Published 17 June 2025
Long before protectionism became de rigueur for Washington’s politicians, Robert Lighthizer, Donald Trump’s first USTR, was espousing tough positions against US trade partners and hostility toward the WTO. Even so, no one doubted he was a formidable operator who understood the politics of trade and the intricacies of trade policy. As the world reels from the trade chaos in the second Trump administration, could a sense of yearning be brewing for a return to the age of Lighthizer?
Few who know Robert Lighthizer consider him gentle company.
US Trade Representative during Donald Trump’s first administration and top trade advisor to Trump’s political campaigns, Lighthizer’s reputation as a caustic, sharp-elbowed negotiator is well earned. Those who go up against him know he goes for the jugular and those who defy him can expect a sharp rebuke.
He set in train a process that led to the dismantling of the dispute settlement system at the World Trade Organization by repeatedly blocking the appointment of jurists to the WTO Appellate Body. When governments voiced concern over this crippling of what had been considered the organization’s crown jewel and the WTO’s former Director-General asked for his help to repair the system, Lighthizer responded, "We’ve already fixed it."
In January 2021, he told the Financial Times that Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Nigerian finance minister and then a candidate to become WTO Director-General, that she had "no experience in trade at all" and that the WTO needed "a person who actually knows trade, not somebody from the World Bank who does development." He directed the US mission in Geneva to block her appointment, and it stayed blocked until Joe Biden became President and Okonjo-Iweala assumed the post she still holds.1
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His bare-knuckles approach to trade when he was USTR – imposing swingeing tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum and browbeating Canada, Mexico, and South Korea into renegotiating existing agreements were very much in keeping with his longstanding views about trade. Long before protectionism became de rigueur for Washington’s politicians, Lighthizer was espousing tough positions against US trade partners and hostility toward the WTO. Even then, while few in Geneva agreed with his views, no one doubted he was a formidable operator who understood the politics of trade and the intricacies of trade policy.
As USTR, Lighthizer was perhaps the only cabinet member in the first Trump administration whose reputation was enhanced by his service. He garnered praise from Republicans and Democrats, business, and trade unions. His tenure was marked by the clever use of US statutes and an understanding of how the global trading system functioned. Even his negotiating opponents respected him and were known to even enjoy a drink in his company.
Indeed, rather than lashing out indiscriminately at other countries for perceived injustices, Lighthizer’s trade offensives were largely directed at specific trade partners from whom he sought concessions that were clear and achievable.
As the world reels from the trade chaos unleashed in the second Trump administration and as it becomes clear that the President’s trade policy is founded on incoherence and whim, rather than shrewd strategy, could it be that US trade partners are beginning to yearn for a return to the age of Lighthizer?
A Georgetown-trained lawyer, Lighthizer worked on the powerful Senate Finance Committee for five years, serving as staff director from 1981-83 reporting to its chairman Sen. Robert Dole, a Kansas Republican. In those days, members of the Finance Committee included some of the most respected statesmen ever to serve in Congress. In addition to Sen. Dole – a war hero and the Republican candidate for president in 1996 – the committee included venerated lawmakers like Jack Danforth of Missouri, John Chafee of Rhode Island and Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York. These were men who understood the importance of serving the greater good, something glaringly absent in today’s polarized environment.
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Lighthizer learned from these men and went on to serve as a Deputy at USTR, where he negotiated more than 20 bilateral trade agreements2 before returning to private law practice where he remained until he was summoned by Donald Trump to be USTR.
One of his first bold moves was to dust off Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, to justify the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs on grounds of national security. The maneuver used an existing playbook in a creative and legally sustainable way. While the WTO dispute settlement system found the US tariffs contrary to WTO rules, there were no successful legal challenges to them in US courts. This stands in stark contrast to the fiasco that ensued when the US Court of International Trade threw out Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify his implementation of across-the-board tariffs. The court went to great lengths to point out that the US Constitution extends the power to levy tariffs to Congress, not the executive branch. As yet, there have been no comments on this ruling from Congress.3
Lighthizer’s skill extended beyond his grasp of US domestic trade law. He led the negotiations that produced the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, a revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement. This agreement included labor standard provisions that sought to ensure that Mexico workers in the auto industry received a minimum wage on which to support decent living standards. Richard Trumka, former president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the largest trade union in the United States, hailed the USMCA as the “gold standard” for future trade agreements.
Unlike the few trade deals that have been struck under the current administration, USMCA was not a vague framework agreement cobbled together over a weekend with ill-defined objectives and ambiguous promises of more negotiations to come. Lighthizer’s agreement was detailed and legally binding. It passed both Houses of Congress by huge margins.
Lighthizer also renegotiated the US-South Korea bilateral trade agreement securing more advantageous terms for the United States in steel, autos, and agriculture.
Even at the WTO, Lighthizer and his team engaged constructively in many areas of the organization’s work. He ensured that the United States was an active participant in plurilateral negotiations including those pertaining to e- commerce. While members grumbled about the shutdown of the Appellate Body, the arguments the administration raised on the body’s judicial overreach, its lack of judicial economy, and its tendency to create jurisprudence have today been largely accepted as valid legal critique. So too has Washington’s rejection of China’s self-designation as a developing country. Lighthizer had praised the WTO as an "important" organization and he told ministers that "if the WTO did not exist, we would have to invent it."
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True, efforts to negotiate with China and the European Union proved more problematic. The January 2020 so-called Phase One deal with China was supposed to result in the Chinese increasing their purchases of American goods and services by US$200 billion over a two-year period through 2021. The deal covered exports of US manufactured goods, agriculture, and energy products. In the end, the Chinese imported only 62% of the target for goods covered by the agreement. For energy products, there was an increase of only 47%. US exports not covered under Phase One actually shrank by 16%.4
The Lighthizer-led negotiations with the European Union on steel and aluminum were even less successful as Brussels responded with tariffs on roughly US$28 billion on US goods including motorcycles, bourbon, and boats. Those tariffs were suspended following 2021 negotiations with the Biden administration and Brussels is now poised to reimpose them in response to Trump’s fresh tariff threats on EU steel, cars, and other goods.5
But set this next to what confronts us today. Keeping track of the tariffs that have been levied, lowered, lifted, re-levied, re-lowered, re-lifted, postponed, and/or re-threatened, is Sisyphean. This is a critical point because it means that those who trade – exporters, importers, suppliers, and customers – have no idea what their costs will be. This uncertainty stymies investment and is beginning to have a crippling effect on the US economy. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says that US economic expansion will "slow markedly" in 2025 (1.6%) and 2026 (1.5%) as a direct result of Washington’s tariff policies. So do many other projections from a wide range of think tanks and economic analysts.6
Today’s USTR, Jamieson Greer, was Lighthizer’s former chief of staff and protégé. He understands trade and trade policy, and is respected by his peers and colleagues. But Greer plays second (and possibly sometimes third) fiddle in the administration to other cabinet members, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Breaking from precedent, a press statement released by Trump prior to his assuming office stated that Lutnick would have "additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative."7
It's a startling statement and one which runs contrary to federal statute. USTR was created by an act of Congress in 1962 to report directly to the President and on Capitol Hill to different committees of jurisdiction than the Commerce Department. Rubbing salt into the wounds, Lutnick neuters the most able US trade negotiator by pointing out in meetings with foreign trade ministers, that it is he, and not the trade-savvy Greer, who runs US trade policy. Yet Lutnick at times in public interview seems to have less grasp of trade and economics than those bearing the brunt of US tariffs might like to hear.8
As brutal as US trade policy was under Lighthizer, US trade partners are coming to see that at least there was at least a logical consistency to what he was proposing. Today it is not even clear what the Trump administration’s objectives are and how officials intend to achieve them. Policy gyrates almost daily and is aimed at every country in the world, even America’s most longtime and loyal allies. Moreover, those negotiating with Lighthizer believed that any deal that was reached would be honored by the United States. This is decidedly not the case today.
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How did a man so highly regarded in Washington find himself on the outside looking in on trade policy? Perhaps Lighthizer foresaw the looming economic disaster that was lurking around the corner thanks to the disjointed trade measures the President has imposed. Many trade officials believe Trump to be influenced by the last person he spoke to at any particular moment.
It is possible that Trump did not appreciate an emerging media narrative that Lighthizer drove trade policy more than Trump himself. It’s also possible that Lighthizer simply decided that he did not wish to return to the complex and difficult job at USTR.
What he wanted was a step up, possibly to the Treasury Secretary role. But Lighthizer’s bruising nature would have been a bad fit with Wall Street bankers and traders. As a lawyer with a trade background, he would not have been an easy fit in the finance role.
No one can foretell how much more wildly unpredictable the global trade environment will become. US trade policy is no longer based on a clear strategy fashioned by a savvy legal mind. Measured against today’s impetuous approach to trade policy, the rather more predictable aggression of Bob Lighthizer now seems almost reassuring.
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[1] https://www.ft.com/content/baca66bb-5987-47e1-861d-3375a6f6d01b
[2] https://politics.georgetown.edu/profile/bob-lighthizer/
[3] https://www.ft.com/content/7536335f-fe02-4ac3-afd7-3efe88a69444
[4] https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/us-china-phase-one-tracker-chinas-purchases-us-goods
[5] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/document/print/en/qanda_25_750/QANDA_25_750_EN.pdf
[6] https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-economic-outlook-volume-2025-issue-1_83363382-en/full-report/united-states_c69a8d2f.html
[7] https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-president-elect-donald-j-trump-announcing-the-nomination-howard-lutnick
[8] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/11/trump-allies-lutnick-tariff-turmoil-00225137
© The Hinrich Foundation. See our website Terms and conditions for our copyright and reprint policy. All statements of fact and the views, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author(s).
Author
Keith M. Rockwell
Keith M. Rockwell is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hinrich Foundation. Prior to his retirement in June 2022, Keith served as a Director at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and spokesperson for the organization for more than 25 years. He also is Global Fellow at the Wilson Center.
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