Over the past few days, we have had some new announcements about staffing at USTR, and the Biden administration trade policy team is almost complete now. There are still the important Deputy USTR in Geneva and Chief Agriculture Negotiator positions to fill (as well as some other USTR and possibly some NSC positions as well), but here are a few of the key people in place, or soon to be, with a bit of background on each:
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai: "Tai previously served at USTR from 2007-2014, most recently as Chief Counsel for China Trade Enforcement." Before that, she was chief trade counsel of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Deputy U.S. Trade Representative (nominated) Sarah Bianchi: "In 2011, Ms. Bianchi was appointed by then Vice President Biden as his head of economic and domestic policy where she ran the economic and domestic policy team in the Office of the Vice President and coordinated all policy initiatives ranging from workforce competitiveness to manufacturing to budget negotiations. ... Bianchi has also served as a senior advisor to the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware where she worked on a variety of economic policies and served as Chair of the Institute's Policy Advisory Board."
Deputy U.S. Trade Representative (nominated) Jayme White: "Mr. White has served in the US Senate since 2009, including as the chief trade advisor for the Senate Committee on Finance since 2014, under the leadership of Chairman Ron Wyden."
General Counsel Greta Peisch: "Ms. Peisch has served as Senior International Trade Counsel on the Senate Finance Committee for Chairman Wyden since 2015."
Chief of Staff Nora Todd: "Prior to her service at USTR, Ms. Todd was Chief Economic Advisor for Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)."
Deputy Chief of Staff Ginna Lance: "Ms. Lance previously worked in the Office of then-Vice President Joe Biden, where she served as the Director of Scheduling and Deputy Director of Operations."
Senior Advisor Jamila Thompson: "Previously served as chief of staff to Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District, and deputy chief of staff for U.S. Representative John Lewis (GA)."
Counselor Brad W. Setser: "Prior to joining the Biden-Harris Administration, Mr. Setser was a senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, where his work covered global capital flows, financial vulnerability analysis, currency intervention, tax competition and trade imbalances."
Senior Advisor Mark Wu: Previously at USTR and on the faculty at Harvard Law School for a while now, Mark is the one who will be best known to many readers of this blog. His full list of papers on SSRN is here. Some noteworthy papers for current trade policy purposes are: "Managing the China Trade Challenge: Confronting the Limits of the WTO"; "The 'China, Inc.' Challenge to Global Trade Governance"; "The Next Generation of Trade and Environment Conflicts: The Rise of Green Industrial Policy"; "Why Developing Countries Won't Negotiate: The Case of the WTO Environmental Goods Agreement"; "Digital Trade-Related Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements: Existing Models and Lessons for the Multilateral Trade System."
Senior Advisor Beth Baltzan: "previously served as an attorney at USTR from 2003 to 2009 [and] served as Democratic Trade Counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee from 2012 to 2016." She is on the progressive critics side of the trade debate (on one side of the progressive side anyway, as many progressives I know would not go as far as she does), and among other things has written that: "we need to return to and update the trade principles in the Havana Charter. Those principles include engineering fair, competitive markets designed to limit corporate power." A model trade agreement she put together is here (a sampling: "there is a valid argument that the non-binding state-to-state dispute settlement regime that prevailed under the GATT may be as useful as the binding dispute settlement regime of the WTO.") I commented on one argument she made about USMCA in this blog post.
(A few other appointees are mentioned here, but I was trying to keep the list manageable. And if you're wondering what the role of a Deputy USTR is, Rufus Yerxa has an explanation here: "The deputy USTR is kind of the intermediary between the political level and the substantive and technical level of work in USTR, and, of course, you also have to be a good negotiator and a good politician.")
One thing that jumps out from this list is how many people have connections to Congress (more so than the usual USTR political appointee staffing, I think). I'm not sure there will be any substantial trade initiatives (like an FTA) that require Congressional approval in the near future, but nevertheless it will help to have Congress supporting the various things USTR wants to do, and these connections should help facilitate a good relationship between the branches.
Another important point may be the connections to Biden himself. I've heard a number of people suggesting that in the Biden administration, USTR under Tai will be pushed aside by the foreign policy crowd. While I think it's clear that trade will be less of a priority under Biden than it was under Trump, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the role of USTR in this administration. The trade folks may be able assert themselves, at least on some key issues, as they have technical expertise that others lack.
And finally, you don't see the connections to industry -- either directly or through legal representation -- that you saw with political appointees in the Trump administration. Could that have an impact on how a Tai USTR approaches policy-making? It's hard to imagine industry being shut out of policy-making entirely, but perhaps its relations with this USTR will operate a bit differently (or perhaps not, because the connections with other USTR staff will still be there).
In terms of the substance of trade policy, what I wonder is, how will this group interact with each other and with USTR career staff to forge a new U.S. trade policy? What will their vision be and where exactly will they take us? Will there be a proactive set of revisions to U.S. trade policy, or will things mostly be reactive? I think we know how they will frame it all, as worker-oriented and pursuing social justice in some way, but that doesn't tell you much on some aspects of trade policy. In terms of specific policies, such as dealing with China's trade practices, or WTO reform, or digital trade, we are all eagerly awaiting some indication of the specific path forward.
And there are likely to be complex linkages between some of these issues, such as China and WTO dispute settlement. Many people, including Biden himself, have emphasized that the U.S. should work together with the Europeans and other allies more on China trade issues ("let's build a united front of allies to challenge China's abusive behavior"). But can that united front really happen without addressing current conflicts such as the WTO dispute settlement crisis? The Europeans have shifted their rhetoric on the Appellate Body to accept more of the U.S. concerns, and I think they are expecting a concrete U.S. proposal in this area. I hope USTR is working on something in this regard, because if not it is likely to be significantly more difficult to form that united front. (Along the same lines, this was definitely helpful: "The Biden administration has ceased its push to exclude essential medicines and other critical medical inputs from its government procurement coverage at the World Trade Organization, avoiding a first test of the Government Procurement Agreement’s arbitration procedures and the potential for retaliation from other members.")
