Robert Lighthizer Quote

Unlike national legal systems, there are precious few avenues to address judicial activism at the WTO. You pretty much have to gain consensus to change the agreements, or simply withdraw from the system. The first is nearly impossible, and the second would be - in the view of many - cataclysmic.

Robert Lighthizer

Unlike national legal systems, there are precious few avenues to address judicial activism at the WTO. You pretty much have to gain consensus to change the agreements, or simply withdraw from the system. The first is nearly impossible, and the second would be - in the view of many - cataclysmic.

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About Robert Lighthizer

Robert Emmet Lighthizer (; born October 11, 1947) is an American attorney and government official who was the United States Trade Representative in the Donald Trump administration from 2017 to 2021.
After he graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 1973, Lighthizer joined the firm of Covington and Burling in Washington, D.C. He left the firm in 1978 to work as chief minority counsel and later staff director and chief of staff of the Senate Committee on Finance under Chairman Bob Dole. In 1983, Robert Lighthizer was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be Deputy U.S. Trade Representative for President Ronald Reagan. In 1985, Lighthizer joined the Washington office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP as a partner and led the firm's international trade group.
On January 3, 2017, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he intended to nominate Lighthizer as his U.S. Trade Representative. Lighthizer was confirmed by the Senate on May 11, 2017, by a vote of 82–14. Lighthizer was an architect of American trade policy during Trump's presidency. A protectionist, trade skeptic and China hawk, he embroiled the United States in trade wars with China and the European Union, as well as weakened the World Trade Organization Appellate Body.
Along with other Cabinet-level officials in the Trump Administration, he left office on January 20, 2021, following the inauguration of President Joe Biden.