Exiger CEO Brandon Daniels joins 'Mornings with Maria to discuss how the Trump administration is u'sing AI to crack down on tariff evasion and track global supply chains.
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What Brandon Daniels said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Brandon Daniels, CEO of Exiger, said China's evasion of U.S. tariffs through transshipment is a national security, economic, and IP threat. He cited that about $75 billion of transshipped goods enter the U.S. annually, lowering prices and displacing 450,000 to 2 million jobs in key sectors. He explained Exiger's AI tracks bill of materials to identify origin with over 95% accuracy, finding components like optical transceivers falsely labeled as from Mexico, Germany, or Vietnam but actually from China. He agreed China has an advantage in industrial data because they disregard workforce welfare, noting China's 18-24 unemployment rate over 30%. However, he argued American innovation and data collection can counter China's civil-military fusion and IP theft, emphasizing U.S. strength through capitalist innovation.
Key takeaways
About $75 billion of transshipped goods enter the U.S. annually, artificially lowering prices and evading tariffs.
Transshipment and tariff evasion could displace between 450,000 and 2 million jobs in key U.S. sectors.
Exiger's AI can identify true origin of products with over 95% accuracy by analyzing bill of materials and supply chains.
China's advantage in industrial data stems from ignoring workforce welfare, with youth unemployment over 30% in China.
American innovation and data ecosystems can overcome China's civil-military fusion and IP theft.
Numbers and commitments
Figure
What it refers to
Type
At
$75 billion
Annual value of transshipped goods entering the U.S.
Meanwhile, there's this. The Trump administration turning to AI to crack down on tariff evasion, using technology to trace how goods move through complex global supply chains. The White House says Chinese goods are being routed through third-party countries to disguise their origin and avoid U.S. tariffs. A supply chain AI company is developing technology that can analyze trade data, manufacturing capabilities, and shipping routes and flag potential transshipments. Joining me is Exiger CEO Brandon Daniels. Tell us about the work you're doing.
Hi, Jackie. It's good to see you. Thank you for having me on this morning. Jackie, this work is critical to everything this administration is doing and in fact our global economic plans are reliant on, because what we're seeing is that even though the administration is putting half a trillion dollars into defense spending, even though all of the European nations are ramping up their defense spending, they can't build defense industrial base capacity if they can't compete on a world stage from a production pricing perspective. And that's not just in the defense industrial base. This goes to AI, this goes to data center capacity, this goes to energy infrastructure, it's everywhere. And what we're seeing is that on a conservative basis about $75 billion of transshipped goods are entering the United States and what they're doing is they are lowering the cost artificially of the goods in our markets. They're lowering the cost of them. They're avoiding and evading the tariffs that are put in place to level the playing field for American manufacturers and our allied manufacturers across the globe and what they're doing is they're making it so that these industrial base capabilities can never grow, can never generate good jobs, and they're potentially displacing anywhere between 450,000 to 2 million great jobs in these key sectors.
And then on top of this you've got the General Services Administration ordering a sweeping review of federal procedures after finding that China-made technology products say 'Made in America,' so we're talking about things like flash drives, docking ports, and portable chargers, all listed as U.S. origin despite being made in China or containing Chinese components. Scott Bessent raised these concerns to Maria first on this program. Watch this.
We are finding watermarks of our U.S. large language models on many of the Chinese models. The government, U.S. government supports open source but what we do not support is IP theft. The other question might be should companies that are using Chinese models have to disclose that to their customers? These models have to be held to the same standard that U.S. models are but more importantly, are they using stolen materials? There's a very technical AI word for it called distillation but you and I would call it theft.
5 more exchanges in this transcript
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Daniels, B. (2026, August 19). China has a real advantage because they’re not looking out for their workforce: Exiger CEO [Interview transcript]. Fox Business Clips. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1238454/
MLA
Brandon Daniels. "China has a real advantage because they’re not looking out for their workforce: Exiger CEO." Fox Business Clips, 19 Aug. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1238454/.
BibTeX
@misc{daniels2026_1238454,
author = {Brandon Daniels},
title = {China has a real advantage because they’re not looking out for their workforce: Exiger CEO},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Fox Business Clips. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {aug},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1238454/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
