Robert C Fisher

Robert C. Fisher has over 35 years of experience in trade, investment, and economic policy. He is a widely-recognized authority on trade and investment issues, including market access issues such as tariffs, non-tariff barriers, rules of origin, and services trade; free trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); multilateral trade agreements such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), and trade negotiation strategies. He is also knowledgeable in the trade-related aspects of cyber security, general economic analysis, and indirect tax policy. For almost twenty-five years, Bob has been providing Fortune 500 and other global companies with advice on these and other trade and economic policy issues at Hills & Company. Previously, he served for nine years in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. As the Director, Mexican Affairs, Bob developed and coordinated U.S. trade policy towards Mexico. He was the lead U.S. market access negotiator for NAFTA. Earlier, he was USTR's Deputy Chief Economist. Bob joined USTR as the writer of the Annual Report of the President of the United States on the Trade Agreements Program, 1984‑85. Prior to serving in government, he spent four years working in the Trade Policy Section at the British Embassy in Washington, DC. He also completed economic research for the Office of Technology Asses­sment, then an office of the U.S. Congress; and the Committee for Economic Development, a public policy organization of senior business executives. Over the years, Bob has participated pro bono in trade capacity-building projects, providing advice to primarily developing countries and international organizations on trade policy issues and development, negotiating free trade agreements, the WTO, U.S. trade policy, and organizing government and private sector input for trade negotiations. He has completed assignments for Cambodia, Egypt, Indonesia (for the ASEAN Secretariat), Morocco, Switzerland (the WTO), Thailand (for the Asian Development Bank), the United Kingdom, Vietnam, and the U.S. government. Bob served as a member of the German Marshall Fund's Transatlantic Taskforce on Development, focusing on agriculture and food security. He holds a B.A. from Colgate University and M.A. from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Bob has authored articles, monographs, and presentations on NAFTA, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the trade dimensions of cyber security, and trade and development issues more generally.