Stephen Vaughn of King & Spalding. Courtesy photo.

Stephen Vaughn has returned to King & Spalding as a partner in Washington, D.C., after serving as the general counsel for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in the Trump administration.

“It was a great opportunity to work for President Trump,” Vaughn said in an interview Tuesday. “It was an exciting time with a lot of interesting things happening in the trade world.”

His departure from the USTR comes as the U.S. and China are reported to be resuming trade talks, which broke down in early May. After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Japan in late June, Trump agreed to suspend a new round of tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese consumer goods while the two sides continue negotiations. 

“Stephen has played a central role in shaping and implementing the president's trade policies, especially related to China and the World Trade Organization,” said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in April in his statement announcing Vaughn would be leaving the USTR. Lighthizer named another veteran Washington lawyer, Joseph Barloon, who had been a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, as the new general counsel. 

During his tenure as the trade agency's general counsel, Vaughn worked on a variety of legal and enforcement matters, including the U.S.'s renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, the revised U.S. trade deal with South Korea, dozens of U.S. trade cases filed before the World Trade Organization, and the Section 301 investigation into China's technology transfer and intellectual property practices that led to tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports. China followed with tariffs on $160 billion worth of U.S. goods.

The USTR also engaged in trade negotiations with Europe, Japan and “almost every other major country,” Vaughn said.

After two and a half years in government service, Vaughn said, he was ready to return to private practice. His first day back at King & Spalding was Monday. 

He had been at King & Spalding for only a year, joining the firm in 2016 after a 23-year career at Skadden, when he took a post in the new Trump administration as acting U.S. Trade Representative.

After Lighthizer was confirmed as U.S. Trade Representative in May 2017, Vaughn became the agency's general counsel. Lighthizer, Vaughn and the USTR's new general counsel, Barloon, had worked for years together at Skadden. 

Vaughn said he joined King & Spalding in 2016 because it had one of the top international trade practices in Washington.

“Joe Dorn and Gil Kaplan are legendary people in the industry,” he said. Dorn founded King & Spalding's international trade practice and worked there until leaving in 2016 to start Caddis Global, a dispute resolution firm. Kaplan left King & Spalding in March 2018 to become the undersecretary of commerce for international trade. 

“I have a high opinion of the people here in the trade group, and for the firm and its vision of the future,” Vaughn said. “I'm happy to be here and be a part of it. I'll try and contribute in similar ways to what I did before.”