Global Trade This Week – Episode 247: Jonathan Gold on Retail Supply Chains, Tariffs, AI, and the New Normal
3:00 -Retail’s Shared Challenges: Trade, Theft, Cyber & Supply Chain
11:38 -Resilience vs. Efficiency in the New Normal
17:14 -AI in Retail: Practical Tools, Not Magic Solutions
20:43 -Halftime
23:30 -Supply Chain Myths, Tariff Policy & Organized Retail Crime
In this special interview edition of Global Trade This Week, Doug Draper is joined by Jonathan Gold, Vice President of Supply Chain and Customs Policy at the National Retail Federation. Gold represents the retail industry on supply chain, international trade, product safety, customs, and transportation policy issues, and has been a leading voice on the value of trade and global supply chains to the U.S. economy.
The conversation begins with a look at the scope of the NRF, the world’s largest retail trade association, and the wide range of businesses it supports, from small independent stores to major national retailers, restaurants, digital brands, and more. Gold explains how NRF helps retailers navigate shared challenges including tariffs, cyber risk, labor, asset protection, cargo theft, and retail crime.
A major theme throughout the interview is the reality that disruption has become part of the operating environment. Gold notes that retailers are no longer planning around a return to “normal” as it existed before 2019. Instead, they are building supply chains for a world defined by uncertainty, shifting tariff policy, changing consumer behavior, earlier peak seasons, and the need to stay prepared for whatever comes next.
Doug and Jonathan also discuss the growing role of artificial intelligence in retail operations. Rather than treating AI as a universal solution, Gold emphasizes a more practical approach: identify the problem first, then determine where AI can help. From supply chain auditing to loss prevention and workforce productivity, retailers are looking for targeted ways to use technology while still keeping human judgment in the loop.
The episode also explores organized retail crime, cargo theft, and the importance of collaboration between retailers, law enforcement, solution providers, and policymakers. Gold highlights the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act as one of the key policy efforts currently moving through Washington, with the potential to strengthen coordination across federal agencies and support state and local enforcement efforts.
Finally, Gold offers a clear reminder about one of the biggest myths in supply chain: products do not simply appear on shelves. Retail supply chains are complex, global, and often planned six to nine months in advance. Policy changes, sourcing shifts, logistics capacity, port infrastructure, compliance requirements, and consumer demand all play a role in what ultimately reaches the customer.
Watch the full interview for a thoughtful look at the intersection of retail, trade policy, supply chain resilience, and the decisions shaping the future of global commerce.
-
Keenan Brugh 0:01
You're watching Global Trade this week with Pete Mento and Doug Draper.
Doug Draper 0:06
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Global Trade This Week. My name is Doug Draper, and I am your host. Our buddy and co-host, mr. Pete Mento, is literally stuck on an airplane, so we'll be flying solo this week. Before we get into it, this is the second time that the Trade Global Trade this week is going to focus on an interview, which we're really good at. Usually it's the silly banter between Pete and myself, but we're mixing it up for the second time here in a couple of months, and it's going to be great. And the individual we're going to be speaking with today, this is a real find and a treat. Jonathan Gold, who is the Vice President Supply Chain and Customs Policy for the National Retail Federation. So, John, hey man, thanks for joining the show. Really appreciate it. Absolutely, Doug, happy to be here today. I'm sorry Pete's not with us, though. Yeah, well, that can be a blessing and a curse all in the same breath, I would
Jonathan Gold 1:07
think. Absolutely,
Doug Draper 1:09
yeah, yeah. So, we'll just have John, like I was saying, we have halftime. It doesn't matter who's on the show or whatever. So, we're going to do that with you and have our audience learn a little bit more about you. But before that happens, why don't you tell us about the National Retail Federation, how you help companies, kind of the history behind it, so our audience can learn more about your group.
Speaker 1 1:30
Absolutely, so National Retail Federation, we're the world's largest retail trade association. We represent everybody from the small single store operators up to the large format big box stores, online chain restaurants, and everybody in between. Hopefully, some of your favorite retail stores are members of ours. And we are a full service trade association. I sit on the government affairs side of the house and handle all of our supply chain, transportation, trade, product safety, and asset protection related issues. We are probably best known for the NRF Big Show, our annual convention up in New York, where we have over 40,000 of our favorite retail friends join us every January.
Doug Draper 2:09
Nice. And your workload hasn't been very difficult in the last year, I would imagine.
Speaker 1 2:13
No, last five or six years have been great, you know, smooth sailing for everybody. It's been fantastic.
Doug Draper 2:18
Nice, nice. Wait, whenever you were so kind enough to join us, I went to the website, and I saw that one of the taglines or a logo on there is it says we stand up for all retail, right? And if you talk about like an all-encompassing blanket, right, that's a lot, that's big box retailers, you talked about digitally native e-commerce, as you mentioned, you have restaurants and food service, small business businesses, tons of verticals, right? So, yeah, even though you have the large net, what are some common themes that you see in quote unquote retail, just because it's such a wide cast of coverage and support.
Speaker 1 3:00
Absolutely, I mean, look, retail is retail when you, when you break it down. So, whether you're a small retailer, a large retailer, there are certain issues that continue to have an impact on you. Obviously, trade is first and foremost in everybody's mind right now, because of all the uncertainty we've seen over the years with regards to tariffs and trade policy in general, but other issues, including tax, cyber labor, asset protection, cargo theft, you know, retail crime issues. There's a breadth of issues that all impact retailers, both large and small. And what we do with your NRF is convene all the different retailers, whether again, whether large or small, and work with them on these policy-related issues, but also provide a format for them to work with each other on all these issues as well, because again, there are things where, depending on, you know, what kind of retail you are, you might be doing things and learn something from one of your, your peers who's doing something different in a different vertical that might work better for you, so you know, our goal here, it's not just on the advocacy side, which obviously is, you know, first and foremost for us, but providing an opportunity and a platform for retailers to work with each other on a wide variety of issues,
Doug Draper 4:08
that's great. Yeah, the peer to peer engagement, that's something I didn't, didn't really know. When that happens, do you just facilitate an introduction and say, "Hey, guys, figure it out? Or
Speaker 1 4:20
we do through, yeah, we do through a variety of different mechanisms. I mean, I part of my role is managing a couple of different retail-related committees, so I manage our Strategic Supply Chain Council, our National Trade Advisory Committee, so two different committees. We do monthly conference calls where we do updates on a variety of issues, but again, also provide the opportunity for them to talk about what's happening in the space and ask, how are you dealing with this? How are you dealing with this? We do benchmarking surveys that we can do, where you know retail want to find out how retailers are implementing certain programs, and we'll do that anonymously, so that folks can figure out, you know, provide a better opportunity for them to respond and. Put them together afterwards, once we see the results, and see, is there something we wanted to talk about and discuss. We just actually held our big NRF Protect conference, which is our big loss prevention asset protection conference, down in Dallas, where we had over 2000 attendees, including retail, law enforcement, and solutions providers, and again, there's an opportunity for not just during the sessions to learn from content, but during the networking breaks and the open hall discussions, so again providing an opportunity for, you know, 2000 folks engaged in loss prevention issues to talk about what's happening and how they're dealing with certain, certain aspects of retail theft or enterprise risk based scenarios, so we again provide a wide opportunity for folks to engage and talk to their peers, but also help NRF as we shape our policy, because you know, whether it's coming out of Congress or the administration's regulations, we need to hear from our members on what the impacts are going to be, or are there pieces of legislation that we can come up with to positively help the industry as well, things like the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, which we've been a huge proponent of, so lots of opportunities for engagement with members.
Doug Draper 6:08
Yeah, that's great on that conference that you just had, that 2000 attended, right? So Pete's all global trade on global trade and transportation and logistics, right? And so was that focused more on like literally stealing product, and all the fraudulent and bad acts.
Speaker 1 6:25
Yeah, it was focused on retail crime, it was focused on retail fraud, focused on enterprise-wide disruptions, cyber, all the different things that could happen within the retail environment, and how from a loss prevention asset protection perspective you're addressing those. What's the future of loss prevention asset protection going to be? How are you dealing with potential global threats to your supply chain, to your enterprise? How are you handling cyber-related issues? How are you training the next generation of the workforce? What does technology's role in dealing with some of this? So, there are so many different aspects of retail that folks just don't understand, and this is one of those that is such a significant role, and have become more significant over the years, because what we've seen with regards to retail crime and the violence tied to those crimes, whether it's in store, in the warehouse, or in the supply chain. I mean, we've all seen the increase in cargo theft, you know, over the past five years, that's all tied to this whole retail crime initiative.
Doug Draper 7:25
What was sticking with this conference that you had? Are retailers related to crime and cyber? Are they just throwing their arms up? Like, everything we try to, they're always a step ahead of us. They mean the bad actors, and, like, gosh, we just were frustrated. We don't want to do, or there's some strategies out there that people are like, okay, this is working, and we're excited.
Speaker 1 7:47
There are strategies that retailers are employing, you know. First and foremost, we talked about kind of the peer-to-peer, so working with each other to identify some of those, those issues, working with a lot of great vendors and solution providers that are out there as well, that retailers are partnering with, and then finally partnering with law enforcement at the state, local, and federal level, making sure you have those right contacts that when something happens, you know who to call and get working on those issues. So, as much as it seems like the bad guys are a step ahead, there's a lot of work behind the scenes that retailers are working not just within their company but working with their peers, solution providers, and law enforcement, because we can't solve this alone, we've got to work together collectively to address these issues.
Speaker 2 8:27
Yeah,
Doug Draper 8:29
you know, I don't own a retail store, and you know, just participated in purchasing retail items, and I
Speaker 1 8:37
appreciate that.
Doug Draper 8:38
Oh, of course, yeah, I would think that one of the most difficult things is who do you call or who do you reach out to? Right, I mean, it's you're not calling 911 and maybe you call like the non-emergency local number, but I'm sure there's a whole task force associated with it. So, walk me through a little bit of, like, hey, I just had a major incident, what do people do? Who do they call?
Speaker 1 9:02
It kind of varies depending upon the incident. I mean, obviously, your first call is going to be to local law enforcement, because that's what you have to report the incident to. At the time when the incident occurs, you might not realize, or might not be able to put together, that's part of a larger operation, because what we see with this organized retail crime is that these folks are going store to store, county to county, state to state, crossing federal lines. So, this isn't just one episode. So, there's typically a pattern to what you're seeing. So, you know, first step is always call local law enforcement, and again, this is where you, as the retailer, need to get to know who the local law law enforcement is, whether it's in city, county, state, whoever it is, but there are within each state, there are also what are known as orcas, organized retail crime associations that engage other retailers as well as law enforcement, so you know, as you're seeing incidents happening in with within your store, your partner retailer next door might be seeing the same thing as well, so coordinating. Efforts, too, but again, the first step is always report, because then you can start moving forwards on the investigations and providing law enforcement as much information as you can upfront to help them as they're piecing together these cases as well.
Doug Draper 10:13
Gotcha, gotcha. All right, I'm going to shift topics a little bit and talk about trying to see if I could, so we'll just say resiliency versus efficiency, right. So I want to set the stage. My ultimate question is, what trend are you seeing? But here's all, here's the setup, right. So I'm thinking resiliency is to be prepared, right. And this is specific to COVID. If you, if you remember, oh my gosh, everybody was buying stuff during COVID, it was tangible. What can I buy? I'm in my house, or whatever. So companies were stocking up on inventory, people are buying fences or Peloton bikes, right? I know that got a lot of press, and so it was, let's make sure there's product in market so we can sell it. And then obviously every covid was over and everybody wanted experiences, right? I want to take the vacation that I haven't taken in the last couple of years, right. So the tangible hard goods kind of, kind of dropped, and everybody went to kind of adjust in time, if that's the right one, you know. So at one point it was like, I need to make sure that I'm having enough product to service my customer base, and then when experiences took the forefront, like I just want to have enough and not over purchase and control my expenses and stuff. So now that that's the setup, my question, as I said, is what are you seeing now specifically with 2026 and fourth quarter, and then what are you hearing for 2027 on that topic?
Speaker 1 11:38
Yeah, I think resiliency and preparedness kind of go hand in hand, and there were a lot of lessons learned from the pandemic, you know, as you noted, when everybody was home for the better part of two years and just consistently buying stuff online, you know, that put retailers in a very awkward position to have to kind of overfill and be ready for what retailers or what consumers were looking for when things all of a sudden opened up, that's a huge challenge when you're making your purchases six 912 months in advance based upon what you're learning from the consumer. I think part of it now is continuing to be kind of the just in case environment because everybody keeps asking, when are we going back to normal? This is the new normal, what we're facing today, and we haven't had a quote unquote normal year since kind of 2019 because we've had, you know, the pandemic, we had COVID, and we've had some kind of disruption every year since that retailers and others need to be continuously be prepared for, you know, this past year we've had kind of the tariff situation that's thrown a wrench into kind of how everybody's doing stuff. We had the situation in the Middle East again, throwing kind of, you know, questioning how you're operating right now and what are the impacts we're going to see there, and trying to plan ahead to know kind of what's the trade policy going to be going forwards again. Everybody's still trying to turn and figure that out, but I think what retailers are doing right now is really taking a look at their consumer base and trying to make sure they are well prepared for what the consumer is looking for in the future. You know, the one thing we could say about the consumer is they remain resilient. You know, as much as we talk about all the headwinds that we're facing in the economy, ongoing inflation, rising gas prices, and things like that, consumers are still out buying again. They've kind of shifted away from maybe some of the experiences because of the higher prices they're seeing on travel and things like that, but I think retailers overall are well prepared to understand what they need to purchase to make sure that it's on the shelf for the consumer, so you're not seeing that over ordering that we saw during the pandemic, I think retailers are really trying to do a better job about meaning resilience in these ongoing times of uncertainty, which are going to continue. Unfortunately, again, we're, you know, everybody asked, what, when we're going back to that quote unquote normal is, and this is normal now, being ready for whatever's coming next, and we all know something's coming, we just don't know what it is. So, you've got to make sure you're prepared for whatever it is, and how it's going to impact you.
Doug Draper 14:08
Yeah, no, that's great. Yeah, I mean, I was just talking to some friends over the weekend, and it's like, when there's uncertainty, you kind of just hunker down, right? Like, I don't want to turn too quickly or move too quickly or outlay this money to do this or that, and so I get it, people are, you know, just waiting to see, but at some point waiting to see isn't going to work anymore, and you're going to have to make decisions, because my product needs to be sold in Q, or a new product launch, or whatever, and like you said, it's a new normal, you got to force through and keep your business moving.
Speaker 1 14:41
Yeah, I mean, we're look, we're already getting into the peak shipping season, where retailers are starting to bring in their holiday merchandise, and you know, we put out our monthly global port tracker, and you know, we're showing that you're going to see a bump up in June and July, you know, because folks are starting to bring stuff in early, not just to get, make sure it's here. Year, but also because of the tariff uncertainty, again, we've got potential tariff, new tariffs hitting in end of July, early August, so folks want to get that stuff here before the new tariffs take effect, so again, that ongoing uncertainty continues to have an impact on supply chains and operations.
Doug Draper 15:15
Yeah, yeah, so true, you know, in 2019 and earlier, I mean, you could almost set your clock by the week in which peak season was going to start, when it was going to end, and accommodate, but, but to your point, it seems like it's getting earlier and earlier, especially this year. Pete and I were talking about the last couple episodes that, like, when's it going to happen, when's peak season, when's it going to happen, when's it going to happen? I think it's happening right in front of our eyes, right now, as you had indicated.
Speaker 1 15:43
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you've seen retailers who kind of lengthened out their peak shipping season. Then, look, we all know, you know, prior 19 2019 you know, we go, you know, August, September, October was kind of the peak shipping season, and then kind of ran into Covid, and that kind of threw everything off, and then you know, as consumers started to look for earlier, you know, holiday sales, retail started bringing stuff in earlier, so again, to avoid that, that huge rush and crunch that we saw in the supply chain, the supply chains got lengthened, and part of that was to avoid congestion and other issues, so now you're starting to see, as early as, you know, June or earlier, that the, you know, holiday merchandise is starting to arrive here, and retailers are running earlier holiday deals because of that, because consumers are looking for
Doug Draper 16:32
crazy. So, any podcast wouldn't be complete without talking about AI for a second, right? So, I don't know if it was specific to the trade show that you mentioned earlier or just general feedback from the constituency. Right, what are.. I guess my question would be like, what are some strategies? Well, what's the approach with AI? Are people like, "Hey, I'm going to actively use this to solve my problem, and where they're going to wait and see to see how it integrates, and if they are actively using AI tools. Can you talk about some specifics related to AI, and how your group is engaging to help their strategies?
Speaker 1 17:14
Yeah, I mean, we have a whole separate kind of AI working group within NRF that's looking at this from, you know, operationally and from a regulatory perspective, and other pieces of it, but I think we look at AI, it's not just kind of the IT folks are evaluating AI, it's all throughout the organization, whether it's, you know, within human resources, supply chain, asset protection, everybody's looking at how to utilize AI, obviously, was, you know, been a big buzzword for a couple years now, and everybody was trying to see how it was going to play out. I think a lot of retailers, at least, are being more targeted and more strategic about how they're looking at utilizing AI within their system. Obviously, there are a lot of people out there selling, you know, AI as a solution for everything, but it might not fit within your organization. I think you got to be strategic on how you look to utilize AI, and you know, not try and do square peg, round hole, and fit it into everything, because I think even retailers a little bit different as far as how they want to utilize, you know, AI's looking at from a supply chain perspective, you know, is it a tool you can use as you're, you know, doing your auditing on, you know, on your foreign factories, foreign suppliers, but you've got to have the human element to that as well. AI can run the reports, you've actually got to go through and read them and review them, make sure they're accurate, you know, as you're looking at loss prevention, there are other avenues to use AI as well. So, it's there are a lot of different uses that everybody's looking at right now. I think folks are being a little more strategic on how they're using AI, as opposed to the, you know, it's this big new toy that we're going to use now. It's a little more strategic of, here's a specific issue I have. How can AI help me be better at achieving the goal at the end of the day? How can I be more productive in using AI to address this issue where it might not be the solution alone, but to help you get to whatever your, your, you know, end goal
Doug Draper 19:07
is. Yeah, to your point, it's so new, there's so many applications. I think people are just still trying to figure it out, you know. Absolutely, I was at a trade show in Nashville a couple of weeks ago, and I met with somebody, really nice individual, and literally, when we walked away, you know, had a casual conversation on the on the floor, and I thought to myself, I don't really understand what that company does. There was AI this and analyze this, and you know, I'm just this simple kid from Kansas, but I'm like, it was really nice to meet you, and we'll talk soon. And I walked away, and I'm like, I don't have any idea what.
Speaker 1 19:48
Yeah, I think that's part of the issue. Again, I think you know, you as a company need to identify what is the specific issue
Doug Draper 19:54
right now
Speaker 1 19:55
I want to address, and how can AI help me get there? I suppose in just a. AI, and everything, so I think folks being more particular and more conscious about what they're looking at and how they're trying to decide using AI. I think uses realizes AI can be a tool to help, but again, what is what is a challenge I have? What is the issue I have, and how can AI fit into that solution, as opposed to being the only solution that I want to want to utilize,
Doug Draper 20:23
yeah, yeah, for sure. All right, we have a couple more questions here at the back half of the show, but John, if you've ever been involved, you know, Pete and I do this crazy thing called halftime, and we're going to keep it real simple. So we're going to ask you to be involved with halftime, and I guess it's not an ask, you're going to jump in, whether you want to or not, right? I have a
Speaker 1 20:43
choice, do I make a volunteer for this?
Doug Draper 20:46
Yes, I like that, voluntold. So, yeah, but before we get into it, I just wanted to thank Cap Logistics for helping us. You and I wouldn't be talking right now, John, without them, and we greatly appreciate it. So, nothing controversial in these questions, right? It's a this or that, so I'm going to give you two scenarios, and you just pick which one you would do, so maybe some of your coworkers may learn a little, little something about you on this one. All right, all right, so the first one, you prefer Black Friday or Prime Day? Prime Day. All right. Do you want to be the smartest person in the room or the funniest person in the room? Smartest. Good window seat, aisle seat, window. Do you think AI assistance helping every single shopper or human associate? Human associates still helping, I think. Human associates still help. Love it. Self checkout or cashier line, cashier love it. All right, we've got a couple more. So this one is in or out, right? So you're going to tell me if you're in or out on this statement, returning an online purchase because it looks different in person
Speaker 1 22:07
in
Doug Draper 22:08
awesome retail stores playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving
Speaker 1 22:14
out,
Doug Draper 22:15
all right, so this kind of speaks to our, our age group and demographic, and some, some kids may not understand this one, but standing in line overnight for a product launch,
Speaker 1 22:30
out,
Doug Draper 22:31
gotcha, taking or using the phrase synergy in business meetings. All right, two quick ones, and then we'll be done taking work calls while you're on vacation.
Speaker 1 22:46
In
Doug Draper 22:48
all right, here's the last one. The CEO working one shift a year on the sales floor.
Speaker 1 22:55
In
Doug Draper 22:56
love it, love it. I like that too. I would say that. Well, hopefully the audience got to learn a little bit more about you. I would say probably 60% of your answers I'm in line with, so that's good. All right, so a few more questions here before we wrap up. And again, appreciate all your time. So, what would be trying to think of the best way to answer this question? What would be like one of the supply chain myths that retailers, even logistic professionals, and policymakers, right, still believe are out there that simply aren't true anymore.
Speaker 1 23:30
Products magically show up on the store shelf. I think, but I think you know, post-COVID, everybody kind of learned what the supply chain is, or at least they think they've learned what the supply chain is, but just recognizing how complex and complicated it is, especially in the retail environment. I think it's still an issue we're trying to educate, you know, lawmakers and regulators about, you know, the fact that retailers are making their sourcing decisions six to nine months in advance of a product showing up on the store shelf, and that any policy put in place during that time period has a significant impact, and the fact that you know it takes time to shift your supply chain, as well. You know, as much as retailers continue to look to diversify their supply chains, you're talking months, if not years, because of the complexity of the supply chain. You know, you've got to make sure you know who your vendor is, who your new partner is. Do they meet all of your different requirements, do they meet all the requirements for US laws, especially if it's children's products, you know, you've got to do all the testing and auditing and everything else, and then just all the logistics issues that are there. Do you have regular sailings? Do the, you know, how are the ports moving? Do they have rail? How's the country infrastructure? Do they have the workforce, do they have the capacity to make the volumes you need? So it just, it's so complicated that I think you know we still have to, you know, educate lawmakers and others on just how the supply chain operates, and how do we remove some of the barriers and complexities that are there instead of adding more on top.
Doug Draper 25:00
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's during, during Covid, you know, like a.. and there wasn't many of these, right? But a cocktail party. People, what do you do for a living? I'm a lawyer, I'm a doctor. Oh, I work in supply chain and global trade. Pre-COVID, they're like, I don't really know what that means, I don't want to talk to you, right? And, and now you're like the person everybody wants to talk to, because the awareness of what you just said, that it's not just top, it appears on the on the shelf. So, absolutely, yeah, cool. So, what is the what's your biggest policy battle on the hill? Right, we haven't talked about it, but you do a lot of advocacy for the industry, and you guys are based in DC, so like, what's the biggest battle, and I won't use it, you know, that's a conflict type of word, but like, what are you talking about there on the hill, and trying to get things through on the behalf of your constituents?
Speaker 1 25:54
Yeah, so I think, you know, for me, the issues I'm working on, obviously, trade policy continues to be kind of number one, tariffs continue to be a conversation about what's happening with trade policy, all the different tariffs that have been put in place, removed ones that are coming down the pike. Obviously, the ongoing discussions over the review of the US-Canada-Mexico agreement is vital as to what's going to happen there. The other big one that I'm working on right now, again, is the Combating Organized Retail crime act, which is a bipartisan bill. It's already passed the House overwhelmingly with strong numbers that would create a kind of a kind of a fusion center within Homeland Security investigations that would include HSI, DOJ, Customs, ATF, Postal, all the other key agencies with regards to retail crime and cargo theft, we think that's vital to help out at the state and local level, provide them the resources and kind of things that they need. Right now, we're in the Senate, hoping for Senate action, and then get the White House to sign it. So that's probably one of the biggest issues I'm working on right now, that from a positive perspective is going to help out the industry, help out the, you know, our transportation partners, and keep our community safe, and protect our workers and our shoppers.
Doug Draper 27:06
It sounds like this industry, and what you're doing is truly nonpartisan, right? You always hear, you know, the click bait, and what you see on the news is everybody's at war, the two different parties. But what you just told me is that's really not the case, is that correct?
Speaker 1 27:22
Yeah, I mean, look, there are obviously some issues where you can get strong bipartisan support, and this retail crime issue is one where there is strong support on both sides, again helps you know protect consumers, protect customers, and protect the economies. At the end of the day, so you know, while we do have, you know, partisan issues that everybody's kind of working on, we as the federation continue to work on, you know, pro-business issues and try to find, you know, partners on both sides of the aisle that we can work with to advance our costs.
Doug Draper 27:50
Yeah, that's great. That's great. All right, so if you had, if you could have Congress right act on one trade issue, and it would be, it would happen tomorrow. So, there's one trade issue, and you can like, boom, this is going to be implemented for tomorrow. What would it be?
Speaker 1 28:08
Take back authority on tariffs.
Doug Draper 28:11
Elaborate, tell me more about that.
Speaker 1 28:13
So, essentially have Congress determine, you know, set tariff rates, not using the section, the different trade laws that we're using. Congress needs to have a role in trade policy and setting tariffs, as much as we want to see our trading partners play by the rules. Some of the tariffs have been put in place, we think are very problematic and are having significant impacts on the economy, on businesses, and on consumers. At the end of the day, so I think it's time for Congress to reassert its authority when it comes to trade policy and tariffs,
Doug Draper 28:43
yeah, yeah, you, I think you hesitated about point five seconds whenever I asked that question, and I would think a lot of people in our industry would feel the exact same way, John. Yeah, John, anything else you want to add?
Speaker 1 29:00
No, thank you, I've enjoyed the conversation. Thank you. And again, Miss, Miss Pete, being here, but you know, next time,
Doug Draper 29:07
yeah, next time, right. So, for listeners, again, we just had a nice conversation with Jonathan Gold, the Vice President, Supply Chain and Customs Policy with the National Retail Federation. Hopefully, we were able to learn a little bit about your organization and a little bit about yourself as an individual, and I can't thank you enough for joining us today on the show.
Speaker 1 29:28
Great, thanks, Doug. Appreciate it.
Doug Draper 29:30
All right, take care, John. Alrighty, bye bye.