Michael Froman — U.S. Trade Representative
 Michael Froman listens in the Rose Garden of the White House on Thursday, May 2, 2013, where President Obama announced he would nominate Froman as U.S. trade representative and nominate Penny Pritzker for commerce secretary. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) |
Status: Awaiting approval from the Senate Finance Committee.
Michael Froman, currently a deputy national security adviser, was a classmate of Obama’s at Harvard Law School. He’s also a political fundraiser and bundler — though not in the same class as some of Obama’s other cabinet appointees. Froman and his wife have given a total of $56,560 to political candidates, parties and outside spending groups since they started donating in 2000, and bundled between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obama’s 2008 campaign. Before taking his job in the White House in 2009, Froman was a managing director at Citigroup for ten years and chief of staff at the Treasury Department during the Clinton administration. The U.S. trade representative plays a key role in determining America’s policy on copyright enforcement. Digital rights advocacy groups, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, are calling on the new trade representative to promise not to enter into treaties that would force a tightening of our copyright enforcement laws — a strategy that other government officials have admitted using in the past when unable to get legislation enacted domestically. Froman’s thoughts on copyright enforcement will likely be a focus of his committee hearing. |
