Jamieson Greer, Trump’s pick to lead the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, on Thursday pledged to secure new markets for U.S. ag – singling out countries like India and Turkey for their high tariff barriers – and he promised to quickly review China’s shortcomings under the phase one deal.
Greer also told the Senate Finance Committee at his confirmation hearing that he would also seek to lower tariff barriers in the biofuels sector.
“Agriculture is something that is near and dear to my heart. I was raised in northern California, that's rice country and almond country,” Greer told the committee. “American agricultural producers are the most competitive in the world, and they need to have markets commensurate with that competitiveness.”
Greer, a trade lawyer and Air Force veteran, lamented that while the U.S. has lowered its tariffs in recent decades while partners have kept duties on U.S. agriculture exports high, naming Turkey and India as two countries with sky-high duties.
“They need to open to the United States,” Greer said.
Greer served as chief of staff to USTR Robert Lighthizer during Trump’s first term. In that role he worked on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which updated the earlier North American Free Trade Agreement to reduce trade barriers between the three North American nations.
In a second term, Greer suggested the administration would pursue a bilateral, or sectoral-based, approach to opening new markets.
“We need to have a pragmatic trade policy where we're looking – sometimes sector-by-sector, sometimes economy-wide, often on a bilateral basis – how can we have very competitive terms of trade between us and the Western world,” Greer said.
But Greer stressed that he wanted to be “careful” with which countries the U.S. should pursue free trade deals.
“I don't want to be in the position of going to a country that has a $50 billion trade surplus already,” he said. But he added that a sectoral deal with “like-minded countries who are aligned with us on security, rule of law” might make sense.
Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley stressed to Greer that he would like to see the U.S. look for opportunities to deepen trade with smaller countries that are often overlooked in international trade but hold untapped promise.
“If we can be thoughtful in going to other countries where we see real concrete areas of advancement, we should pursue that,” Greer said, adding that he wanted to explore where the U.S. can get the most “bang for our buck.”
In addition to targeting specific markets, Greer also said that he would prioritize lowering trade barriers in certain industries, including biofuels. Multiple senators pointed out that while Brazilian ethanol enjoys duty-free access to the U.S. market, U.S. producers face an 18% tariff when exporting into the Brazilian market.
“I have a lot of things at the top of my list, but this is one,” Greer said. The U.S., he added, will need to use leverage wherever it can to compel Brazil to lower the tariff. “You could certainly go to somebody like the Brazilians and say, ‘you need to fix this,’ but it has to be followed up with, ‘or else.’”
His comments on opening overseas markets for U.S. agriculture were well received from senators from both parties.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told Greer that she hadn’t agreed with his predecessor’s trade approach. Cantwell argued that the Biden administration did not spend sufficient time trying to open foreign agriculture markets for U.S. producers.
While she welcomed Greer’s comments on market access, Cantwell, and others, pressed Greer over the new administration’s approach to tariffs – particularly the tariffs Trump has threatened on Mexico and Canada.
“Why are we arguing with our closest neighbors, our biggest export markets for apples,” Cantwell said. She described how tariffs adopted during Trump’s first term had provoked retaliatory tariffs on apples that put “hundreds” of apple producers out of business.
“I don't understand why you think a tariff-first approach is the way to capitalize on the biggest task at hand,” Cantwell said.
Greer defended the use of tariffs as a tool for securing concessions on market access from U.S. trade partners, a view previously shared by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as well as Trump’s pick for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
But Greer also echoed Trump’s suggestion that a universal tariff could be used to reshore U.S. industries and said he was open to using tariffs as a revenue-raising mechanism, a position that is anathema for many Democrats and some Republicans.
“I have not heard a single good economic argument for these sweeping universal tariffs,” the committee's ranking member, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told Greer.
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In a memorandum outlining his vision for U.S. trade policy, Trump directed the Office of the USTR to review whether China had lived up to its trade commitments under the phase one deal, which included purchase commitments for U.S. agriculture products worth around $30 billion above 2017 import levels.
Greer said he would oversee that study and “very quickly” bring China into compliance.
“It is of critical importance that China wants to trade with the United States,” Greer said, but that relationship should be predicated “on fair market access for our exporters.”
The USTR nominee argued that the administration and Congress need to reevaluate what the U.S.-China trade relationship looks like moving forward. He has previously pushed for an annual evaluation of whether China should keep its normalized trade relations. In the hearing Thursday, he argued that granting China permanent normal trade relationships when it joined the World Trade Organization had led to much of the U.S. manufacturing decline.
Economists have debated to what extent trade with China has contributed to offshoring of U.S. industries.
Senators from both parties also used the hearing to try to foster a closer relationship between the trade representative and Congress. Lawmakers from both parties have been critical of Biden’s USTR, Katherine Tai, for a lack of engagement with Congress on key trade issue.
“Any time the U.S. government is considering tariffs or something that implicates trade policy, [the USTR] should be part of those conversations, and report to us about those conversations and solicit our input,” Finance Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said in his opening statement.
“This committee can’t function if it is kept in the dark like it was over the past week,” Wyden added in his own opening statement.
Trump has suggested that Lutnick will lead the administration’s trade agenda, despite Congress delegating international trade policy to USTR. Wyden said he had used a meeting on Tuesday with Greer to get a sense of what role he would play in U.S. trade policymaking moving forward.
“I didn’t leave that conversation too confident that you would expect to be in the room when these kinds of trade decisions are being made,” Wyden said. “If that is still your view, I would be very concerned.”
Trump, Wyden said, has already used executive powers in novel ways to impose tariffs. Trade analysts and lawyers have suggested that a new 10% duty on China imposed with emergency executive powers could face legal challenges.
“In my view, it is a clear abuse of that law. If the USTR has no role in decisions like that, I’m not sure what their job is,” Wyden said. “Mr. Greer, I don’t envy your position. Based on last week, it’s unclear what say you’ll have in the administration, or whether you’ll have any at all,” Wyden said.
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