Chairman Crapo, Ranking Member Wyden, and Members of this Committee, I am honored to appear before you today as President Trump's nominee for Deputy United States Trade Representative and United States Ambassador to the World Trade Organization. I am grateful to President Trump and Ambassador Greer for their trust and confidence. I appreciate the time that Members and Staff of the Committee have spent with me, and I look forward to working with you if I am confirmed.
I also want to express my appreciation to my family, many of whom are present today. I am grateful to my father and my late mother, as well as my four siblings, and I am particularly thankful for the support of my wife, Susan, and my children, Joseph, Clare, and Timothy.
I was honored in 2019 when Robert Lighthizer asked me to join USTR as its General Counsel and when he subsequently asked me to serve as Acting Deputy United States Trade Representative. I learned a tremendous amount working every day with Ambassador Lighthizer and admired his commitment to making trade work for all Americans.
While at USTR, I also worked side by side with Jamieson Greer. His deep knowledge of trade laws, commitment to our country, and skills in forging consensus and exhibiting leadership were extraordinary. I very much look forward to working with Ambassador Greer again if I am confirmed.
The United States has benefitted tremendously from international trade over the course of our history. But in recent decades, many Americans have been hurt by trade policies and practices that did not always place the American economy and the American worker first and that depended upon a faith that all of our trading partners would play by the rules—a faith we now know to be misplaced. President Trump's America First Trade Policy aims to make trade work for the benefit of all Americans, by creating jobs, promoting innovation, strengthening our national defense, raising wages for our workers, and restoring our manufacturing capabilities.
Early in my tenure as USTR General Counsel, I traveled to Geneva and met with senior WTO officials and representatives from many of our key trading partners. As General Counsel, I supervised the litigation of WTO disputes, and our office issued a comprehensive report on the WTO Appellate Body. Those experiences made clear to me the many ways in which the WTO has fallen short of its great promise.
The WTO was designed to be an organization of like-minded Members committed to market-oriented policies. The WTO was founded to promote reciprocal arrangements to reduce trade barriers, predicated on free and fair competition in global markets. But the WTO has strayed from its founding purpose and has failed to achieve those objectives.
There are many reasons for this failure, chief among them is the admission to the WTO of non-market economies that are not committed to its founding principles, as well as the failure of many Members to meet their obligations under the WTO agreements. Moreover, the WTO's dispute settlement system drifted from the limited role its founders envisioned and took on a role more akin to a world trade court purporting to create new law that would bind the United States and other Members.
Despite these failings, I believe the WTO may still be able to reform in ways that will help it achieve its founders' goals. U.S. farmers, fishermen, ranchers, and businesses of all types will benefit from increasing access to the markets of WTO Members. This can be done by ensuring that WTO Members follow the rules.
If confirmed, my role will be to work in good faith with representatives of other WTO Members to advance the interests of the United States, whether directly through WTO bodies or indirectly through dialogue and collaboration with Members who share our concerns and are committed to the WTO principles of fairness and reciprocity.
Thank you for considering my nomination, and I look forward to answering your questions.
