WASHINGTON -- The Senate has overwhelmingly confirmed President Joe Biden's picks for top U.S. trade envoy and head of the Small Business Administration.
Katherine Tai will be the first Asian American and first woman of color to hold the trade envoy position. Isabel Guzman will oversee the Small Business Administration, an agency that has seen its portfolio expand in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Tai is considered a problem-solving pragmatist, and her nomination by Biden to be U.S. trade representative drew support from Democrats and Republicans alike. She was confirmed on a 98-0 vote and is the 19th member of Biden's Cabinet to clear the Senate.
A former trade negotiator and congressional staff member, Tai has vowed to work for a U.S. trade policy that benefits ordinary workers, not just big corporations, and to work more closely with America's allies to confront an increasingly assertive China.
In her confirmation hearing, she ducked questions about how she'd handle several politically sensitive questions such as whether the Biden administration would drop former President Donald Trump's tariffs on imported steel and aluminum and whether it would revive an Asia-Pacific trade agreement that was negotiated by former President Barack Obama but jettisoned by Trump.
Fluent in Mandarin, Tai served several years as head of China enforcement at the trade representative's office.
"I know firsthand how critically important it is that we have a strategic and coherent plan for holding China accountable to its promises and effectively competing with its model of state-directed economics,″ Tai told senators last month.
Biden and his team appear to be in no hurry to reverse Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods.
Tai promised to work with U.S. allies to present a united front to Beijing. Far from coordinating with U.S. allies on trade, Trump sparred with them instead, putting tariffs on imported steel and aluminum and threatening to target European cars, too.
The vote to confirm Guzman as chief of the Small Business Administration was 81-17.
She is a former official at the agency during the Obama administration. She now currently heads California's Office of the Small Business Advocate. In that role, she oversaw efforts to help that state's small businesses survive the pandemic.
"I am confident that I can hit the ground running," Guzman told senators in her confirmation hearing.
The Small Business Administration oversees loan programs to help businesses recover from natural disasters, enhances access to capital through loan guarantees and provides training and technical assistance. Guzman said she would work to ensure money gets into the hands of the small businesses hurt the most by the pandemic and the economic crisis through no fault of their own.
