also promised that if they need it, we can have two. My question for all of you and particularly for Mr. Brose is that what is your reading of the Hill positions on the ratification of the UN clause? When they do anything about it or they would never do anything about it? This is all off the record, right? I, no, of course. You know, we are not in the position of determining the agenda for the Senate. What I can safely say is that the law of the Sea Treaty will not be ratified this year. Next year is anybody's guess. Ask me after November, but no luck. I mean, there was a real push made on this a year ago and came up short, you know, every two years you see what the balance of power looks like and what the leadership of the Senate wants to try to do together with the administration and I could argue it either way, maybe, but also depends on who wins these seats, you know, what Republicans in particular. I would stick with my initial position which I'm not putting a lot of money on this happening in the near future. Okay, I think we'll wrap up there. I would just like to say that the US-Vietnam relationship I think you all could agree over the last 20 years has gone into incredible areas and I think Vietnam is important intrinsically to the United States for the reasons that these gentlemen have discussed and I do think that the view of Vietnam's role in ASEAN has significantly changed here in Washington and for me and myself, I think that they have become a much more strategic thinking or viewed as a much more strategic thinking partner for the United States and that's very important and I think the energy behind the US-Vietnam relationship means to me that these issues that you guys have discussed today, including the mill to mill relationship are truly going somewhere. So stay tuned, folks. I think you're gonna see some interesting developments over the next year and thank you all for coming. I really appreciate your time and energy. Thank you. Thank you.