Robert Emmet Lighthizer (/ˈlaɪthaɪzər/; born October 11, 1947)[1] is an American attorney and government official who was the United States Trade Representative in the Donald Trump administration from 2017 to 2021.
After he graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 1973, Lighthizer joined the firm of Covington and Burling in Washington, D.C. He left the firm in 1978 to work as chief minority counsel and later staff director and chief of staff of the Senate Committee on Finance under Chairman Bob Dole. In 1983, Robert Lighthizer was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be Deputy U.S. Trade Representative for President Ronald Reagan. In 1985, Lighthizer joined the Washington office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP as a partner and led the firm’s international trade group. On January 3, 2017, President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Lighthizer as his U.S. Trade Representative.[3] Lighthizer was confirmed by the Senate on May 11, 2017, by a vote of 82–14.
Lighthizer was an architect of American trade policy during Trump’s presidency.[5] A protectionist and a trade skeptic, his policies are oriented toward protection of manufacturing in the United States. Lighthizer played a key role in the administration’s renegotiation of NAFTA and the United States’ trade war with China. Many of these trade policies have been preserved, and in some cases, extended by the Biden administration.
ABOUT LIGHTHIZER
Early life and education
Lighthizer was born in 1947 to Orville James and Michaelene Lighthizer in Ashtabula, Ohio, where his father practiced medicine. He attended Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills, Ohio, and later graduated from Georgetown University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1969 and a Juris Doctor in 1973.
Career
After graduating from law school, Lighthizer joined Covington & Burling in Washington D.C. as an associate attorney. In 1978, Lighthizer left Covington & Burling to work for Senator Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who at the time was the Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee.[11][12] When Dole became Chairman of the Finance Committee in 1981, Lighthizer became the committee’s staff director and chief of staff.[13][12][14] While working for the committee, he helped shepherd through President Ronald Reagan‘s tax cuts and Social Security reform.[15][16] In the 1980s, Lighthizer hired fellow Georgetown Hoya Patrick Ewing as an intern.[