I'm here in December 10th, 2013, and Singapore at the TPP Negotiate with Matthew Schuol. Matthew looks for an inside US brain. Matthew, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, how long have you been a journalist, and where have you worked as a journalist? Sure. Well, I've been working at Inside US Trade for about three and a half years. And before that, I worked for a publication that is put out by Fingtang in Washington called the Inter-American Dialogue, focuses on US-Latin American relations. And I kind of have a background in Latin America, having studied that a little bit, and studied abroad in Latin America and speaking Spanish. So that's kind of why I gravitated toward that. And before that job, I was a Spanish teacher in a public school in Durham, North Carolina. I taught second and third grade in an immersion classroom. That must help you, and this negotiation is a couple of street countries from Latin America. Yeah, oh, I thought you were going to say because sometimes dealing with politicians can be like dealing with children. No, but yes, it does help me. You know, I find that if you speak the language, it kind of gives you an end with those people that you wouldn't normally have if you're just communicating in English. Who are the main audience for the articles that you write? The leading audience for Inside US Trade is basically policy professionals who deal with trade policy on a daily basis as their main work. So it's a very technical publication. And what we really try to do is really try to get into the topics and ask the questions that these policy people have. Policy professionals would be asking when I say policy professionals, it's kind of a throwaway term. But what I mean is like US government officials, congressional staff, lobbyists, foreign government officials, and companies are really probably our main readers. And as I was saying, we really try to understand the issues, but really the most important thing is to understand the right questions to ask that our readers would want to have answers. So then, you know, we can talk to, you know, once you understand the questions, then we talk to different sources and try to get an understanding of what's going on. We cover trade negotiations like the TPP. We also cover trade policy in Congress, so fast track, and other types of bills like reference programs. And we also cover trade disputes between countries and world trade organizations, disputes, I don't know that type of thing. So anything that's trade policy, we cover. What parts of the TPP are you focusing on in your reporting this week in Singapore? Well, I've covered pretty much all aspects of the TPP. I mean, one thing that the TPP countries have made clear for a long time in their public statements is that the most difficult, outstanding issues are intellectual property, pretty state enterprises, environment, and market access. So, you know, when I think about what progress they would be trying to make at a meeting like this, you know, I've got to think that with the ministers here, they're going to at least be thinking about those really difficult issues, and if not solving them, thinking of maybe potential options or compromise, or delaying proposal or delaying, which is how to overcome their differences, which are in fact quite big differences on these areas. And how do the journalists that are here, how do they work together, are the competitors? I mean, what's the relationship between the journalists? Well, it's funny. I mean, most of the press corps is from Japan. Someone told me today that they had counted about 60 journalists here from Japan, and many of the Japanese news outlets, most of them send more than one person, sometimes, you know, six or seven, and you know, there's cameraman, and some of the, especially the news channels have a pretty large contingent. And up until this round, inside US trade, as we've been going to all the TPP rounds since the beginning of 2011, and when they were held in the US, there was more of a US presence of US journalists. This year, most of the rounds have been in Southeast Asia, and there have been very few US journalists. It's been dominated by the Japanese press corps, who were, you know, very competitive, I think amongst themselves, but I think I've personally found, I made some good friends within the Japanese press corps, and we help each other out. You know, when we can, because, you know, they know a lot about Japan's perspective and the negotiations. Now, this meeting has been, it's a bigger meeting, it's a ministerial meeting, and there are some other US publications that focus on trade policy here, and also some international newspapers. So, amongst the non-Japanese press corps, I think there's also a spirit of cooperation. I mean, we do compete, but, you know, we all know each other and we get along, and if someone misses an interview of a press briefing, one person covers it, and the other person doesn't, and then on the other hand, another person goes to another press briefing. You know, we're not there, then, you know, sometimes we share information, just so, you know, we exchange information, just to make sure that we're both able to do the most thorough job that we can. Thank you very much, Mr. Sir. Anything you'd like to add before I turn the camera on? No, it's been fun. Alright, thanks a lot.