Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo: The 60 Minutes Interview

What does the Secretary of Commerce primarily do so far to promote American companies abroad? It hadn't been a high-profile job until Gina Rond turned the second-tier agency into a center for job creation, manufacturing and national security, once Rhode Island Gov. Rondo was 52 years old. She seems to have come out of nowhere to become a rising star of the Democratic Party and the Biden Administration. As Secretary of Commerce, she is spearheading new projects that could affect the lives of all Americans and is helping to lead the growing cold war with China and confront Russia's cold war. aggression in Ukraine the battlefield for both conflicts is technology the story will continue in a moment if you think about National Security today in 2024 it is not just tanks and missiles, it is technology, it is semiconductors, it is AI, it is drones and the Department of Trade is in the red Hot tech hub and hot hub a global chip war that escalated, says Gina Randoo, When Russia invaded Ukraine, the Commerce Department stopped all semiconductor chips from being sold to Russia, every drone, every missile, every tank has semiconductors and you know, Leslie.

You know we are being effective because shortly after starting that work we heard stories of Russians taking semiconductors out of refrigerators, dishwashers, and breast pumps and getting the chips to put them in their military equipment; However, the Russians are now working their way. Around this, they are successful and doing better in the war, which is probably why you are right in what you say, but she says it is absolutely true that our export controls have hurt their ability to carry out the war, which which made it more difficult and we are enforcing this every minute of every day doing everything we can these are some of the enforcers Q should talk about our controls on Russ Rondo's team in Commerce that monitors and polices the ban on any company in The world sells products with American chips to Russia, but not only Russia, I have made sure that the most advanced American technology cannot be used in China.

The Chinese warn that these export controls could trigger an escalating trade war. Trade with China represents 750,000 jobs in the United States and if trade ends, we lose our jobs. We want to trade with China in the vast majority of goods and services, but in those technologies that affect our national security, no, those advanced chips are in goods consumer goods, banks use them, hospitals, this goes to products manufactured for civil use, yes. Well, they're also into nuclear weapons surveillance systems and we know they want these chips and our sophisticated technology to advance their military. Her toughness has made her a target in China, where fake ads show her promoting the government's new smartphone made in China last year.

Beijing hacked his email and ironically, when he was in China on a trip to improve relations, the technology company Huawei introduced that new smartphone with an advanced chip made in China, it was as if to say, look at the chip we have. and it was a pretty good high-end chip, well, I clearly have their attention and they have yours well, what that tells me is that the export controls are working because that chip is not that good, it is years behind what that we have in the United States. We have the most sophisticated semiconductors in the world China, isn't it true that we have surpassed China in innovation?

Well, you mean the Taiwan Fair, while American technology companies design the most advanced chips in the world, none are made in the USA, 90% of them come from Taiwan and are key to the future of the American military weaponry and China threatens from time to time, you know, the wolf to invade Taiwan and some people say the reason is to get your hands on those chips, that's a problem, that's a risk, it makes us vulnerable. The problem of our production outsourcing goes far beyond high technology, with millions of American workers losing their jobs and going abroad. Something Romond knows firsthand when he was the youngest son of an Italian family in Rhode Island.

This is the old Bouleva watch factory where my father worked. For almost 30 years his father lost his job when Boliva abandoned the factory in 1983 and moved its operations to China. It's hard for you to imagine now that you look around here, but this is a bustling place, you know they had a thousand. people working here food trucks on the sidewalk an electrical coating store there a tool and die store there and now this is what you have and how old you were I was in sixth grade but I saw the toll it took on my dad and my family and that influenced his career choices from studying economics and playing rugby at Harvard, so this is my office, to leaving a well-paying job as a venture capitalist to run for public office in Rhode Island, this was the day when I was sworn in as state treasurer and, um, that's my parents like my dad, that's your dad, super proud of who worked at boua, the man who worked at boua, the man who taught me about manufacturing, taught me that a job is about your pride, your ability to care. of her family is not just a salary married with two children Rondo, a road scholar and graduate of Yale Law School, was elected the state's first female governor in 2014 as a moderate pro-bus liberal Democrat in her party , this is a quote, they consider him a traitor to big companies I think that's ridiculous.

I hold companies as responsible as anyone when I tell them they can't sell their semiconductors to China, they don't love that, but I do. At the end of 2020, President-elect Joe Biden tapped her to lead the Department of Commerce, which Until then, without much fanfare or headlines, he was managing a hodgepodge of agencies and tasks that ranged from monitoring the climate to measuring the level of pollutants in household dust, so one day President-elect Biden calls him and says: What about being Secretary of Commerce and did you hear that? and I thought honestly initially I thought what does the Secretary of Commerce do, yeah, and then the president-elect said to me, come on, I want you to work with me to help rebuild American manufacturing and I called my brother, my older brother, and he said, Gina , dad.

She would be very proud that you had to do it, you have to do it and that was it, once in Commerce, she started leaning on Congress. This is simply a good deal to fund her new programs with $100 billion, including $50 billion for the bipartisan chip bill. which is now dispensing to reduce America's dependence on Taiwan is a big day for the entire country last month in Arizona announced its first award for manufacturing Leading Edge chips in the US for Intel we are announcing our intention to invest $ 8.5 billion in Intel America Champion Semiconductor Company Intel intends to build and modernize facilities in Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Ohio.

It has awarded two other major WS awards for a total of $1.13 billion to the Taiwanese company tsmc and the South Korean company Samsung to manufacture the most advanced chips in the world in Arizona and Texas. Rondo is also spreading its lares in other parts of the country with another great initiative: the Internet for all program. We went with her to a Corning factory in North Carolina, the largest fiber optic manufacturer in the world. You are seeing fiber on these different colored spools. What's inside is actually one of the most precise products ever made by man. Wendell Weeks, Corning's chairman and chief executive, is scaling up production to make some of the 10 million miles of new cable needed to connect the 24 million Americans who live primarily in rural America. who do not have access to high-speed Internet and, under pressure from Rond, he is investing Corning's own capital to do so.

We've invested another half a billion dollars and doubled our footprint for the US when you spend all this money to get connected. I know a small number of people who live miles away. The expense is almost meaningless. Makes sense. The Internet is no longer a luxury. You need it. To see the doctor. To go to school. To do your business. To pay your bills. To sign. Ready, you know, Social Security, everyone has electricity in this country, everyone should have Internet together. She says Internet for All and the chip law initiatives will create about half a million jobs by 2030, but Wall Street is skeptical.

Intel, for example, just reported $7 billion in operating losses when you pick these different companies to give them the money, it's a social industrial policy, something you know we gave up because private industry was proven to do better. work choosing, you're smiling, well, do they do it because? In the case of semiconductors, the market did not do well, how did we lose this? We allowed manufacturing in this country to wither in search of cheaper labor in Asia, cheaper capital in Asia and here we are, just chasing profits over domestic ones. Security, there are conditions for these subsidies, they have to provide childcare. um you want them to have a diverse workforce, be unionized workers, that's not social policy, lesli, it sounds like math, this is pure math, you won't have enough workers to do the job unless you figure out how to make women work in the facilities, but at that point, if they need women and women need daycare, that is a decision that the company must make why it is mandatory if it is what they need it is not a mandate to make it clear that these are not mandates but it's written there it's written but you know what's funny I never hear complaints about this from companies the only complaints I have are from politicians in his three years in Washington Rondo has elevated the Commerce Department and his

secretary

to a high profile player China wakes up every day figuring out how to get around our regulations, we have to wake up every day much more ruthless and aggressive, so I do it every day, so here comes the inevitable obvious question that you know is coming your way. a list of future presidential candidates seems good to you it's appetizing what seems good to me is being the best Secretary of Commerce that has ever existed a qualification for a high office is being able to dodge a question like that