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Also see: Trade; tariffs;
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Undated: Robert Emmet Lighthizer (born October 11, 1947)[1] is an American attorney and government official who is the current United States Trade Representative.[2]
After he graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 1973, Lighthizer joined the firm of Covington and Burling in Washington, D.C. He left the firm in 1978 to serve as chief minority counsel and later staff director and chief of staff of the Senate Committee on Finance under Chairman Bob Dole. In 1983, Robert Lighthizer was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative for President Ronald Reagan. In 1985, Lighthizer joined the Washington office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP as a partner and led the firm's international trade group. On January 3, 2017, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he intended to nominate Lighthizer as his U.S. Trade Representative.[3] Lighthizer was confirmed by the Senate on May 11, 2017, by a vote of 82–14.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lighthizer
Undated: Lobbyists in (and out of) the Trump Administration
President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order within his first days of office forbidding Executive Branch appointees from lobbying for five years after employment in the Administration. The Order also forbids former registered lobbyists now working in the White House from participating in areas they had previously lobbied on for a period of two years.
Despite this directive, these men and women made their way through the revolving door and were either previously lobbyists and now work in the Trump Administration or were previously in the Administration and work as lobbyists.
[Includes Robert Lighthizer]
https://www.opensecrets.org/trump/lobbyists
-- 2017 --
May 15: An experienced trade negotiator and litigator, Ambassador Lighthizer brings a history of tough U.S. trade enforcement and a record of standing up for American workers, farmers, manufacturers, and businesses.
At the time he was chosen by President Trump to serve as USTR, Ambassador Lighthizer was a partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP (Skadden), where he practiced international trade law for over 30 years. His work there on behalf of American workers and businesses in the heavy manufacturing, agricultural, high-tech, and financial services industries opened markets to U.S. exports and defended U.S. industries from unfair trade practices.
... Before joining Skadden, Ambassador Lighthizer served as Deputy USTR for President Ronald Reagan. During his tenure, Ambassador Lighthizer negotiated over two dozen bilateral international agreements, including agreements on steel, automobiles, and agricultural products. As Deputy USTR, he also served as Vice Chairman of the Board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
Prior to becoming Deputy USTR, Ambassador Lighthizer was Chief of Staff of the United States Senate Committee on Finance for Chairman Bob Dole. In this position, he was a key player in enacting the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, which was the most significant tax reform in decades, as well as the other basic elements of the Reagan economic program.
Ambassador Lighthizer earned a Bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University and his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center. He is a native of Ashtabula, Ohio and has two children.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/people/robert-lighthizer/
-- 2018 --
January 25: As the Trump administration tees up a slew of highly aggressive new trade policies that could upend economic relations on several continents, experts outside the government and on the Hill are concerned over the team leading the charge.
More than a year into this presidency, the office at the USTR remains severely understaffed. The agency, technically a division of the White House, remains without a permanent deputy trade representative in key regions such as China and the Western Hemisphere. The Senate has yet to confirm ambassador to the World Trade Organization.
But beyond who is not there, it’s who is that has raised alarm.
Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative, is relying on a small group of relatively unseasoned officials to advance a complex agenda, including renegotiating landmark free trade deals and cracking down on allegedly unfair practices by China, Mexico, and other major global economic partners.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-a-20-something-eagle-scout-became-one-of-donald-trumps-top-trade-hands
March 9: The Little-Known Trade Adviser Who Wields Enormous Power in Washington
Robert Lighthizer just became one of the most powerful people in Washington.
Mr. Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, will spend the next 14 days deciding which countries, if any, will be exempt from the stiff and sweeping steel and aluminum tariffs that President Trump authorized on Thursday.
The issue is expected to dominate discussions in Brussels on Saturday between Mr. Lighthizer and his trade counterparts in Japan and the European Union, with the European trade commissioner saying on Thursday that Europe should be excluded. Dozens of other countries that import metals into the United States — such as Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and South Korea — are demanding a carveout or threatening retaliation if they are included.
It is a fight Mr. Lighthizer has been preparing for his entire life.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/us/politics/robert-lighthizer-trade.html
December 29: The Making of a Trade Warrior
At his confirmation hearings for the position of U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, the nation’s chief trade negotiator, promised to fight for all of America’s great industries. Yes, he acknowledged, he had built his three-decade career by lobbying for the steel industry. But he was ready, he said, to make the world safe again for good old-fashioned American capitalism, in all its forms. He recalled a caution he’d received from a senator: “As you go through doing your job, remember that you do not eat steel.”
The senator wanted Lighthizer to concede that, despite its hold on the national imagination, steel’s contribution to the American economy has waned. Even back in 2003, when Lighthizer made his first major bid to control the rules of global trade, neither of the two leading American steel companies was worth more in the stock market than the nascent Amazon, despite employing a dozen times as many employees. Today, the two shiny new headquarters Amazon plans to build could house the majority of the 81,000-odd workers who work in America’s remaining iron and steel mills, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Lighthizer believes that the shrinking of the American steel industry isn’t a mere by-product of technological shifts, but the result of a war China has been waging for decades. He and his allies think the growing superpower will now take the fight to other U.S. interests, threatening the nation’s economic hegemony. Now he’s preparing his own battle plan, refined over a career of lobbying. He plans to bend the rules of the global economy in America’s favor—even if that means breaking the system America itself created.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/robert-lighthizers-bid-cut-chinas-trade-influence/578611/
-- 2019 --
January 25: The Trump administration’s trade chief called for a new plurilateral agreement on the rules of digital commerce to be “enforceable” and imposing the “same obligations on all participants”, after China made an eleventh-hour move to join the talks at the World Trade Organization.
In a statement on Friday, Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, said that the digital economy was a “powerful force for global economic growth”, and America was committed to seeking a deal that created “strong, market-based rules in this area”.
Until the last minute, it was unclear whether China would participate in the talks, but Beijing ultimately agreed to sign on, offering a crucial fillip to the negotiations. But Mr Lighthizer warned that the talks might not be successful unless it addressed some common complaints from the US and others about Chinese policies on the digital economy — including “restrictions on cross-border data lows and data localisation requirements”.
https://www.ft.com/content/9caad576-20bb-11e9-b126-46fc3ad87c65
-- 2020 --
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