Ep. 39 – WITA’s Friday Exchange: I Know it When I See it: Tariff “Gerrymandering” and Taxing Comparative Advantage

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI. Gresser rejoined PPI in 2021, after an earlier tour from 2001 to 2011. Before rejoining, he served from 2015 to 2021 as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), where he led USTR’s economic research unit, oversaw the Generalized System of Preferences, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Gresser began his career on Capitol Hill before serving at USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After leaving PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015.

Gresser is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, along with a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union. He is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007), has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and regularly testifies before congressional committees on trade and global-economy topics. His research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, and has been covered by outlets ranging from the New York Times and Washington Post to Vogue, NPR, CNN, Politico, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times.

In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented Gresser with its Lighthouse Award, given annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Kate Kalutkiewicz, Senior Managing Director, leads the McLarty trade practice and contributes to the firm’s Europe practice and McLarty Inbound.Kate has managed complex challenges around global trade, industrial, and investment policy for over two decades. Her experience spans roles in government, particularly in Europe and South America, where she honed her skills in negotiating complex international agreements and navigating the nuance around public-private sector interactions.

Kate most recently served as Head of US Trade Policy for Amazon, where she advocated a broad range of international trade and economic issues with the US Government, touching several sectors, including retail, creative content production and distribution, cloud services, sustainable fleet, autos, and hardline manufacturing.

Prior to that, Kate served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for International Trade at the National Economic Council, where she developed and led US trade policy initiatives. During her White House tenure, she led interagency teams responsible for the US G7 Presidency and US positions on supply chain resiliency and support for the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before serving in the White House, Kate was the Senior Trade Representative at the US Mission to the European Union from 2016-2020. While in Brussels, she was the USTR’s primary interlocutor with the European Commission and Member State authorities responsible for trade.

Before her time in Brussels, Kate held the role of USTR’s Director for European Affairs (2011-2016) and served as Associate Chief Negotiator for the US in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations. She began her career at USTR as its Director for Brazil and the Southern Cone (2007-2011), where she was the principal agency representative for implementing and managing US trade policy in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

Prior to USTR, Kate was a legislative assistant in the office of Senator James Talent (R-MO), where she supported the Senator on issues related to trade, foreign policy, homeland security, immigration, and the judiciary.

Dawn Shackleford is the President of Looking Glass Trade, LLC, providing strategic trade policy solutions for complex international trade challenges. She is a Director-at-Large on ANSI’s Board of Directors and a member of ANSI’s International Policy Advisory Group. Dawn was awarded the Association of Women in International Trade’s 2025 Government Service Award due to her long and distinguished career with the U.S. government, serving the United States and representing U.S. companies in the global trade space.

She served as the Executive Director for Trade Agreements Policy & Negotiations at the U.S. Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration from 2022 to 2025. In this capacity she oversaw Commerce Department engagement in multilateral trade institutions to help U.S. exporters, monitoring and import licensing of steel and aluminum trade to help U.S. importers and domestic industry, 232 related matters in cooperation with the Bureau of Industry & Security, and the facilitation of the U.S. Foreign Trade Zones program to bring jobs and manufacturing to the United States.

Prior to this position, Dawn served in various positions in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative from 2004 to 2022, including as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for the Office of Southeast Asia and the Pacific where she served as senior official for the Trade Pillar of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) negotiations, the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for WTO and Multilateral Affairs where she served as senior official for WTO, OECD, G20 and G7 engagement, and the Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for India, Nepal and Bhutan. She also served as the lead U.S. negotiator for the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, the customs and trade facilitation chapter of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement, multiple WTO accession negotiations, and the government procurement chapters in the U.S. FTA negotiations with Oman and the United Arab Emirates. She also worked on various WTO, OECD, APEC, G20, and UN trade policy issues.

Ms. Shackleford was elected to an international leadership position as the first female chairperson of the Trade Committee of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) from 2020 to 2021.

From 1998 to 2004 Ms. Shackleford served as a policy analyst within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and in the Department of the Navy. From 2003 to 2005 she served as an adjunct professor at American University’s School of International Service.

She holds a Master of Arts Degree in International Affairs from American University in Washington, DC, a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and studied at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany.

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, holding a diverse set of responsibilities across that time.

Most notably, Damond spent seven years as Deputy Assistant United States Trade Representative for Asia and the Pacific, where he was responsible for executing U.S. trade policy with Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. He served as chief negotiator of bilateral trade agreements with Laos and Cambodia, as well as the historic Bilateral Trade Agreement with Vietnam, concluded in 2000, and also chaired the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Committee on Trade and Investment.

Damond then spent more than 20 years in the private sector, holding senior positions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries focused on international trade, health policy, and global government affairs, representing the sector during numerous bilateral and global trade agreements. For the past four years, he has worked as a consultant on healthcare and trade policy issues, representing both private sector and government clients with a focus on Asia and Europe.

Damond is the author of Give Trade a Chance: The Negotiation of the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement.