WASHINGTON, Jan. 4, 2017 - Trump filled the last major trade
position in his administration on Tuesday by announcing that trade lawyer
Robert Lighthizer would become U.S. Trade Representative. Lighthizer, who served in USTR during the
Reagan administration, is known for pursuing trade actions against China on
behalf of U.S. companies and has served on Trump’s USTR transition team.
The nomination fits with Trump’s promise to get tough with
China on trade. Bill Brock, who was U.S. trade representative from 1981 to
1985, says Lighthizer’s philosophy is in line with Trump’s. Lighthizer became
deputy USTR shortly before Brock left. “Most of his work in the trade field has
been more on the industrial side and more on the protectionist side. In that
sense, he clearly would have been chosen to reflect the president-elect’s
philosophy and his campaign commitments,” said Brock.
On the other hand,
Brock says the nomination of someone with Lighthizer’s credentials suggests
that Trump may not be downgrading USTR to the extent it has appeared he might
be doing. The transition team has said that Trump’s nominee for the
Commerce Department, Wilbur Ross, would take the lead on trade policy, and
Trump is also forming a National Trade Council in the White House run by China
hawk Peter Navarro. “Knowing Lighthizer, and knowing the respect the Trump team
obviously has for him, I would hope that they are going to go to the more
traditional pattern” where USTR is the lead agency on trade policy, Brock said.
Some trade critics are pleased with the choice of
Lighthizer. Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, said
he has “quite a different perspective”
on trade policy than GOP congressional leaders. He “is very
knowledgeable about both technical trade policy and the ways of Washington, but
what sets him aside among high-level Republican trade experts is that for
decades his views have been shaped by the pragmatic outcomes of trade
agreements and policies rather than fealty to any particular ideology or
theory,” she said.
The National Milk Producers Federation and U.S. Dairy Export
Council said in a joint statement that Lighthizer’s experience in trade
enforcement would “serve him well in forging a path forward on trade policy
that will benefit this country.” The statement went on, “A focus on preserving
and growing what is working well, while cracking down further on what is not,
will help to expand global markets for U.S. dairy farmers and the companies
that turn their milk into nutritious dairy products shipped all over the
world.”
According to Lighthizer’s bio,
while at USTR he negotiated about two dozen bilateral agreements on products
ranging from steel to grain.
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