Two deals in hand but no holiday cheer for US trade chief
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was looking forward to some holiday peace and quiet after wrapping up trade deals with the United States' most important trading partners - China, Mexico, and Canada - last week.
Instead, the long-standing member of President Donald Trump's inner circle who normally eschews public appearances found himself doing wall-to-wall interviews, scrambling to correct a misunderstanding with the Mexican government and taking heat from his fellow Republicans in Congress.
The conservative Wall Street Journal carried an opinion piece that said the Trump administration had bowed to "politically managed trade" in agreeing to Democratic demands to revamp the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), while former USTR officials and investment analysts panned the Phase 1 U.S.-China trade deal as falling far short of expectations.
Lighthizer, 72, is an anomaly in today's hyper-partisan Washington, a powerful member of Trump's White House who has won sometimes grudging praise from Democrats and Republicans, while keeping the ear and respect of the president throughout.
The USTR chief was "the most present person from this administration that I have seen in my three years in Congress," said U.S. Representative Jimmy Panetta, a Democrat. "He was all over the place, and I think that helped out quite a bit."
Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO labor union, whose support for USMCA was critical to ensuring congressional backing, called Lighthizer "an honorable man," adding, "I've worked with him for 35, 40 years, and we've always been able to work deals out because I know when he tells me something, it's good."
The USMCA, which will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the China trade deal were two of Trump's top priorities, and landing them both in the same week was a public relations triumph.
But the efforts to reel in those deals took longer and proved harder than expected, and triggered further questions. Critics say some of that is a byproduct of Lighthizer's tight-fisted negotiating style. Congressional sources and former U.S. government officials say he is always well-prepared, but can appear arrogant and unwilling to delegate.
Lighthizer is also prone to slamming down the phone in anger, Representative Richard Neal, the Democratic chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, told reporters last week.
Tasked with resetting the main U.S. trading relationships in the world to reflect the Trump administration's conviction that the United States has been taken advantage of for years, Lighthizer has taken to the job like a duck to water.
There is little daylight between Trump and the Georgetown Universityeducated Ohio native on the key planks of an "America First" policy that is aimed at rebalancing the global trading arena in favor of U.S. workers and companies.
Lighthizer, who was a deputy trade negotiator in the Reagan administration in the 1980s, honed his views during a lengthy career as a private international trade lawyer. Among his clients were U.S. steel companies struggling to compete against heavily subsidized imports from China.
He "understands the president better than most," and wants to significantly change the way trade is done, a veteran U.S. trade negotiator said on condition of anonymity.
Dismantling the World Trade Organization, moving away from multilateral trade agreements and using steel and aluminum tariffs to punish countries accused of hurting U.S. industry are policies Lighthizer accepts, the source said.
But it's his negotiating style as well as that of others in the Trump administration that has generated much criticism.
The Trump trade team often refuses to commit negotiations to paper while discussions are underway, according to multiple congressional sources, and Lighthizer, unlike his predecessors, has clamped down on background conversations with reporters.