Jim Sanford, AUSTR for Market Access and Industrial Competitiveness

Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Small Business, Market Access, and Industrial Competitiveness

Jim Sanford is the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Small Business, Market Access, and Industrial Competitiveness.  In this capacity, he manages U.S. trade policy activities relating to tariff and non-tariff barriers affecting industrial goods.  Sanford also helps ensure that USTR's trade policy efforts address the challenges facing smaller exporters and promotes the global export opportunities these businesses need to create jobs here at home. Prior to assuming this position, Sanford served as the Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Europe where his responsibilities primarily involved the development and implementation of U.S. trade policy with the 27 countries of the European Union (EU), including a broad range of bilateral trade issues and regional trade initiatives.

Sanford has seventeen years of experience working for the U.S. government on trade policy in a wide variety of different policy contexts including Europe, the Middle East, Japan and the World Trade Organization.  At USTR, he has devoted particular attention to addressing an extensive range of regulatory barriers and developing numerous policy initiatives for advancing U.S.-EU regulatory cooperation and facilitating trade.

Prior to joining USTR in 1998 as the Director for European Affairs, Sanford served as an international economist with the U.S. Department of Commerce and as an economic analyst at the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division.  Sanford received a Masters degree in public policy from the University of Michigan and his Bachelors degree from Swarthmore College.