Viji Rangaswami

This person is no longer with the Carnegie Endowment.

Viji Rangaswami was an associate in the Trade, Equity, and Development Project at the Carnegie Endowment.  She was formerly minority trade counsel to the Committee on the Ways and Means in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Her work focuses on how multilateral and regional trade agreements, as well as unilateral preference programs, can promote development, particularly among the least developed countries.

Rangaswami served for six years with the Committee. She played a key role in legislation granting permanent normal trade relations status to China and extending unilateral trade preferences to various regions, including sub-Saharan Africa.

Rangaswami also worked with both the Clinton and Bush Administrations to implement major trade initiatives, including free trade agreements with Jordan, Chile, Singapore, Australia, and Morocco. She provided oversight and advice to members of Congress on ongoing trade negotiations, with particular emphasis on the Doha Round, the FTAA, Central America, and the Southern African Customs Union.  She also advised members on issues such as textiles and apparel trade, intellectual property rights, unfair trade practices, WTO dispute settlement, and customs administration .

Before joining the Ways and Means staff, Rangaswami was an associate at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, working in the area of international trade. She has served as a visiting lecturer at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law School.

Selected Publications:  Feast or Famine: US Trade Policy in 2001 (Bridges, 2001); "Joltin' Joe Has Left and Gone Away - Embracing Change:  The Way Forward for US Trade Policy and the WTO", (Journal of Law and Policy in International Business, 2000)