Marsha here. Welcome back to the re-element.

Today's guest is Ambassador Robert Lightheiser, who served as the US Trade Representative during the Trump Administration

and Deputy USTR during the Reagan Administration. He's written a new book,

No Trade is Free, Changing Course, Taking on China, Helping America's Workers, out today.

Trade Policy, especially towards China, was one of the defining issues of the 2016 campaign

and the overall pop-up-the-waste moment. Unlike other issues like immigration and border policy,

many aspects of the Trump policy have carried it on into the Biden administration's approach.

Today, we talk about American manufacturing, putting workers in industry at the center of trade policy,

and how Ambassador Lightheiser's experience negotiating deals in North America,

China and Japan can shape what comes next. Of course, a huge thanks to the foundation for American

innovation, exploring the work in this podcast. Robert Lightheiser, welcome to the re-element.

Well, thank you very much for our show. So pleasure to be here.

Yeah, I'm glad to chat with you. This is releasing the day of publication. So,

folks should definitely check this book out because you've pretty much hit every single broad theme

of this show. So we'll try to encompass it all in one conversation. I want to start by doing

something a little different, what I normally do, which is focus on a bit of good news,

who will also allow you as an author to do a bit of a victory lap. There's been a lot of writing

in the news lately about how America is experiencing a manufacturing boom, both from a factory

construction perspective and just general focus on that side of industry. So I'd love for you just to

start by talking about this trend and what it means for the broad scope of your work over the past

40 years. So first of all, as you know, you read the book, I'm a big believer that we need a

manufacturing sector that most Americans don't have a college degree. They are in the middle class

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