Jamieson Greer, an Air Force veteran and international trade lawyer, has been selected to serve as U.S. trade representative, the Trump transition said on Tuesday.
Greer, 44, was former USTR Robert Lighthizer’s chief of staff during Trump’s first term and had a hand in several of the administration’s signature trade efforts – including retooling the free-trade agreement with South Korea, negotiating the phase one agreement with China and securing congressional approval for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. He will join the administration from King and Spalding, an international law firm.
“His efforts under the former USTR, Bob Lighthizer, a spectacular leader and person, helped spur the return of Manufacturing jobs to America, and reverse decades of disastrous Trade policies,” a statement from the transition reads.
In his new role, Greer will be tasked with “reining in the Country’s massive Trade Deficit, defending American Manufacturing, Agriculture, and Services, and opening up Export Markets everywhere,” the statement added.
Both Greer and Lighthizer were reportedly working on economic and trade policy for the Trump transition. But with Greer headed to USTR and Trump’s picks for Commerce and Treasury already announced, questions remain over whether Lighthizer will have a prominent role in the next Trump administration.
How Greer’s role as USTR will work with other parts of the administration to craft U.S. trade policy is also an open question. In the announcement of Howard Lutnick’s nomination to lead the Commerce Department last week, the Trump transition team said the Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive officer would “lead our Tariff and Trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative.”
The statement prompted some to speculate whether Trump is eying a reorganization of departmental trade authorities. President Obama proposed merging Commerce and USTR, among other organizational shifts, in 2012, but faced strong opposition from the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees.
At a recent webinar hosted by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, former General Counsel for USTR Stephen Vaughn pointed out that there are certain functions required by statute that USTR, not Commerce, has to oversee.
“How tightly all of this is policed by the Congress is going to make a difference,” said Vaughn, who is a now a partner at King and Spalding.
The president can, however, choose whose counsel to seek on trade matters. “He'll decide who he wants to be meeting with, giving him advice,” Vaughn added.
Greer has been an outspoken supporter of using tariffs to help U.S. exporters compete in international markets. He complained to the New York Times in June that China and other countries have long engaged in unfair trade and tax practices to benefit their companies and disadvantage U.S. producers.
In written testimony to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in May, Greer called China “a generational challenge” and blamed Beijing for “decades of U.S. trade deficits in goods” and hollowing out the U.S. industrial base. During that appearance before the commission, he also endorsed revoking permanent normal trade relations with China, a proposal that has the support of lawmakers on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and was the subject of a bill introduced earlier this month by the committee’s chair, Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich.
He has also suggested that Congress examine whether other sectors receive government support like that provided to the semiconductor and clean technology sectors through the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
Greer did not respond to Agri-Pulse’s request for comment.
In addition to Greer, the Trump transition also announced on Tuesday that Kevin Hassett will serve as director of the White House National Economic Council, where he will work with other department and agency heads to implement the president's economic policy. Hassett was chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during the first Trump administration, where he “played a crucial role in helping to design and pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017,” a statement from the transition reads. Hassett will join the administration from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he is an economics fellow.
As director of the NEC, Hassett will not require Senate confirmation, unlike Greer at USTR.
“Together, we will renew and improve our record Tax Cuts, and ensure that we have Fair Trade with Countries that have taken advantage of the United States in the past,” the statement adds.
