Rufus Hawkins Yerxa (born May 6, 1951) is an American lawyer and former U.S. government and international official. He is currently a Senior Advisor with the global consulting firm McClarty Associates. He served as Deputy United States Trade Representative during the George H.W. Bush and Clinton Administrations, and served for 11 years as Deputy Director General of the

World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and e ...

(WTO). From 2016 to 2021 he was President of the

National Foreign Trade Council Founded in 1914, the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) is an American trade association advocating an open, rules-based international trade system. It serves its hundreds of member companies in activities encompassing international trade policy ...

Education

Yerxa holds degrees from *

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

(BA), 1973 *

Seattle University Seattle University (SeattleU) is a private Jesuit university in Seattle, Washington. Seattle University is the largest independent university in the Northwestern United States, with over 7,500 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate prog ...

(JD), 1976 * University of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

(LLB, International Law), 1977

Career

From 1977-81 he was legal advisor to the chairman of the

International Trade Commission The United States International Trade Commission (USITC or I.T.C.) is an agency of the United States federal government that advises the legislative and executive branches on matters of trade. It is an independent, bipartisan entity that analyze ...

. From 1981-89 he was a staff member of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, serving as staff director of its Subcommittee on Trade and later as Assistant Chief Counsel of the full Committee. From 1989 to 1995 he was a Deputy United States Trade Representative (USTR), serving first in Geneva as U.S. ambassador to the

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its pre ...

(GATT), and subsequently as Deputy USTR in Washington. He played a key role in the Uruguay Round Negotiations, and was later responsible for overseeing the Clinton Administration's efforts to obtain Congressional approval of both NAFTA and the WTO Agreement. After leaving government service In the mid-1990s, he was a resident partner in the

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

office of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, where his practice focused on international trade and European regulatory matters. In 2002 he was appointed to serve as Deputy Director General of the WTO, a position he held until 2013. During this time he was also a lecturer on U.S. trade policy at the World Trade Institute (WTI) in Berne. After retiring from the WTO he joined the faculty of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in Monterey, California as a visiting professor. From 2016 to 2021 he was President of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), a trade association in Washington representing U.S. companies on global trade and investment matters. He joined McClarty Associates in February 2022, advising their international trade practice both in Washington and internationally. He is currently on the Advisory Board of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy.

References

External links

President Clinton's nomination of Yerxa to be a Deputy U.S. Trade Representative
clinton6.nara.gov, March 18, 1993. * 1951 births Living people American lawyers International Trade Commission personnel Alumni of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University of Washington alumni George H. W. Bush administration personnel Clinton administration personnel Date of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) World Trade Organization people Monsanto employees {{international-trade-stub