Katherine Tai, a veteran trade lawyer who has won trade disputes for the U.S. against China, will have her hands full undoing the damage done by President Donald Trump's trade wars against China and U.S. allies after her confirmation by the Senate.
President-elect Joe Biden has nominated Tsai as the next United States Trade Representative (USTR). She replaces Robert Lighthizer, who implemented Trump's confrontational American first international trade policies that used tariff hikes as a weapon against U.S. trading partners.
Tai, 45, brings exceptional experience in international trade litigation to her new job as USTR. Before her nomination by Biden, Tai was the chief trade counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee.
Tai came to the committee in 2014 from USTR's Office of the General Counsel. She served as Associate General Counsel from 2007 to 2011 and then as Chief Counsel for China Trade Enforcement with responsibility for the development and litigation of U.S. disputes against China at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Before joining USTR, Tai worked in the international trade departments in several Washington, D.C. law firms.
From 2007 to 2014, Tai successfully litigated the United States' disputes against China at the WTO. In 2019, she handled negotiations for the Trump administration over the revamped United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and fought and won stronger labor provisions.
From 1996 to 1998, Tai lived and worked in Guangzhou, China, and taught English at Zhongshan University as a Yale-China Fellow.
Tai has been described as a "problem-solving pragmatist on trade policy" by experts. Tai is known to prefer multilateral enforcement mechanisms compared to Lighthizer, who used tariffs to bludgeon other countries into getting his way.
Tai, however, won't be soft on China. She has said China should be addressed forcefully and strategically, and she's expected to do just that in her dealings with this country.
Biden made his preference for Tai known on Thursday and praised her trade negotiating experience as vital to his incoming administration's review of the phase one made by Trump with China.
"Her deep experience will allow the Biden-Harris administration to hit the ground running on trade, and harness the power of our trading relationships to help the U.S. dig out of the COVID-induced economic crisis and pursue the President-elect's vision of a pro-American worker trade strategy," said a statement from the Biden transition team.
Tai, who was born in Connecticut to immigrant parents from the Republic of China (Taiwan), will be the first woman of color to serve as USTR. Her parents were both born in mainland China before immigrating to Taiwan and then to the U.S.
Tai is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, the dialect spoken in Beijing by the ruling communist elite. She graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.
