Trump Names China Hawk Jamieson Greer As Pick For Trade Representative

On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump named lawyer Jamieson Greer as his pick for United States Trade Representative, the top U.S. trade position. What does the choice mean for a second Trump administration?

The Pick: Greer is a partner at corporate law firm King & Spalding in the international trade group. He attended Brigham Young University and earned a Juris doctorate at the University of Virginia.

Prior to joining King & Spalding, Jamieson was the chief of staff to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

Greer told the New York Times in June that tariffs, as supported by Trump, "can help support U.S. manufacturing jobs in particular, especially to the extent that they're remediating an unfair trade practice."

Greer testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in May, unveiling his ideals for relations between the two countries.

The attorney called for new, higher tariffs against China. He also called for the U.S. to place new customs requirements on goods produced by Chinese companies in countries such as Mexico. Several Chinese corporations have moved production overseas to sidestep protectionist American trade policy.

Why it Matters: Tariffs are taxes paid by American importers that are often passed onto consumers in the form of price hikes.

Quarterly U.S. imports from China have ticked down since 2018, when Trump first placed tariffs on China, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Trump unveiled a plan earlier in the week to impose a 25% tariff on goods imported from Mexico and Canada, and an additional 10% tariff on imports from China. A significant majority of top economists agree that tariffs lead to higher prices for American consumers, according to a Clark Center Poll.

The energy, food production and automobile industries may be hit particularly hard by the tariffs as proposed, economists Carl B. Weinberg and Rubeela Farooqi told PBS.

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• Trump’s Tariff Plan Targets Imports: Electronics, Retail Stocks At Risk

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