The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is the United States government agency responsible for developing and recommending United States trade policy to the president of the United States, conducting trade negotiations at bilateral and multilateral levels, and coordinating trade policy within the government through the interagency Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC) and Trade Policy Review Group (TPRG).

Established as the Office of the Special Trade Representative (STR) under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the USTR is part of the Executive Office of the President. With over 200 employees, the USTR has offices in Geneva, Switzerland, and Brussels, Belgium. The current United States Trade Representative is Ron Kirk.

The head of the office holds the title of United States Trade Representative (USTR), which is a Cabinet-level position, though not technically within the Cabinet.^{[clarification needed]} To fill the post, the President nominates someone for the position, and the appointment is then approved or rejected by a simple majority of the Senate. The United States Trade Representative and Deputy United States Trade Representatives (DUSTR) carry the title of Ambassador.

Michael Froman (born August 20, 1962) is deputy assistant to the president of the United States and deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, a position to be held jointly at the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. His responsibilities will include serving as the White House liaison to the G7, G8 and G20 summits of economic powers.

Froman received an A.B. in Public and International Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University in 1985, a Ph.D. in International Relations from Oxford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School where he was a classmate of Barack Obama, and also an associate of Obama's on the Harvard Law Review.

Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Froman was Managing Director at Citigroup, where he managed infrastructure and sustainable development investments. He also served as President and Chief Executive Officer of CitiInsurance, head of Emerging Markets Strategy at Citigroup and a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He also spent much of his career within the United States Department of the Treasury, where he served as Chief of Staff between January 1997 and July 1999, having previously held the role of Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for Eurasia and the Middle East. As Deputy Assistant Secretary his work related to economic policy towards the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe, as well as economic components of the Dayton Accords. Between January 1993 and December 1995, Froman was director for International Economic Affairs on the National Economic Council and the National Security Council.

Ronald "Ron" Kirk (born June 27, 1954) is the 16th United States Trade Representative, serving in the Obama administration. He served as mayor of Dallas, Texas from 1995 to 2002; he also ran for the United States Senate in 2002.

Born in Austin, Texas, Kirk is the youngest of four children; his father was a U.S. postal worker and the family was politically active. He grew up in a predominantly black community, and attended Austin's public schools. He was a leader in high school, and was elected student council president in his senior year at John H. Reagan High School (Austin, Texas).

Kirk attended Austin College, graduating with a degree in both political science and sociology in 1976. He then went to the University of Texas School of Law. Upon receiving his Juris Doctor in 1979, he practiced law until 1981 when he left to work in the office of then-Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen. In 1983, Kirk returned to Texas to lobby the state legislature in Austin, first as an attorney with the city of Dallas, and later with a law firm.

Susan Carol Schwab (born March 23, 1955) is an American politician, who served as United States Trade Representative from June, 2006 to January, 2009.

She was nominated to replace Rob Portman as United States Trade Representative in April, 2006, becoming Acting Trade Representative upon Portman's confirmation as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Previously, she served as Deputy United States Trade Representative from 2005 to 2006.

Prior to becoming Deputy Trade Representative, she had served since 2003 as President and CEO of the University System of Maryland Foundation. From 1995 to 2003, she served as Dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she remains on the faculty. Earlier in her career, she served as an aide to then-U.S. Senator John Danforth, as a foreign service officer in the State Department, as a well-respected Director-General of the Foreign and Commercial Service within the U.S. Department of Commerce, and as a business development executive at Motorola. Her first job was a trade negotiator with the USTR office, and she later served as Trade Policy Officer in the US Embassy in Tokyo.