Speaker biographies

Grant D. Aldonas is the principal managing director of Split Rock International and an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. He formerly served as the under secretary of Commerce for International Trade in the U.S. Department of Commerce. He also served as the chief international trade counsel to the majority in the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. He was responsible for granting extensions of trade negotiating, implementing trade agreements—including preferential trade arrangements such as the Generalized System of Preferences and the Caribbean Basin Initiative—and enforcing U.S. trade and customs laws. Prior to joining the Senate Committee on Finance, Mr. Aldonas was a partner with Miller & Chevalier, specializing in tax, international trade, investment, and litigation. He also served concurrently as counsel to the bipartisan Commission on U.S.-Pacific Trade and Investment Policy. Previously, he chaired the American Bar Association (ABA) Task Force on Multilateral Investment Agreements, and as the vice chair of the ABA International Section's Trade Committee and its Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

Claude E. Barfield is a resident scholar and the director of trade, science, and technology policy studies at AEI. He is the author or editor of a number of books on trade and science policy, including Free Trade, Sovereignty, Democracy: The Future of the World Trade Organization (AEI Press, 2001). In 1999, he coauthored Tiger by the Tail: China and the World Trade Organization (AEI Press) with Mark Groombridge. Before coming to AEI, he served in the Ford administration, on the staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and as a co-staff director of the President’s Commission for a National Agenda for the Eighties.

Daniel W. Drezner is an associate professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and for the 2005-06 academic year is a nonresident Transatlantic Fellow for the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He has previously held positions at the University of Chicago and the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author of All Politics Is Global: Explaining International Regulatory Regimes (Princeton University Press, forthcoming), U.S. Trade Policy: Free Versus Fair (Council on Foreign Relations, forthcoming), and The Sanctions Paradox (Cambridge University Press, 1999). He is also the editor of Locating the Proper Authorities (Michigan University Press, 2003). Mr. Drezner has published articles in numerous scholarly journals as well as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Reason, and Slate. He has provided commentary on U.S. foreign policy and the global political economy for C-SPAN, CNNfn, CNN International, and ABC's World News Tonight. Mr. Drezner has received fellowships from the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Harvard University. He previously held positions with the Civic Education Project, the RAND Corporation, and the Treasury Department. From 2003-04 he was a monthly contributor to The New Republic Online.

James K. Glassman is editor in chief of The American magazine and a resident fellow at AEI, where he specializes in issues involving economics and financial markets. In addition, he is host and cofounder of TechCentralStation.com, a website that concentrates on matters of technology and public policy. In September 2004, Mr. Glassman launched a new organization, Investors Action, for which he serves as chairman. Investors Action aims to educate America’s 90 million investors and represent their interests in the public-policy arena. Mr. Glassman also writes a weekly op-ed column on economic and political topics for the Scripps Howard News Service, and a monthly column on investing for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. His most recent book, The Secret Code of the Superior Investor (Crown, 2002) was named one of the top ten investing books of 2002 by Barron’s. Between July 1993 and July 2004, Mr. Glassman wrote an internationally syndicated weekly column on investing for the Washington Post. From 1987 to 1993, he was editor and part-owner of Roll Call, the twice-weekly newspaper that covers Congress. Prior to that, he had a long career in magazine publishing—as president of the Atlantic Monthly, executive vice president of U.S. News & World Report, and publisher of The New Republic. In 1972, he started Figaro, a New Orleans weekly newspaper, which he sold in 1979. He served as executive editor of Washingtonian magazine from 1979 to 1981.

Ambassador Susan C. Schwab currently serves as United States trade representative (USTR). She was nominated to this position on April 18, 2006, after serving as deputy USTR since November 2005. Before joining the administration, Ambassador Schwab held the position of president and CEO of the University System of Maryland (USM) Foundation and USM vice chancellor for advancement. Between 1995 and 2003 she was dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. Prior to this she worked at Motorola, Inc., where she served as director of corporate business development, and where she was engaged in strategic planning and negotiation on behalf of the company in China and elsewhere in Asia. Before her time at Motorola, Ambassador Schwab was assistant secretary of Commerce and director general of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service during the administration of George H. W. Bush. She spent most of the 1980s as a trade policy specialist and then as legislative director for Senator John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), playing a major role in numerous U.S. trade policy initiatives, including landmark trade legislation that Congress enacted in 1984 and 1988. Previously, Ambassador Schwab served as a trade policy officer in the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. Her first job was as an agricultural trade negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Daniel K. Tarullo is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and teaches in the areas of international economic regulation, international law, and banking law. From 1993 to 1998 he was, successively, assistant secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, deputy assistant to the president for economic policy, and assistant to the president for international economic policy. From 1995 to 1998 he was also President Bill Clinton’s personal representative to the G7/G8 group of industrialized nations. Prior to joining the administration, he practiced law for several years in Washington in the areas of antitrust, financial markets, and international transactions. From 1987 to 1989 he was chief counsel on the staff of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. From 1981 to 1987 he taught at Harvard Law School. Outside the law center, Professor Tarullo moderates the bimonthly World Economic Update series of the Council on Foreign Relations, a forum for debate on the U.S. and global economies among leading Wall Street economists. Mr. Tarullo is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

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