Alan Wm. Wolff

Alan Wm. Wolff is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). His research focuses on developing reforms of the WTO; responding to the role of the United States, the European Union, and China in the international trading system; and serving the needs of all countries in using trade to achieve economic prosperity. Until joining PIIE, he was Deputy Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

On June 27, 2017, the WTO announced the appointment of Alan Wm. Wolff as Deputy Director-General. At the WTO, Ambassador Wolff was responsible for divisions dealing with accessions, agriculture, trade and the environment, standards, translation, and information technology support. He is a founder of the Trade for Peace (T4P) Initiative, which joins the WTO, the International Financial Institutions, and the peace community in their efforts to provide assistance to fragile and conflict-affected countries. He served as chair of the WTO's Consultative Framework Mechanism for Cotton Development Assistance. During the six months ending on March 1, 2021, he was co-acting director-general of the WTO.

Prior to serving as a WTO DDG, Ambassador Wolff had a long career as one of the world’s leading international trade lawyers. He has been engaged to resolve some of the largest international trade disputes on record. He served as trade counsel to the U.S. semiconductor industry (Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA)) from1980 until he joined the WTO Secretariat in 2017. While in private law practice, Ambassador Wolff was recognized in Chambers USA - America's Leading Lawyers, Chambers Global for International Trade: Trade Remedies & Trade Policy and Best Lawyers in America 2009 – 2011, 2014 as a leader in the field of International Trade and Finance Law. For the six years prior to his joining the WTO, he served as the Chairman of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) which was called into being by President Wilson in 1914 to support open international trade and which represents hundreds of major companies who employ millions of workers.

Ambassador Wolff served as United States Deputy Special Representative for Trade Negotiations in the Carter Administration (1977-79) and was General Counsel of the Office in the Ford Administration (1974-77). As Deputy Trade Representative, he played a key role in the formulation of American trade policy and its implementation, including leading international trade negotiations for the United States. As General Counsel of the Office, he was responsible for drafting major trade legislation, including the first "trade promotion authority". He served as acting Head of the U.S. Delegation for the Tokyo Round, and a principal draftsman of the basic U.S. law creating a mandate for trade negotiations. As Deputy USTR he was a founder of the OECD Steel Committee and its first chairman (1979). He has served as a senior trade negotiator in, and advisor to, both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Prior to his service at USTR, Wolff served in the U.S. Treasury as staff attorney for the National Advisory Committee on International Monetary and Financial Policy, participating in the work of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, reviewing lending policies in the IMF and the World Bank, and representing the United States in the drafting of the Articles of Agreement of the African Development Fund. He was director of the Treasury’s Office of Multilateral Trade Negotiations before joining the Office of the USTR.

Wolff founded the International Trade Practice at Dewey Ballantine LLP, and served as Managing Partner of its Washington office from 1995-2012, before becoming a partner and counsel with other leading international law firms.

Wolff is a lifetime National Associate of the National Academies, and served several terms on the Science, Technology and Economic Policy Board of the Academies, chairing its Committee on Comparative Innovation Policies. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has served as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), the President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and the Services Policy Trade Committee.

He has lectured at dozens of universities and think tanks around the world and written extensively on trade topics including the need for a strong, open rules-based multilateral trading system. Many of his writings can be found under his name at www.wto.org; www.piie.com; and www.fortune.com. His books include: Rising to the Challenge: U.S. Innovation Policy for the Global Economy, co-author and co-editor, National Research Council (2012), Conflict Among Nations: Trade Policies in the 1990s, co-author and co-editor, Westview Press (1992), Steel and the State: Government Intervention and Steel’s Structural Crisis, co-author and co-editor, Westview Press (1988), The Microelectronics Race. The Impact of Government Policy on International Competition, co-author and co-editor, Westview Press (1988), Policy Issues in Aerospace Offsets: Report of a Workshop, Charles Wessner and Alan Wolff, eds., (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press (1997), and Conflict and Cooperation in National Competition for High-Technology, co-editor, National Research Council, National Academy Press (1996)

He holds a J.D. degree from Columbia University and an A.B. degree from Harvard College. He is married to the Rev. Helene N. Wolff, Harvard University M.Div. 1985, and has three children and six grandchildren.