Sierra Club Statement on Confirmation Hearing for U.S. Trade Representative Nominee Jamieson Greer

Washington, D.C. – Jamieson Greer faced the Senate Committee on Finance today, Thursday, February 6, for his confirmation hearing as U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, a position that leads international trade negotiations and trade enforcement for the United States.

Trump said he tapped Greer for the role because Greer was instrumental in crafting tariffs against China and “centering American workers” in trade agreements with Mexico and Canada during Trump’s first term in office. Since his inauguration on January 20, Trump has already taken action on trade, announcing — and then delaying — 25% tariffs on all imports from Mexico and Canada and imposing an additional 10% tariff on all imports from China, which he said he will consider ratcheting up. 

In response to the news, Iliana Paul, Deputy Director for the Sierra Club’s Industrial Transformation Campaign, released the following statement: 

“U.S. trade policy must benefit American workers and communities. Greer can deliver on this promise by negotiating stronger environmental standards, removing corporate giveaways from trade deals, and supporting a foreign pollution fee that protects investments in domestic industrial innovation for key goods. His mandate on day one is to boost American manufacturing while protecting the vitality of America, especially in the regions that have felt job losses and compromised public health due to bad trade deals. It is not the time to abandon the promise of a global race to the top, where the U.S. can be positioned to lead.” 

During the confirmation hearing, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) questioned Greer about his support of a carbon border adjustment — which the Sierra Club has advocated for protecting in any future trade agreements — and if USTR, under his leadership, would help to design one. In response, Greer pledged that USTR would offer technical support to inform bipartisan legislation, and he agreed that greater pollution abroad and strong environmental standards in the U.S. should be employed to make U.S. industry more competitive.

The Sierra Club is calling on the incoming U.S. Trade Representative to consider the following trade policies:

• Support a pollution fee at the border, including by helping to design a legislated carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), emphasize the value of rigorous carbon-intensity data (e.g. PROVE IT Act) and pollution levels, including for enforcement actions, and explore an administratively applied CBAM.
• Advocate for strong, binding, and enforceable environmental standards with a new facility-specific enforcement tool in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and remove the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) from the agreement once and for all.
• Position strategic tariffs as tools to incentivize better foreign behavior and encourage a “global race to the top” to adopt cleaner innovations and American solutions.
• Leverage strong U.S. pollution controls and environmental and health protections as competitive advantages in trade (e.g. grounds for additional levies).
• Develop policies that amplify innovative investments in domestic primary steel and aluminum production while reducing reliance on foreign secondary steel and pig iron, and notify agencies like the Departments of Energy and Commerce when tariffs on metals and energy goods without investments in U.S. capacity may increase prices or create supply chain issues.  

###