Ep. 21 – WITA’s Friday Exchange: UK Pharma Deal, Future US Tariff Policy, and Chlorinated Chicken

Wendy Cutler is Senior Vice President at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), based in Washington, D.C. In this role, she focuses on leading initiatives that address challenges related to trade, investment, economic security, and innovation, as well as women’s empowerment in Asia.

Cutler joined ASPI following an illustrious career of nearly three decades as a diplomat and negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), where she also served as Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative. During her time at USTR, she worked on a range of bilateral, regional, and multilateral trade negotiations and initiatives, including the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, U.S.-China negotiations, and the WTO Financial Services negotiations.

Cutler has published a series of ASPI papers on the Asian trade landscape and serves as a regular media commentator on trade and investment developments in Asia and the world.

Mark Linscott is a Senior Advisor with the US India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), leading efforts to advance US-India trade. He also serves as a Senior Advisor at The Asia Group and a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center.

Previously, Linscott was Assistant U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) for South and Central Asian Affairs from December 2016 to December 2018, serving as the U.S. government lead in developing trade policy with countries across South and Central Asia. He led efforts in the bilateral Trade Policy Forum with India and in Trade and Investment Framework Agreements (TIFAs) with Central Asia, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

From 2012 to 2016, Linscott served as Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for World Trade Organization (WTO) and Multilateral Affairs, coordinating U.S. trade policies in the WTO. He and his team led negotiations in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on customs matters, government procurement, subsidies and trade remedies, and technical barriers to trade, and he represented the United States in trade meetings of the G-20 and the OECD.

Linscott was Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Environment and Natural Resources from October 2003 to March 2012, overseeing all trade and environment issues for USTR, including in free trade agreement negotiations such as the TPP and in the WTO and OECD. During this period, he developed a robust agenda on illegal logging and associated trade through Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and bilateral agreements with Indonesia and China.

From 1996 to 2002, Linscott represented the United States at the U.S. Mission to the WTO in Geneva and was a founding member of the WTO Pension Fund Management Board. Prior to Geneva, he worked in the Office of WTO and Multilateral Affairs at USTR in Washington, where he concluded the Uruguay Round Government Procurement Agreement as the lead U.S. negotiator.

Linscott began his career at the Department of Commerce, serving from 1985 to 1988 in Import Administration and from 1988 to 1992 in the Office of Multilateral Affairs. He was awarded a Gold Medal Award, the Commerce Department’s highest honor, for his work on the 1986 Canadian softwood lumber investigation.

Linscott holds a BA in economics from the University of Virginia and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center. He and his wife, Karen, live in Washington, DC, where he tinkers on his café racer motorcycles and paddles on the Potomac.

Daniel Mullaney is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and GeoEconomics Center. Most recently, he served as assistant US trade representative (AUSTR) for Europe and the Middle East in the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) from 2010 to 2023. He was chief negotiator for comprehensive trade agreements with the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom, as well as trade lead for the US-EU Trade and Technology Council, and was responsible for developing and implementing US trade policy in Europe, Eurasia, Russia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Before assuming the post of AUSTR, he served as senior trade representative in the US Mission to the European Union in Brussels, where he was the principal voice for US trade policy in interactions with the EU institutions and EU member state governments, the public, and the international press. Prior to that posting, Mullaney was in USTR’s Office of General Counsel for seven years, where he represented the United States in dispute settlement proceedings at the World Trade Organization and led negotiations and acted as legal counsel for free trade and other agreements. Before joining USTR, Mullaney was in private practice for nearly twenty years, specializing in international trade law and litigation; when he entered public service, he was a partner at the law firm of Dorsey and Whitney.

Mullaney is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio. He holds a BA from Amherst College, and a joint law/foreign service JD/MSFS degree from Georgetown University.

Joe Damond’s career spans more than 40 years in both the government and private sectors in Washington. He served 16 years as a trade official at the Department of Commerce and the Office of the United States Trade Representative, which included a diverse set of responsibilities. Most notably, for seven years as deputy assistant United States trade representative for Asia and the Pacific, he was responsible for executing United States trade policy with Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and served as chief negotiator of bilateral trade agreements with Laos and Cambodia and the historic Bilateral Trade Agreement with Vietnam, which was concluded in 2000. He also served as the chair of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Committee on Trade and Investment. Mr. Damond then spent more than 20 years in the private sector, holding senior positions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors focused on international trade and health policy issues and global government affairs, and representing the sector during numerous bilateral and global trade agreements. In addition, he has spent the last four years as a consultant on healthcare and trade policy issues, representing both private sector and government clients with a focus on Asia and Europe. He is the author of Give Trade a Chance: The Negotiation of the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement.