Susan Carol Schwab (born March 23, 1955) is an American politician, who served under President George W. Bush as

United States Trade Representative The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is an agency of the United States federal government responsible for developing and promoting American trade policy. Part of the Executive Office of the President, it is headed by t ...

from June, 2006 to January, 2009. She is not related to Charles R. Schwab Sr., founder of the

Charles Schwab Corporation The Charles Schwab Corporation is an American multinational financial services company. It offers banking, commercial banking, investing and related services including consulting, and wealth management advisory services to both retail and instit ...

, despite coincidentally sharing the same last name; she is also not to be confused with his first wife Susan (Cotter) Schwab. She was nominated to replace

Rob Portman Robert Jones Portman (born December 19, 1955) is an American attorney and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Ohio since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, Portman was the 35th director of the Office of Management ...

as United States Trade Representative in April, 2006, becoming Acting Trade Representative upon Portman's confirmation as director of the

Office of Management and Budget The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). OMB's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, but it also examines agency programs, pol ...

. Previously, she served as Deputy United States Trade Representative from 2005 to 2006.

Career

Prior to becoming Deputy Trade Representative, she had served since 2003 as President and CEO of the University System of Maryland Foundation. From 1995 to 2003, she served as Dean of the School of Public Policy at the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of ...

, where she remains on the faculty. Earlier in her career, she served as an aide to then-U.S. Senator

John Danforth John Claggett Danforth (born September 5, 1936) is an American politician, attorney and diplomat who began his career in 1968 as the Attorney General of Missouri and served three terms as United States Senator from Missouri. In 2004, he served br ...

, as a foreign service officer in the

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other na ...

, as a well-respected Director-General of the Foreign and Commercial Service within the U.S. Department of Commerce, and as a business development executive at

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola ...

. Her first job was a trade negotiator with the USTR office, and she later served as Trade Policy Officer in the

United States Embassy The United States has the second most diplomatic missions of any country in the world after Mainland China, including 166 of the 193 member countries of the United Nations, as well as observer state Vatican City and non-member countries Kosovo a ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

. She negotiated the United States-Canada softwood lumber dispute by signing a deal along with Canadian Trade Minister David Emerson on September 12, 2006 that gave Canada $4 billion out of the 5.3 billion dollars that the country lost in the dispute. On January 13, 2009, as the Bush Administration neared its end, Schwab reportedly announced retaliatory

tariffs A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and po ...

on "dozens" of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

luxury Luxury may refer to: *Luxury goods, an economic good or service for which demand increases more than proportionally as income rises *Luxury tax, tax on products not considered essential, such as expensive cars **Luxury tax (sports), surcharge put ...

items, including French

truffles A truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, predominantly one of the many species of the genus ''Tuber''. In addition to ''Tuber'', many other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including '' Geopora'', '' Pe ...

, Irish oatmeal, Italian

sparkling water Carbonated water (also known as soda water, sparkling water, fizzy water, club soda, water with gas, in many places as mineral water, or especially in the United States as seltzer or seltzer water) is water containing dissolved carbon dioxide gas, ...

and

Roquefort cheese Roquefort is a sheep milk cheese from Southern France, and is one of the world's best known blue cheeses. Though similar cheeses are produced elsewhere, EU law dictates that only those cheeses aged in the natural Combalou caves of Roquefort ...

. The European ban on U.S. beef containing hormones was the reason cited by the US for the retaliatory action. Roquefort cheese, made from

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticate ...

's milk in a region of southern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, was hit with a 300% tariff, apparently the highest level by far of any in the package. When a 100% tariff was placed on the cheese in 1999, the report says,

José Bové Joseph "José" Bové (born 11 June 1953) is a French farmer, politician and syndicalist, member of the alter-globalization movement, and spokesman for Via Campesina. He was one of the twelve official candidates in the 2007 French presidential elec ...

helped marshal opposition. As of 2009, the French complaint with the Roquefort tariff is being pursued through diplomatic channels. She helped to launch negotiations for ACTA."Proposed US ACTA plurilateral intellectual property trade agreement (2007)"
Retrieved 1-19-10 from Google cache.

Board of directors member

On June 8, 2009, the Board of Directors of

FedEx Corporation FedEx Corporation, formerly Federal Express Corporation and later FDX Corporation, is an American multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business services based in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "Fe ...

elected Ambassador Schwab as a director. The Board also appointed Ambassador Schwab as a member of its Compensation Committee. She also sits on the Board of Directors at

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...

and

Caterpillar Inc Caterpillar Inc. (stock symbol CAT) is an American ''Fortune'' 500 corporation and the world's largest construction-equipment manufacturer. In 2018, Caterpillar was ranked number 65 on the ''Fortune'' 500 list and number 238 on the Global ''Fo ...

Personal information

Schwab is a resident of

Annapolis, Maryland Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east ...

. She attended

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kille ...

( BA) in

Political Economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

( MA) in Development Policy and

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , presi ...

( Ph.D) in Public Administration and International Business. She is a 1972 graduate of

International School Bangkok The International School Bangkok (ISB; , ) is a private PK-12 American-style school in the Pak Kret District of Nonthaburi Province, Thailand in the Bangkok Metropolitan Area. It is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges ...

. Coincidentally, she happens to share a name with Susan (Cotter) Schwab, the ex-wife of Charles R. Schwab Sr., founder of the

; however, she is of no relation to Schwab Sr., his family, or his ex-wife at all.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Schwab, Susan 1955 births American women chief executives Boeing people Caterpillar Inc. people American corporate directors FedEx people George W. Bush administration cabinet members 21st-century American politicians Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public Administration alumni Living people American people of German descent Maryland Republicans Politicians from Annapolis, Maryland Stanford University alumni United States Trade Representatives University of Maryland, College Park faculty Williams College alumni Women members of the Cabinet of the United States 21st-century American women 21st-century American women politicians