About - Staff Member - Sam Rizzo
Staff
Sam Rizzo
Sam Rizzo serves as Senior Director for Policy, focusing on trade issues. He comes to ITI having spent three years at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), where he was Director for Europe in USTR’s Office of Europe and the Middle East. In that capacity, Sam was responsible for the development of U.S. policy positions for bilateral trade engagement with the European Commission with a focus on EU regulatory and non-tariff barriers to trade. While at USTR, he worked extensively with White House and USTR leadership, as well as a wide range of trade policy officials across the U.S. interagency. From 2015-2016, Sam served as part of the U.S. coordination team for negotiation of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP), where he worked to develop U.S. negotiating and engagement strategies as well as public messaging.
Prior to joining USTR, Sam served as an International Affairs Specialist and Presidential Management Fellow in the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
Sam holds a bachelor’s degree in Hispanic Studies from the College of William & Mary and a master’s degree in International Relations and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) with a concentration in European Studies. Sam speaks Spanish and originally hails from North Carolina.
Blog Posts by Sam Rizzo
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The Rules-Based, Multilateral Trade System Enables U.S. Innovation
(June 04, 2020)
The COVID-19 crisis is having an unprecedented impact on international trade at a time when the World Trade Organization (WTO) – guardian and principal arbiter of the global trade rulebook – is under significant ...
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WTO’s E-Commerce Negotiations Offer Key Opportunity to Modernize Global Trade Rules
(April 17, 2019)
Earlier this month, ITI traveled to Geneva to participate in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) E-Commerce Week, and to meet with a range of trade officials from various governments. ...