Tag: Katherine

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Politics

Katherine Tai confirmed as U.S. Commerce Consultant

Katherine Tai confirmed as U.S. Trade Representative

Katherine C. Tai speaks ahead of the Senate Finance Committee hearings to consider her appointment as Ambassador of the United States Commercial Agent on February 25, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Bill O’Leary | Pool | Reuters

Katherine Tai, a critic of China’s trade practices, was re-elected as chief trade official in the Biden government on Wednesday. The Senate vote was 98-0.

Tai, whose parents were born in mainland China, was the first Asian-American and the first black woman to serve as a U.S. sales representative since the position was founded nearly 60 years ago. It received unanimous support from an evenly divided Senate on Tuesday in a procedural vote that paved its way for confirmation.

Tai’s anticipated confirmation comes as Biden’s White House attempts to move away from the Trump administration’s more bellicose tone in dealing with China while maintaining a tough US stance on the rival economic superpower.

Tai has criticized certain Chinese guidelines. In several cases between 2007 and 2014 she successfully argued with the US case against China’s trade practices before the World Trade Organization.

“There are also many areas that are gray areas where the rules are not clear or where we don’t have any rules yet,” Tai said last month. She also believes the US should work with other countries to counter China.

Tai will succeed Robert Lighthizer, who, as Trump’s top trade negotiator, imposed multiple tariffs on Chinese imports while negotiating the first-phase trade deal the two nations signed in January 2020.

When she testified before the Senate Finance Committee in February, Tai said she wanted China to stick to its first-phase commitments. It did not say whether it would use additional tariffs on China, but noted that there are “legitimate tools in the trade toolbox”.

– CNBC’s Thomas Franck contributed to this report.

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Entertainment

Othella Dallas, Keeper of Katherine Dunham’s Flame, Dies at 95

Othella Dallas, Keeper of Katherine Dunham’s Flame, Dies at 95

Ms. Dallas appeared on Broadway in 1946 in Bal Nègre, a Dunham-directed and choreographed revue, and toured Europe with the company. In Paris she met a Swiss engineer named Peter Wydler. When Dunham discovered that Ms. Dallas was about to get married, she was initially furious, but she served as Ms. Dallas’s witness and popped the champagne at the wedding in 1949. Eartha Kitt sang “C’est Si Bon”.

Ms. Dallas left the company later that year to stay with her husband in Switzerland. In the 1950s she taught the Dunham technique in Zurich, but soon left it to pursue a music career in America. In 1975, finally based in Europe, she opened her dance school in Basel.

“Yes, I was lucky,” she said in the documentary, reflecting on her improbable life. “I was fortunate enough to have so much. That is, what is happiness? “

Othella Dallas was born Othella Talmadge Strozier on September 26, 1925 in Memphis. Her father Frank was a pharmacist. Her mother, Thelma Lee, was a seamstress who also sang in the vaudeville. A grandmother ran a music school. Othella attended high school in St. Louis and aspired to be a doctor.

As a girl she suffered from rickets; Doctors suggested putting her legs back. Instead, as she told her, her grandmother took her to a voodoo priest, who prescribed that her legs be massaged in greasy dishwater while he recited an incantation.

After enough dips in the sink, he said she was cured.

“Make them dance,” he announced.

“Let them dance where?” asked her mother. “Those old filthy nightclubs?”

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Politics

Biden picks China critic Katherine Tai for U.S. Commerce Consultant

Biden picks China critic Katherine Tai for U.S. Trade Representative

Katherine Tai speaks during a House Ways and Means Committee meeting on the US-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA) in 2019.

CSPAN

President-elect Joe Biden named Katherine Tai, a trade attorney with a history of taking over China, to be his new administration for the United States’ chief trade agent on Thursday.

If this were approved by the Senate, Tai would inherit a critical position at the cabinet level, tasked with enforcing American import regulations and negotiating terms of trade with China and other nations.

Tai, who is Asian-American, would also be the first black woman to act as a USTR. She is fluent in Mandarin.

With the election of Tai, the senior trade attorney on the House Ways and Means Committee, the Biden team is likely signaling an intention to revert to a multilateral trade approach to advance U.S. trade interests and face growing economic competition from China.

The president-elect announced Tai’s experience in a press release on Thursday as key to key insights as the new administration reviews outgoing President Donald Trump’s Beijing-brokered trade deal.

“Your in-depth experience will enable the Biden-Harris administration to get a foothold in trade and harness the power of our trade relations to help the US emerge from the COVID-induced economic crisis and get the president-elect’s vision from a professional pursue – American Labor Trade Strategy, “wrote the Biden transition team.

Tai would succeed current Trade Tsar Robert Lighthizer, whose achievements during the Trump administration include stepping up negotiations with Beijing and introducing hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs on goods imported from China.

China’s Deputy Prime Minister Liu Er speaks to U.S. Sales Representative Robert Lighthizer during a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on February 22, 2019.

Carlos Barria | Reuters

Though Tai prefers multilateral enforcement mechanisms more than Lighthizer, its leadership as a USTR would not necessarily signal a change in tougher stance on China. She said China should be approached vigorously and strategically.

“Both also have long histories of dealing with China’s unfair practices, the most pressing trade problem of our time,” said Clete Willems, former White House top trade negotiator. “Katherine’s approach is most likely different in how she uses the WTO system and alliances to pressure China to change its behavior.”

From 2007 to 2014, Tai successfully negotiated Washington’s disputes against Beijing at the WTO, the global trade organization based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Lighthizer and his team, frustrated with what they saw as slow bureaucracy and China’s influence on the WTO and the World Bank, often chose to bypass the WTO and take a more direct approach through tariffs. The US still has import tariffs on Chinese imports of $ 370 billion.

“As a former head of the USTR China Trade Enforcement, Katherine has experience leading and winning joint WTO disputes against China while working with countries like the EU and Japan and is likely to take a similar approach,” Willems said now Partner at Akin Gump. added in an email.

Willems also noted that Tai’s fluent mandarin would command respect at the negotiating table with China.

US President-elect Joe Biden will announce his health team members on December 8, 2020 at the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

In August, Tai called for a different approach to China than Lighthizer’s year-long tariff war, saying the use of import taxes was actually a defensive maneuver.

Rep Don Beyer, D-Va., Said in a press release on Wednesday night that Tai would be a smart choice for USTR as they work together on the Ways and Means Committee.

“She is smart, knows her way around and is committed to ensuring that trade policy is right for our employees, companies and the environment,” said Beyer.

“Katherine is widely recognized and loved, but she will also be a tough and principled negotiator,” he added. “She’s just the right kind of cooperative leader to bring our trade policies back to a rational level and restore the respect of our allies around the world.”

This should please Biden, who has proposed a return to a multilateral, allied approach and a departure from President Donald Trump’s nationalist “America First” approach.

Still, in a recent interview with the New York Times, Biden said that he will not immediately lift tariffs on China and instead will weigh up a variety of tactics when considering how best to compete with Beijing.

“I’m not going to take any immediate steps, and neither will the tariffs. I will not affect my options,” Biden told columnist Thomas Friedman in an interview earlier this month.

The President-elect has refused to say whether he would support joining certain trade deals. One of President Donald Trump’s first acts of office was the removal of the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the Obama administration had negotiated with eleven other nations.

The TPP excluded China and was a cornerstone of Obama’s efforts to cement US influence in Asia. China has since signed the regional comprehensive economic partnership with 14 other countries, a trade agreement that excludes the US and covers about 30% of the world economy.

Biden has promised to go into more detail about what agreements he would support after his inauguration, but has repeatedly stressed the importance of working with allies to establish the “rules of the road” of world trade.

Categories
Politics

Biden Picks Katherine Tai as Commerce Consultant

Biden Picks Katherine Tai as Trade Representative

WASHINGTON – President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is expected to select Katherine Tai, chief trade attorney for the House Ways and Means Committee, as the United States trade agent, a key role who will be responsible for enforcing American trade rules in negotiations with China and other countries on new trade terms, according to those familiar with the plans.

Ms. Tai has received strong support from colleagues in Congress, who credit her for helping a recalcitrant gathering of politicians and stakeholders to fight for the adoption of the revised North American Free Trade Agreement. From 2007 to 2014, Ms. Tai worked for the United States Trade Representative’s Office, where she successfully prosecuted several cases of Chinese trade practices at the World Trade Organization.

If this were confirmed, Ms. Tai, an Asian American woman, would become the first black woman to serve as a U.S. trade representative, a cabinet-level official with the rank of ambassador.

Ms. Tai’s selection was previously reported by Politico and the Wall Street Journal.

Although Mr Biden has stated that he has no intention of negotiating any new free trade agreements until he has made “major investments here at home and in our workers”, his sales agent will have a lot to do. These responsibilities likely include ensuring that American trade rules are properly enforced and that they promote, rather than hamper, other parts of Mr Biden’s agenda, including fighting climate change and encouraging domestic investment, for example through the expansion of Buy American Programs.

Congressional Democrats have campaigned for Ms. Tai to be appointed in part because they believe she would play an important role in ensuring that the provisions of the United States-Mexico-Canada accord, which replaced NAFTA this year, are enforced will. This includes initiating new trade proceedings against Mexican factories that violate labor rules and ensuring that Mexico carries out ambitious reforms to its labor system.

As chief counsel for the Ways and Means Committee, Ms. Tai played a key role in drafting the democratic demands for final changes to the USMCA negotiated by the Trump administration. In this role, she balanced the competing demands of trade unions, environmental groups, corporate lobbyists, and the administration, and helped craft a deal that overtook both Houses of Congress by a wide margin.

In a November letter to Mr. Biden, 10 House Democrats wrote that Ms. Tai’s central role in these negotiations “uniquely qualifies her to lead the implementation and enforcement efforts” as the next sales representative.

“Ms. Tai knows every tool available to hold Mexico and Canada accountable,” the legislature wrote.

Although this is sometimes a minor position, the office of commercial agent has grown in importance under President Trump, who has used the office to levy substantial tariffs on overseas and negotiate a number of trade deals, small and large.

Mr Biden’s chief trade negotiator will be responsible for managing much of this legacy, including assisting in deciding whether to continue to impose tariffs on Chinese goods and whether to keep certain companies excluded from those tariffs. Many of these bans will expire on December 31, and it remains unclear whether Mr Trump plans to extend them.

The new commercial agent will also be responsible for adapting the office to democratic priorities, e.g. B. to increase the protection of workers, curb climate change and raise standards for consumer protection. The election of Mr Biden will also be responsible for rebuilding trade ties that have been weighed down by Mr Trump’s aggressive approach, including with Europe, Canada, Japan and Mexico.

Supporters say Ms. Tai is also uniquely positioned to address the economic challenges facing China, which is believed to be America’s greatest source of competition in the trade sector.

During her tenure in the House of Representatives, Ms. Tai dealt not only with trade disputes against China at the World Trade Organization on issues such as subsidies and export restrictions, but also with issues related to China, including strategies to restore American supply chains and legislation to ban imports Forced labor by Uyghurs and other minorities in China.

Ms. Tai has a background in China, where she taught in the late 1990s and was fluent in Mandarin.

In the House of Representatives, she also sought to examine the legacy of racial injustice in US trade policy and how trade profits could be made more inclusive.

Thomas Kaplan and Emily Cochrane contributed to the coverage.