Robert Zoellick U.S. Trade Representative Established: 1963 2003 Budget: $32.0 million Full-time Employees: 209 Zoellick's Salary: $171,900 Web Site: www.ustr.gov Overall Grade: B Back To Overview And Other Cabinet Grades

National Journal
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Friday, Jan. 24, 2003

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Bush Cabinet. He gets little respect.

Zoellick's intellect and strategic sense are widely admired, and his performance in the first two years of the administration was arguably stronger than that of all but a few of his Cabinet colleagues. His track record includes the launch of a new round of multilateral trade talks with pioneering U.S. proposals for those negotiations; congressional passage of long-delayed presidential trade-negotiating authority; free-trade deals with Chile and Singapore; and initiation of similar negotiations with a range of other nations. All the while, Zoellick has avoided trade dustups with China, Japan, and the European Union.

Yet it is widely believed around Washington that Zoellick, 49, has little influence inside the White House. Many lobbyists think trade-negotiating authority passed despite his allegedly arrogant and manipulative dealings with Congress. And some in the business community contend that his trade deals give short shrift to vital details.

In the eyes of history, all that may eventually matter in judging Zoellick's performance is that he delivered for his president. But in Washington, all politics are personal. And on that score, some judge Zoellick harshly.

Few fault Zoellick's substantive accomplishments. "Nobody has come in and gotten both trade-negotiating authority and a big round started in the first two years," noted trade historian I.M. Destler, a professor at the University of Maryland.

"As we start 2003," said Claude Barfield, director of trade policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, "the United States has to be seen as re-emerging as the leader of the international trade agenda. Zoellick has seized the initiative and forced others to play off U.S. proposals. He has framed the boundaries of the debate."

"I think that Bob Zoellick is the best U.S. trade representative we have had in a long time," said Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., widely acknowledged as the GOP's premier congressional trade expert. "He has turned out to be a tremendous success for the president. Of course, the proof of the pudding is still in the negotiations that are under way. But if anybody has the ability to pull these off, he does."

As Kolbe perceptively observes, the ultimate measure of Zoellick's tenure will be determined over the next two years. Prospects are dwindling that the multilateral negotiations at the World Trade Organization or similar regional talks to create a Western Hemisphere free-trade area will be completed before the 2004 elections. So Zoellick is increasingly focused on things he can control: proposed bilateral or regional trade deals with Central America, Morocco, Australia, and the nations of southern Africa. He hopes to have some of these ready for a congressional vote by early 2004. Such agreements could help leverage long-term progress in the broader trade negotiations, while rebuilding a bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill.

Inside Influence Grade: C
Zoellick was not a member of Bush's original Austin circle, but during the Bush I administration he worked with both Joshua Bolten, now deputy White House chief of staff, and Gary Edson, deputy assistant to the president for international economic affairs. He meets with them regularly. But few around Washington believe that Zoellick is close to either. Since influence can hinge as much on perception as on reality, that consensus is damaging. But Zoellick is believed to have a mutually respectful relationship with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, with whom he also meets regularly, and with whom he shares broad strategic interests.

Relations with the rest of the Cabinet are peaceful, a significant achievement given the history of the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations, when USTR, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, and State were often at odds. But that comity may largely be due to the scarcity of international economic turf issues in this administration, and the fact that Bush has made it clear he won't tolerate public infighting.

In the end, the only inside influence that counts is Zoellick's relationship with the president. Zoellick is not seen as a presidential confidant, because he lacks both the longtime personal ties with Bush enjoyed by Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans and the regular face time with the president afforded to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But reviewing his performance as a longtime high-level government official -- in the Reagan Treasury Department, in the first Bush State Department, and briefly in the first Bush White House -- observers admiringly note that Zoellick knows how to keep an issue hot and understands how to sustain the president's attention. Most important, he has delivered high-profile successes for Bush.

Hill Clout Grade: C
On Capitol Hill and in much of the business community, the knock on Zoellick is that trade-negotiating authority passed in spite of him. In the House, the legislation was driven by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-Calif., to whom Zoellick wisely deferred. And in the Senate, the heavy lifting was done by Evans and Commerce Undersecretary Grant Aldonas, who had worked for the Senate Finance Committee.

But without Zoellick's persistence, negotiating authority might never have gotten off the ground. The White House Office of Legislative Affairs initially opposed the effort, wary of repeating the Clinton administration's failures. And much of the grousing about Zoellick's poor relations on Capitol Hill comes from disgruntled liberal House Democrats, who Zoellick believes would never have voted for the bill anyway. Nevertheless, his personal style also rubbed some Republicans and moderate Democrats the wrong way.

Of greater long-term significance, Zoellick chose to go along with Thomas's decision to ram negotiating authority through the House on a largely partisan basis. "He broke a myth that you had to have bipartisan support for trade legislation," Barfield said. But only history will tell whether it was a tactical stroke of genius or a strategic shift in U.S. trade politics that future administrations may either emulate or rue.

In the months ahead -- in the run-up to the votes on Chile and Singapore, and through his consultations with Capitol Hill about the ongoing WTO negotiations and his new bilateral initiatives -- Zoellick will have the opportunity to strengthen congressional ties. His track record to date does not engender confidence. "I worry that he will check the boxes" on consultation, said Destler, "but it won't be done in a way that the Democrats develop some sense of ownership [of the deals]. So he will miss the opportunity to rebuild bridges in Congress."

Political Imperatives Grade: B
A U.S. trade representative has many constituencies: the president, the business community, and American interests abroad.

George W. Bush came into office touting his free-trade credentials, and Zoellick has repeatedly created opportunities for the president to reaffirm that commitment.

The business community is pleased that the trade agenda is moving forward after stalling at the end of the Clinton administration. But there is worry that Zoellick hasn't focused enough on China or Japan, the two largest sources of the U.S. trade deficit. Moreover, his recent peremptory reshuffling of USTR's business-dominated advisory committee on trade negotiations has some noses out of joint on K Street. And in what may be a warning shot across his bow, business lobbyists gripe that Zoellick has compromised on investment-related issues dear to the hearts of some multinational firms and has generally cared more for signing deals than for considering their details.

Zoellick takes umbrage at this last charge. "I would put my record of detailed trade achievements up against anybody" else's, he said. "The details I got into in closing the Singapore and Chile agreements were quite specific. I don't think we are slighting those at all. In fact, I think we have some pretty good deliverables on those."

There is no such caviling abroad. In Geneva and many foreign capitals, Zoellick is thought to walk on water, because of his intellect and his performance in launching both the WTO negotiations and the bilateral ones. This diplomatic facility serves the administration well. "When Bob shows up abroad," said Kevin G. Nealer, a principal at the Scowcroft Group, an international business advisory firm, "he can talk a range of issues without rankling people, so he ends up being a utility infielder on foreign policy."

Running The Department Grade: C
Zoellick's vision, ambition, creativity, and drive initially energized the USTR staff, an elite, extremely talented, and highly motivated group of just over 200 people. He no doubt has the agency performing at very high productivity. But his style has begun to wear his people down.

"There is a general feeling of unhappiness within the agency right now," said a former Clinton administration trade official. "Zoellick is very hard-driving, which is not unusual, but he is very cavalier about how he treats people." And people both inside and outside the building worry that his multiple negotiating initiatives will stretch resources too thin.

Moreover, "there is a degree of control on access to people and information that I have not seen before," observed one longtime trade reporter. Even business complains about limited information-sharing on trade negotiations. The attempt to prosecute a veteran career negotiator in the leaking of classified material to the press -- a charge later dropped -- has had a chilling effect on a staff that used to be fairly open.

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