June 17, 2008
News Release 08-058
Contact: Peg O'Laughlin, 202-205-1819

President George W. Bush has designated Shara L. Aranoff, a Democrat of Maryland, as Chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC or Commission) for the term June 17, 2008, through June 16, 2010.

Chairman Aranoff was nominated to the Commission by President George W. Bush on April 27, 2005, for the term ending December 16, 2012. Her nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 29, 2005, and she was sworn in as a member of the Commission on September 6, 2005. President Bush designated her Vice Chairman of the ITC for the term June 17, 2006, through June 16, 2008.

Prior to her appointment, Chairman Aranoff was Senior International Trade Counsel on the Democratic staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, where she was responsible for legislative and policy issues on international trade and investment, including the Trade Act of 2002; negotiations involving the World Trade Organization, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and numerous free trade agreements; trade remedy laws; Trade Adjustment Assistance; and trade-related environment and labor issues.

From June 1993 until her Senate Finance Committee appointment in January 2001, she served as an Attorney-Advisor in the Office of the General Counsel at the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Earlier in her career, Chairman Aranoff was an Associate at the Washington, DC, law firm of Steptoe & Johnson, specializing in international trade and public international law. Prior to that, she served as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Herbert P. Wilkins, Associate Justice, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Chairman Aranoff holds a bachelor of arts degree, from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School. She attended the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales at the University of Geneva in Switzerland as a Fulbright Scholar from 1984-1985. Chairman Aranoff is originally from Framingham, Massachusetts. She is married to David Korn, has two children, and resides in Bethesda, Maryland.

The ITC is an independent, nonpartisan, quasi-judicial federal agency that provides trade expertise to both the legislative and executive branches of government, determines the impact of imports on U.S. industries, and directs actions against certain unfair trade practices, such as patent, trademark, and copyright infringement. Commissioners are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for nine-year terms, unless they are appointed to fill unexpired terms. The Chairman and the Vice Chairman are designated by the President for two-year terms in those positions.