Before 1962, trade diplomacy belonged to the State Department. Then Congress decided it wanted someone else holding the pen. The Trade Expansion Act of 1962 told the President to name a special representative for trade negotiations, and that decision eventually produced the office now run by Jamieson Greer.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative, known as USTR, describes itself as an agency of more than 200 professionals. It bargains directly with foreign governments on trade agreements, settles disputes, and takes part in global trade bodies. Offices sit in Washington, Geneva and Brussels.
From a 1963 office to a cabinet-level post
President Kennedy set up the Office of the Special Trade Representative in 1963, inside the Executive Office of the President. It had two deputies, one in Washington and one in Geneva. Through the mid-1960s its main job was steering U.S. participation in the Kennedy Round of talks held under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
Congress kept adding to the job. Section 141 of the Trade Act of 1974 wrote the office into law and made it answerable to both the President and Congress. It also lifted the Special Trade Representative to cabinet level. A 1979 reorganization plan and an executive order the following year renamed it the Office of the United States Trade Representative, handed it lead responsibility for developing and coordinating trade policy, and made the Trade Representative the President’s principal trade adviser.
Services came in with the Trade and Tariff Act of 1984. The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 went further. It made the Trade Representative the President’s chief trade spokesperson, required reports to both the President and Congress, and moved to USTR the presidential job of acting under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, the law for enforcing U.S. rights under trade agreements. In 1994 the Uruguay Round Agreements Act gave USTR the lead on all negotiations under the World Trade Organization.
Section 301 in practice
That enforcement power is now central to Greer’s work. The Deseret News reported on July 16, 2026 that his office announced a 25% tariff on some Brazilian imports, the result of a yearlong Section 301 investigation into what the office called discriminatory trade practices. The Supreme Court had struck down many of President Trump’s earlier tariffs, which rested on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Greer told the paper he plans to rebuild them country by country through Section 301.
The route is slower. It requires public comment and a formal review. Greer said it also leaves room for adjustments, such as phasing in some tariffs and exempting products not made in the United States. “It’s not going to be perfect. It’s not going to be painless. But it’s necessary,” he said.
The Deseret News put the average U.S. import tax at roughly 2.5% before Trump returned to office, nearly 20% in April 2025, and under 10% after the February Supreme Court ruling.
Greer also announced at the start of July that the United States would not automatically renew the USMCA, the deal that replaced NAFTA, which had governed trade between the two countries since 1994. He told the paper it had increased the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico, and said talks with Mexican officials would focus on stricter rules of origin. His own time limit is blunt. “We’ve only got two-and-a-half years left,” Greer said. “It takes time to build factories.”
Sources
- History of the United States Trade Representative | United States Trade Representative
- U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer details USMCA deal in Utah visit | Deseret News
