Ambassador Katherine Tai

Ambassador Katherine Tai is an expert on international economic policy and diplomacy and has spent her career advancing just, people-centered policies on the world stage.

Ambassador Tai served as the 19th United States Trade Representative. As a member of President Biden’s Cabinet, Ambassador Tai was the principal trade advisor, negotiator, and spokesperson on U.S. trade policy from March 2021 to January 2025. Her vision and leadership shaped the first worker-centered trade policy in U.S. history, harnessing the power of international relations and trade to enhance workers’ rights in the United States and across the globe. In addition to leading U.S. participation at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and forums like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the trade tracks at the G20 and G7, Ambassador Tai traveled to all 50 states as United States Trade Representative, reaching out directly to small business owners, workers, family farmers and ranchers, engaging communities in recognition of the need for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to speak for the interests of the entire U.S. economy, not only its largest players.

Prior to her unanimous Senate confirmation, Ambassador Tai spent nearly 2 decades in public service focusing on crafting, monitoring, and enforcing U.S. and international trade laws. She previously served the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives as Chief Trade Counsel and Trade Subcommittee Staff Director. In that role, she played a pivotal role during the first Trump administration in the re-negotiation and ratification of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement. She is also an experienced WTO litigator. From 2007 to 2014, Ambassador Tai developed and tried cases for USTR, eventually becoming the agency’s Chief Counsel for China Trade Enforcement.

Ambassador Tai graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School. She began her career practicing law in the private sector, clerking for federal judges in the Districts of Columbia and Maryland, and teaching English in Guangzhou, China. She is fluent in Mandarin.

"Fostering leadership in public service that is engaged, curious, and bold is especially important at this time of profound and accelerated change in America and the world. Having visited 36 countries and all 50 states in the last four years as U.S. Trade Representative, I look forward to joining the IOP and sharing what I’ve learned about these forces of change."