In May of 2023 a member of the European Union Center interviewed Ben Nathan, then a student in their MA program (https://shorturl.at/qSrle). He spoke about his happiness in returning to campus after the pandemic, interviewing US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovich, and his plans to one day becoming a practicing lawyer with an emphasis on international law. Recently, Ben told us about his new role and the lessons he learned from his college days.

Can you provide any updates on your interests, reflections, and career path since you were last interviewed?

The most significant change since I answered the EUC’s questions is definitely related to my career path. At the time, I had no idea I would be relocating to Washington, DC. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure what I would end up doing. I had a few ideas of what I’d like to do, but nothing very concrete. Now that I found a job that I enjoy, I am less inclined to jump into law school, or even consider it. I’m lucky to have found a line of work that builds off of my strengths while still allowing me to grow. For the time being, I am very happy to stay where I am now.

Can you tell us a little bit about your current role as an International Trade Compliance Analyst at the International Trade Administration, a part of the US Department of Commerce?

I work in the antidumping and countervailing duty operations office of the International Trade Administration. In essence, this position entails calculating duty rates for various imported goods that have been alleged to be, whether through dumping (foreign companies sell their goods in the US at a lower price than they sell them for in their home market) or government subsidization, selling their goods at a price that is harmful to our domestic industries here in the US. We are petitioned by these domestic industries to investigate the extent to which these trade practices are actually being utilized by foreign companies. This is done through comprehensive analysis of the financial records of these companies, reviewing their responses to questions that we ask them, and actually traveling to these countries to talk with these companies’ personnel face to face. Once we’ve collected all of the data, we do certain calculations to generate duty rates (antidumping duty rates for dumping cases and countervailing duty rates for cases pertaining to government subsidies) that are applied to goods within the scope of our investigations at the border, leading these foreign companies to pay that much extra to import the goods into the US, thus, we hope, normalizing their pricing and making them competitive with US industries.

You studied Hebrew after receiving a FLAS fellowship. Did a knowledge of at least one foreign language aid you in your professional life?

It’s funny you bring this up, because I never would have thought that Hebrew, of all things, would come up in a US government position. Yet, my office works on cases that involve Israeli companies, which in turn means that we get documents in Hebrew and occasionally need to interface with companies and individuals who primarily communicate in Hebrew. I have yet to personally work on an Israel case, but my knowledge of Hebrew will undoubtably be an asset when I inevitably do.

What do you hope the future holds for you in terms of your career?

At this point, my number one priority is to become fantastic at my job. I’m lucky enough to find myself working in a position with phenomenal growth potential, surrounded by a team that wants nothing more than to see me succeed. I’ve always been interested in the prospect of law school so that I can eventually go on to handle the legal end of what I currently do. However, the operations end is fascinating, and I think it’s just as likely that I will stay in this line of work for the long run. At the end of the day, I think I’ve set myself up well (thanks in no small part to the wonderful experiences I had as a student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) to have lots of options when it comes to the direction that I want to take my career in. For now, I am loving Washington, DC and all the opportunities that it holds.

If there is anything we haven’t touched on already that you would like us to know about your work or educational experience, we’d love to hear about that, too.

I firmly believe that it would be nearly impossible for me to be any sort of good at my job without the research experiences I had at Illinois. From the undergraduate research opportunities to the thesis I wrote while I was a graduate student at the European Union Center, I left Illinois a more capable, work- ready professional than I would have had I been elsewhere. Speaking to my colleagues about the opportunities that Illinois offered, I very quickly realized how many more chances I had to conduct my own research than other students do, even at other stellar academic institutions.