Jameson Berkow

Reporter

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American law gives Boeing the upper hand in the next stage of its fight with Bombardier over the CSeries jet. Now that the United States Commerce Department has finalized its earlier decision to slap imports of the Canadian jet with tariffs of 292 per cent, the decision of whether or not to actually start collecting those fees falls to the four members of the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Yet because the rules dictate a split decision will favour the domestic party – in this case Boeing – the bar is higher for Bombardier as it must convince at least three commissioners to side with the Canadian position. Testimony was presented to the ITC earlier this week and a decision is scheduled for February.

Below, BNN takes a look at the four Americans who will either green light or reject Commerce’s will.

Rhonda Schmidtlein (Chair, Democrat of Missouri)

Appointed by former U.S. President Barack Obama in July 2013, Schmidtlein most recently consulted for the World Bank. She previously served as the founding Director of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which was created by the U.S. Congress in 2002 to “further the public interest in independent audits of U.S. public companies.” She also spent five years as a lawyer in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

David Johanson (Vice Chair, Republican of Texas)

Also an Obama appointee who joined the ITC in 2011, Johanson spent the bulk of his prior career working for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee as International Trade Counsel. During his time on Capitol Hill, Johanson assisted in implementing legislation for free trade agreements between the United States and 16 other countries. He previously spent six years in private practice at a trade-focused law firm based in Washington, D.C.

Meredith Broadbent (Republican of Virginia)

Having already served a two-year term as chair of the ITC from 2014 to 2016, Broadbent was originally appointed to the Commission by former President Obama in late 2011. As the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative from 2003 to 2008, she led the U.S. negotiating team for the Doha Round negotiations that were focused on reducing tariff barriers to trade. Earlier in her career, Broadbent worked for the House of Representatives Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, where she assisted with the passage of the bill that implemented the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Irving Williamson (Democrat of New York)

By far the longest-serving member of the ITC, Williamson was originally appointed by former U.S. President George W. Bush in 2006 and has served in both the Chair and Vice Chair roles. With half a century of experience in the trade policy fields, Williamson has consulted for the U.S. Agency for International Development and various countries involved with the World Trade Organization. In the mid-1990s he served as Deputy General Counsel in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative at a time when the USTR was engaged in more than 30 dispute resolution proceedings. The first two decades of his career were spent as a foreign service officer with the U.S. State Department.

Images courtesy of www.usitc.gov