On May 12, WITA discussed how carbon border adjustment measures (CBAM) fit in the context of national and multilateral efforts to reduce carbon’s impact on climate change. 

WITA Webinar Featuring:

Dave Banks, Fellow at Bipartisan Policy Center, Senior Fellow at Atlantic Council 

Andrew Shoyer, Partner and Co-Lead, Global Arbitration, Trade and Advocacy,  Sidley 

Madelaine Tuininga, European Commission, DG Trade Head of Unit for Sustainable Development and the European Green Deal

Moderator: Samantha Gross, Director, Energy Security and Climate Initiative, Brookings 

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

The post WITA Webinar: How Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms Fit in the Trade (and Environmental) Tool Box appeared first on WITA.

On May 5, 2021, WITA discussed Stronger: Adapting America’s China strategy in an age of competitive interdependence with the author, Ryan Hass, and an expert panel. 

WITA Webinar Featuring:

Ryan Hass, Senior Advisor, McLarty Associates, Scowcroft Group

Amy Celico, Principal, Albright Stonebridge Group

Wendy Cutler, Vice President and Managing Director, Asia Society Policy Institute

John Pomfret, Contributor, The Washington Post, Author of The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Amy Celico is a Principal of Albright Stonebridge Group (ASG), and leads the firm’s China team in Washington, DC. Drawing on more than 20 years of experience, Ms. Celico develops and implements tailored strategies for clients, helping them deepen relationships with key stakeholders, resolve complex problems, and build and expand their business.

Prior to joining ASG, Ms. Celico served as Senior Director for China Affairs at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, where she developed trade policy positions for bilateral discussions with China through the Strategic Economic Dialogue and the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade.

Previously, Ms. Celico served as Deputy Director of the Office of the Chinese Economic Area at the U.S. Department of Commerce; she has also worked at the U.S. Department of State, including as a diplomat stationed in Beijing and Shanghai. Prior to her government service, Ms. Celico was the Director of Development for the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies.

Ms. Celico earned a B.A. with honors in Asian Studies from Mount Holyoke College and completed her M.A. at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She speaks Mandarin Chinese and spent seven years living and working in China.

Ryan Hass is a Senior Advisor with McLarty Associates and Scowcroft Group, and provides strategic advice to clients on a global set of issues, with a particular focus on Asia and China. Hass also serves as a fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, where he holds a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies.

Hass previously served as the director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the National Security Council staff. In that role, he advised President Obama and senior White House officials on all aspects of US policy toward China, Taiwan, and Mongolia, and coordinated the implementation of US policy toward this region among U.S. government departments and agencies. He also worked closely with the US business community to address challenges that US stakeholders encountered in greater China. Hass joined President Obama’s state visit delegations in Beijing and Washington respectively in 2014 and 2015, and the president’s delegation to Nanjing, China, for the G-20 in 2016, and to Lima, Peru, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders Meetings in 2016.

Prior to joining NSC, Hass served as a Foreign Service Officer in US Embassy Beijing, where he earned the State Department Director General’s award for impact and originality in reporting, an award given annually to the officer whose reporting had the greatest impact on the formulation of US foreign policy. Hass also served in Embassy Seoul and Embassy Ulaanbaatar, and domestically in the State Department Offices of Taiwan Coordination and Korean Affairs.

Hass was born and raised in Washington state. He graduated from the University of Washington and attended the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies prior to joining the State Department. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

John Pomfret, raised in New York City and educated at Stanford and Nanjing universities, is an award-winning journalist who worked with the Washington Post for several decades. He currently is a contributing writer to the Post’s Global Opinions section.

Pomfret was a foreign correspondent for 20 years and spent eight years covering big wars and small in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Sri Lanka and Iraq. Pomfret spent seven years covering China—one in the late 1980s during the Tiananmen Square protests and then from 1997 until the end of 2003 as the bureau chief for the Washington Post in Beijing. Pomfret ran the Post’s Outlook section and covered U.S. relations with Asia. 

In 2003, he won he Osborne Elliot Award for the best coverage of Asia. In 2007, Pomfret was awarded the Shorenstein Award from Harvard and Stanford universities for his lifetime coverage of Asia. In 1996, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his work in Congo.

Pomfret is the author of the best-selling “Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China” (1996). His latest book, “The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present” (2016) was awarded the 2017 Arthur Ross Award by the Council on Foreign Relations. His new book, “From Warsaw With Love: Polish Spies, the CIA and the Making of an Unlikely Alliance” will be published in October 2021. Pomfret has also partnered with a leading Chinese business executive to write his memoirs.

Pomfret speaks, reads and writes Mandarin, having spent two years at Nanjing University in the early 1980s as part of one of the first groups of American students to study in China. He graduated from Stanford University with a BA and MA in East Asian Studies. 

Wendy Cutler is Vice President at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) and the managing director of the Washington, D.C. office. In these roles, she focuses on building ASPI’s presence in the nation’s capital and on leading initiatives that address challenges related to trade, investment and innovation, as well as women’s empowerment in Asia.

She joined ASPI following an illustrious career of nearly three decades as a diplomat and negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), where she also served as Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative. During her USTR career, she worked on a range of bilateral, regional and multilateral trade negotiations and initiatives, including the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, the Trans Pacific Partnership, U.S.-China negotiations and the WTO Financial Services negotiations. She has published a series of ASPI papers on the Asian trade landscape, and serves as a regular media commentator on trade and investment developments in Asia and the world.  

The post WITA China Roundtable: A New U.S. Strategy for an Age of Competitive Interdependence appeared first on WITA.

On April 29, 2021, WITA discussed the efforts to create a global minimum tax, and related international tax and trade issues.

PROGRAM AGENDA 

Welcome: 10:00 AM (US/Eastern)

• Kenneth Levinson, Executive Director, WITA

• Lilian V. Faulhaber, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
• Loren C. Ponds, Member, Miller & Chevalier Chartered – former Chief Tax Counsel, Ways & Means Republican
• Bob Stack, Managing Director, Washington National Tax | International Tax Group, Deloitte Tax LLP
• Moderator: Antonia Ferrier, Chief Strategic Communications Officer, CGCN Group

• Q & A with Audience – Webinar attendees are encouraged to use the Q&A function on the Zoom app to submit their questions in real time.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

The post WITA Webinar on Proposals for a Global Minimum Tax appeared first on WITA.

On February 25, 2021, WITA held an event looking into the effects of the pandemic on global supply chains.

The global pandemic, spreading around the world for over a year, has massively disrupted global supply chains. This has undermined the delicate equilibrium at the world’s ports, where the interests of consumers, farmers, and manufacturers meet shipping, air freight, rail, trucking, and logistics.

PROGRAM AGENDA

Welcome

• Kenneth I. Levinson, Executive Director, Washington International Trade Association

Remarks and Panelist Discussion

• Karyn Booth, Partner and Transportation Practice Group Leader, Thompson Hine LLP
• Dr. Noel Hacegaba, Deputy Executive Director / COO, The Port of Long Beach
• Nate Herman, Senior Vice President, Policy, American Apparel & Footwear Association
• Weston LaBar, Chief Executive Officer, Harbor Trucking Association
• Moderator, Lori Ann LaRocco, Sr. Editor of Guests, CNBC Business News, Breaking News/Booking

Followed by: 

• Q & A with Audience Moderated by Ken – Webinar attendees are encouraged to use the Q&A function on the Zoom app to submit their questions in real time.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Karyn Booth is a partner and leader of Thompson Hine’s Transportation group. Karyn represents US importers and exporters, and 3PLs and NVOCCS, on international ocean shipping and related intermodal transportation matters. She has been at the forefront of major policy reforms and proceedings before the US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) involving demurrage and detention, passage and implementation of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1998, and modernization of the rules governing cargo loss and damage occurring during sea transport. Karyn was counsel to the Coalition for Fair Port Practices which led the efforts at the FMC resulting in a rule on reasonable demurrage and detention practices and was an industry advisor to the US delegation that negotiated the Rotterdam Rules before UNCITRAL. She serves as general counsel to The National Industrial Transportation League, one of the nation’s oldest organizations who serves as the “voice of the shipper” in freight transportation policy matters and is a recent past President of the Association for Transportation Law Professionals.  

Karyn has been consistently recognized for her work in transportation law by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, The Best Lawyers in America, and Washington, DC Super Lawyers. America’s Leading Lawyers named her “Lawyer of the Year” in Washington D.C. in 2017. 

Karyn’s practice is multi-modal and she is a strategic advisor for companies on compliance with transportation laws and regulations and has extensive experience with contracts involving ocean carriers, 3PLS, NVOCCs, warehouseman and other service providers. Based in Washington, DC, she routinely practices before federal transportation agencies, such as the FMC, Surface Transportation Board (STB), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). 

Dr. Noel Hacegaba is responsible for managing the day-to-day administration and operations of the Port of Long Beach, North America’s second-busiest container port. Previously, he served as the Port’s Chief Commercial Officer and successfully managed the Port’s commercial operations during a period of significant industry realignment. He led the recovery of its largest terminal following the biggest bankruptcy in shipping line industry history, setting the path for record cargo volumes in 2017 and 2018.

Dr. Hacegaba has more than 24 years of public and private sector experience spanning a variety of industries. Prior to joining the Port, he managed $200 million in contracts for a Fortune 500 company. Dr. Hacegaba is a graduate of the University of Southern California, where he earned degrees in economics (BA and MA), business administration (BS) and planning (MPL). He also earned his doctorate degree in public administration from the University of La Verne.  

He currently serves on the Boards of various industry and non-profit organizations, including the Marine Exchange of Southern California and the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA), where he serves as Chairman of the Board.

Nate Herman oversees AAFA’s government relations department, managing the association’s lobbying, policy, and regulatory affairs activities. Nate leads AAFA’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) program, formulating and implementing CSR policy and representing AAFA and the industry on CSR issues before governments, NGOs, and other key stakeholders. In addition, Nate develops all apparel and footwear industry data and statistics as AAFA’s resident economist.

Prior to joining AAFA, Nate worked for six years at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration assisting U.S. firms in entering the global market. Nate spent the last two years as the Department’s industry analyst for the footwear and travel goods industries.

Nate received a Masters of Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh in 1994 and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Economics from the University of Delaware in 1992.

Weston LaBar is the Chief Executive Officer of the Harbor Trucking Association and founding President and CEO of Ventures 52 a bespoke Private Equity Advisory focused on early-stage freight technology start-ups. He has a decade of experience as a strategic advisor and executive while managing trade associations, as well as large advocacy and external affairs projects. He is active in local, state, and federal policy making on goods movement and international trade.

As CEO of the HTA, Weston has lead countless initiatives with other stakeholders in the global supply-chain to increase port productivity. The HTA has been an industry leader in developing and adopting technology solutions that create efficiencies with various partners and have become the industry voice for the national drayage community. 

Lori Ann LaRocco is senior editor of guests for CNBC business news. She coordinates high profile interviews and special multi-million dollar on-location productions for all shows on the network. Her specialty is in politics, working with titans of industry. LaRocco is the author of: “Trade War: Containers Don’t Lie, Navigating the Bluster” (Marine Money Inc., 2019) “Dynasties of the Sea: The Untold Stories of the Postwar Shipping Pioneers” (Marine Money Inc., 2018), “Opportunity Knocking” (Agate Publishing, 2014), “Dynasties of the Sea: The Ships and Entrepreneurs Who Ushered in the Era of Free Trade” (Marine Money, 2012), and “Thriving in the New Economy: Lessons from Today’s Top Business Minds” (Wiley, 2010).

LaRocco has been working at the network since 2000. Her track record has garnered the trust and respect from Wall Street rainmakers to Washington. Establishing relationships with some of the best in business, LaRocco’s contacts have told her first of business deals in the billions of dollars, enabling CNBC to break the news first.

Prior to joining CNBC, LaRocco was an anchor, reporter and assignment editor in various local news markets around the country.

Kenneth Levinson is the Executive Director of the Washington International Trade Association (WITA). WITA is Washington’s largest non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to providing a neutral forum in the U.S. capital for the open and robust discussion of international trade policy and economic issues. WITA has over 4,000 members, and more than 170 corporate sponsors and group memberships.

Previously, Ken served as Senior Director for Global Government Affairs for AstraZeneca. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Ken served as Senior Vice President and COO at the Washington, DC consulting firm of Fontheim International. Ken started his career on the staff of U.S. Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, where he served as the Senator’s chief advisor for international trade, tax, foreign policy, and national security.

Ken received a Master’s degree in European History from New York University after doing his undergraduate work at the University of Massachusetts, in Amherst. Ken also spent a year studying at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Ken and his wife, the Reverend Donna Marsh, live in Bethesda, MD, with their two daughters.

The post WITA Webinar: COVID, Supply Chains and the Crisis at the Ports appeared first on WITA.

On November 12th WITA looked at what the U.S. Presidential election might mean for American trade policy in the years to come, with a bipartisan panel of experts who served in senior roles in Congress and the Administration. Welcome and Opening Remarks 

PROGRAM AGENDA

Welcome and Opening Remarks

• Kenneth I. Levinson, Executive Director, Washington International Trade Association

Remarks and Discussion

• Nasim Fussell, Partner, Holland & Knight; and former Chief International Trade Counsel, Senate Finance Committee
• Ambassador Robert Holleyman, Partner, Crowell & Moring LLP and President & CEO, C&M International; and former Deputy USTR
• Brian Pomper, Partner, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP; and former Chief International Trade Counsel, Senate Finance Committee
• Stephen P. Vaughn, Partner, King & Spalding; and former USTR General Counsel, and Acting USTR
• Moderator, Stephanie Lester, Senior Director, Government Affairs, Gap Inc.

Followed by:

• Q & A with Audience – Webinar attendees are encouraged to use the Q&A function on the Zoom app to submit their questions in real time.

Event Close

The post WITA Post-Election Analysis with The Trade Insiders appeared first on WITA.

The post E-commerce, Trade, Tax and the WTO Moratorium on Customs Duties on Electronic Transmissions appeared first on WITA.

Closing Plenary – Trade and American Values

By: James Dail

On January 29^th, 2019 the Washington International Trade Association held a panel discussion entitled “Closing Plenary – Trade and American Values” as a part of the inaugural Washington International Trade Conference. The panel sought to examine trade policy through the lens of America’s founding values, with the goal of determining whether our current trade regime has succeeded in living up to those values. Featured panelists included Thea Lee, the President of the Economic Policy Institute, Walter Russell Mead, a Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at the Hudson Institute, and Michael Anton, a Lecturer in Politics and a Distinguished Fellow at Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center in Washington. Grant Aldonas, the Executive Director of the Institute of International Economic Law at Georgetown University, moderated the panel.

Aldonas opened the discussion by explaining why the values of liberty and equality specifically are central to America’s founding. His objective was for the panelists to determine if there is an existing moral framework in how the United States trades with the rest of the world, and if yes, to explore its success at living up to the values of liberty and equality. He continued on to mention the profound opportunity the country has to reform our trading system to live up to these values at the present moment, when discussions around trade policy are at the forefront of the nation’s political discourse. Aldonas concluded his opening remarks by stating that each panelist will have the opportunity to give an introductory exposition on the topic.

Thea Lee was the first panelist to speak, beginning her comments by noting that, while she was a critic of current United States trade policy, she was not opposed to either trade in concept or the entrance of the United States into the global economy. She went on to say that it is crucial that we discover what the correct set of trade policies are for the United States. She proposed three questions that we can ask ourselves in order to find the answer. First, what are we trying to accomplish with trade? Second, how do we measure our success? Third, how do we express our values to the world and achieve our goals through a combination of trade policy and domestic policy?

Thea’s next point was that we have a tendency to start the conversation around trade policy in the wrong place, with a goal in mind of eliminating the barriers to trade. Instead, we should view trade policy as a tool to accomplish our goals around the world. These goals could include everything from providing both domestic and foreign workers with good jobs, creating safe consumer goods, cleaning up the environment, or fostering good relations with other countries. We need to find a way to engage with the global economy in a way that will foster these values, as well as democratic decision-making in other countries. Through the trade rules we set, the United States communicates the issues it cares about to the rest of the world. At present, too much of what is written in our trade rules expresses our love for corporate profits, and not enough has been written to express our desire for good jobs and workers’ rights. One example of this is that, when China joined the World Trade Organization, there was nothing in the thousands of pages of accession documents about human rights or workers’ protections. This is at least partly because the United States is refraining from applying the pressure needed to make them into international rules for trade.

After Thea Lee concluded her comments, Grant Aldonas connected what she had said with his opening remarks, stating that our trade policy should not necessarily be focused on the values of freedom and equality, but on the means by which we can achieve those values.

Walter Russell Mead was the next to speak, citing a number of statistics indicating that humanity’s condition is improving around the world, such as that infant mortality has fallen in half since 1990. Mead argued that the economic growth stimulated by international trade liberalization has been the key driver to these improvements in developing countries. Due to this, it is difficult to argue that the architects of our current international trading order were wrong about everything. However, there is no question that the results have been mixed for developed countries. The political situation in both America and Europe clearly indicates that many are not satisfied with the status quo. It is essential that we examine all aspects of the current trading regime to determine both what is working, as well as how we can fix what is not working. For both Republicans and Democrats, this will require some difficult conversations. In both parties, there is a desire to return to the past in some fashion. The Republicans propose an economic system with low taxation and low regulation as its defining features. The Democrats want a return to an economy where everyone has access to a stable job for life and the distribution of wealth is far more equitable.

Yet a return to the past in either form might be difficult, as an economic and a social revolution have created cultural upheaval. Mead used the industrial revolution as an example to illustrate how the United States survived cultural upheaval in the past. When we changed from being a country full yeoman farmers to a country of city-based manufacturers, the economic situation of all facets of society improved in the long-run, but the transition period was tumultuous. In comparison to the present day, this experience suggests that there is hope in the future, but the United States will need to learn to navigate the dangers of the present. Mead also spoke about how, for the past several decades, the United States has been crafting policy around economic theory with the expectation that it will be easily understood by the general public. He emphasized that, while economic theory is essential in crafting good trade policy, trade policy and economic theory are fundamentally different things. This revolt against the status quo in the United States is the revenge of the real world against policies that only took theory into account.

           After Mead concluded his opening remarks, Grant Aldonas connected them with what Thea Lee said. He stated that Mead implied that when government officials craft trade policy, it is essential that they secure the support of the general public. United States trade policy needs to take into account our traditional democratic values as well as the opinion of the general public. These go hand in hand. In the Midwest especially, the collective attitude towards trade policy has every bit as much to do with their individual identities as Americans as it does with the price of automobiles.

Mead interjected here, adding to Aldonas’s comments regarding American identity by stating that this extends beyond trade policy. Everyone would like to return to the quality jobs of the 1960s. They had stability, the promise of a nice pension, and the feeling that one was contributing to society. However, no one wants to return to the products produced in the 1960s. Thea Lee objected to this statement, saying that she didn’t believe this was a mutually exclusive choice. Good jobs for workers coupled with well-made products is an attainable goal for the United States. Walter Mead clarified his comments, saying that his point was that we should not be trying to return to utopia. Instead, we should be finding ways to meet human needs in the present.

After this, the discussion turned to the opening comments of Michael Anton. Anton is a student of the Founding Fathers, and he wanted to give what he deemed “the founding approach” to American trade policy. At the same time, he made the admission that times change and it is impossible to take the founding approach in all aspects of trade policy. Anton began his founding approach by stating that Hamilton won his great debate with Jefferson over the economic character of the new nation. We became a nation of manufacturing and industry, not of agrarian farming. Anton pointed out that Hamilton’s protectionist beliefs were initially essential to his manufacturing vision. Hamilton argued that tariffs were necessary to expand the United States’ infant manufacturing sector so that it could compete with the well-established European manufacturers. This initial economic debate between Hamilton and Jefferson was the precursor to a centuries long debate between America’s political parties. Historically, the Republicans have supported protectionism and the Democrats have supported free-trade. The parties switched identities on this issue during the last two decades of the 20^th century. What we are seeing today is a reversion to the norm. After this, Michael explained the fueling force behind this reversion. He stated that the manufacturing towns that were adversely affected by factory closings were not heard by the political elites when they voiced their objections. In these towns, it was always possible to get a job at the local factory and still have a relatively good life. Suddenly, that was no longer a possibility for these people. They responded to this by casting their blame on the political elites who argued that the trade deals accelerating these factory closings was economically efficient. Anton then used this point to criticize political elites, saying that an elite’s job is to make sure that every segment of the economy is healthy, not just the aggregate whole. There is something gravely wrong if two coasts of the country are living in intellectual silos and are oblivious to the pent-up anger of Americans in the rest of the country. The President is responding to this anger and desires that the nation’s trading agreements address the concerns of those who elected him.

After Anton concluded his comments, Aldonas gave commentary about Anton’s thoughts on manufacturing decline. Aldonas said that he grew up in South Minneapolis, where the majority of his high school classmates became auto mechanics. In many ways, his classmates have achieved the American dream. They all have a home on a lake, and their kids have all gone to college. However, Aldonas disputed the idea that a sense of identity had been lost through the decline of these sorts of jobs. Instead, he asserted that they had very little identity rooted in their work in the first place. They never had the feeling that their work was meaningful, and therefore, they never had the feeling of participating in the country in a meaningful way.

After Grant Aldonas finished, Thea Lee took the conversation in a different direction, returning to Anton’s comments. She disagreed with his point that the President is actively working to resolve the anger of his constituents. Rather, she argued that the President has succeeded in tapping into this anger, but he has failed to formulate any effective policy response. She responded more positively to another point of his believing that the depleted manufacturing towns demonstrate that workers, both in the United States and around the world, are hurt when corporate interests are prioritized in trade negotiations.

Michael Anton responded by asserting that, to the Founding Fathers, the well-being of workers in other countries would be a secondary or tertiary consideration compared to the well-being of the United States and its citizens.

Aldonas jumped into the conversation with his own point, saying that it feels as if we have migrated away from both caring for the well-being of our workers and for exporting our democratic norms when we negotiate trade agreements. A return to these root values might lead us out of this conflict.

Walter Mead was the next to speak, agreeing with Aldonas’s earlier point that it is critical for all aspects of American society to feel as if they are connected to the country through their work and be represented by their government. He also pointed out that this connection has declined through population growth. He argued that, though women and minorities were denied suffrage, the early republic was more responsive to individual citizens, considering that it had a population of 3 million compared to 330 million today. A common way people overcome this lack of individuality is to adopt a group mentality. However, when people place their allegiances to their social groups above their allegiances to their country, nasty conflicts can be the result.

Thea Lee spoke up next, arguing with Michael Anton that it is actually in our self-interest as a country to advocate for democracy and worker’s rights in our trading partners. To emphasize this, she used the example that it is not inherently altruistic to advocate for reduced carbon emissions from other countries. It is actually in our self-interest because that will help mitigate the effects of climate change.

Anton responded by clarifying his point, saying that the Founding Fathers would certainly care about the well-being of our trading partners’ citizens, but that they would not prioritize it above the well-being of the American people. He also gave another comment on the United States’ political elite, saying that regardless of whether or not one fully believes in this administration’s ability to negotiate with other nations, the overwhelmingly negative response to any alteration in our current trade regime from the elite corners of society has made it difficult for this administration to produce an effective policy response. Anton concluded the panel by mentioning that during the Cold War, there was a divergence between diplomatic and economic interests when it came to trade deals. Economists might have argued that a particular trade agreement might not benefit the United States economically, but diplomats might have argued that it was in the national interest to stabilize another country’s economy so that it would not succumb to Communism.

Featuring:

Grant Aldonas, Executive Director, Institute of International Economic Law at the Georgetown University Law Center

Michael Anton, Lecturer in Politics and Research Fellow, Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center

Thea Lee, President, Economic Policy Institute

Walter Russell Mead, Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship, Hudson Institute

To view more details about the event, visit the event page here.

The post WITC: Closing Plenary — Trade and American Values appeared first on WITA.

To view Bruce Stokes’ presentation slides on American views on Trade in Year Three of the Trump Administration, please click here

Featuring:

Kimberly Ellis, Partner, Monument Advocacy

J.D. Grom, Executive Director, New Democrat Coalition

Robert Moran, Partner, Brunswick Insight

Bruce Stokes, Director of Global Economic Attitudes, Pew Research Center

To view more details about the event, visit the event page here.

The post WITC: Trade Politics in the Age of Trump appeared first on WITA.

Featuring:

Lionel C. Johnson, President, Pacific Pension & Investment Institute

Hampton Dowling, Managing Partner, HCB Group LLC

Dr. Maria Vassalou, Partner, Perella Weinberg Partners

To view more details about the event, visit the event page here.

The post WITC: What Do Global Investors Think About During a Trade War? appeared first on WITA.

Featuring:

Stephen Lamar, Executive Vice President, American Apparel & Footwear Association

Tim Bell, Additive Manufacturing Business Manager, Siemens Digital Factory Division

Andy Brown, Executive Director of Supply Chain Transformation, Ernst & Young

Ralph Carter, Vice President of International Regulatory Affairs, FedEx Express

Melissa Nelson, Vice President and General Counsel, SanMar Corporation

To view more details about the event, visit the event page here.

The post WITC: The Future of Trade — a NextGenTrade® Discussion of Technology, Trade Facilitation & Global Value Chains appeared first on WITA.