NCCR - New Directions in US Trade Policy: Priorities for the Obama Administration?

The central focus of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on dealing with the current economic crisis will likely affect the pace and tone of pending policy decisions regarding the new Administration’s trade policy, including key appointments.
What do the recent electoral results in the US executive and legislative branches portend for future US engagement in world trade? For the completion of the Doha Round? For the approval of pending preferential trade agreements? For the substantive content of future trade rules, notably in regard to labour and environmental issues?
How will the new administration balance its acknowledged need for a renewed commitment to multilateralism in the conduct of US foreign policy with mounting pressures to shield American workers and key sectors of the US economy from the full force of the current economic downturn?

These and other key questions will be addressed by Jeffrey J. Schott, one of the most astute observers of US trade politics and the author of several important recent publications devoted to the subject. The presentation will be followed with comments by H.E. Luzius Wasescha, Switzerland's Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organization, the European Free Trade Association and the United Nations in Geneva.

Biography of the speaker

Jeffrey J. Schott joined the Peterson Institute for International Economics in 1983 and is a senior fellow working on international trade policy and economic sanctions. During his tenure at the Institute, Schott was also a visiting lecturer at Princeton University (1994) and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University (1986–88). He was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1982–83) and an official of the US Treasury Department (1974–82) in international trade and energy policy. During the Tokyo Round of multilateral trade negotiations, he was a member of the US delegation that negotiated the GATT Subsidies Code. Since January 2003, he has been a member of the Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee of the US government. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy of the US Department of State.

Schott is the author, co-author, or editor of several books on trade, including Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 3rd edition (2007), Trade Relations Between Colombia and the United States (2006), NAFTA Revisited: Achievements and Challenges (2005), Free Trade Agreements: US Strategies and Priorities (2004), Prospects for Free Trade in the Americas (2001), Free Trade between Korea and the United States? (2001), NAFTA and the Environment: Seven Years Later (2000), The WTO After Seattle (2000), Restarting Fast Track (1998), The World Trading System: Challenges Ahead (December 1996), The Uruguay Round: An Assessment (1994), Western Hemisphere Economic Integration (1994), NAFTA: An Assessment (1993), North American Free Trade: Issues and Recommendations (1992), Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: History and Current Policy (second edition, 1990), Completing the Uruguay Round (1990), Free Trade Areas and U.S. Trade Policy (1989), and The Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement: The Global Impact (1988), as well as numerous articles on US trade policy and the GATT.

Schott holds a BA degree magna cum laude from Washington University, St. Louis (1971), and an MA degree with distinction in international relations from the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University (1973).

Place: Silva Casa Auditorium, World Trade Institute, Hallerstrasse 6, 3012 Bern.