Navigating Trade Agreements and Policy Shifts

Ambassador Robert Lighthizer is the former United States Trade Representative in the Trump administration and the author of the 2023 book, “No Trade Is Free: Changing Course, Taking on China, and Helping America's Workers.” He sat down with Jack Goldsmith to talk about his work as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative under President Reagan, why extreme neoliberal trade policy took hold in the 1990s, his core philosophy on trade and how it departed from the 1990s neoliberal consensus, and the main ways he implemented this view in the Trump administration and with what results. They also discussed the importance of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and why it was controversial, the extent to which the Biden administration adopted Lighthizer’s views on free trade, and the relationship between national security and trade policy.

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