Incoming U.S. trade rep sees China as 'business opportunity'
By Charles Snyder in Washington D.C.
ChinaOnline News
(12 January 2001) President-elect
George W. Bush's selection for
the next U.S. Trade
Representative, Robert B.
Zoellick, won broad praise as a
free trader and a sharp negotiator,
and observers say he is expected
to be a strong proponent of
expanded U.S.-China trade.
Zoellick, a former State
Department and Treasury
Department official in the Reagan
and elder Bush administrations,
has been a leading foreign policy
adviser to George W. Bush during
his election campaign and has had a role in a long string of
trade-opening efforts.
"The United States should be a force for trade liberalization to
counter the inevitable impulses of protectionism that will
arise," he told a September 1998 hearing of the House
Banking Committee on the Asian financial crisis. "If America,
the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world, is
unwilling to back open markets with deeds, how can one
expect Asians, Latin Americans and Russians to believe U.S.
reform rhetoric?"
Even before his official appointment, he demonstrated his
negotiating mettle by fighting off efforts in Bush's campaign
organization to downgrade the USTR office by stripping it of
its cabinet status. As a result, Bush decided to retain the
position as a cabinet level office.
House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) and
House Ways and Means Committee trade subcommittee
chairman Phil Crane (R-Ill.), two of the strongest backers of
expanded trade with China, both roundly praised Zoellick's
selection.
"Robert Zoellick is a savvy internationalist who will bring a
wealth of knowledge, experience and negotiating instinct to
the international trade table," Crane said.
'When it comes to trade issues
and trade negotiations, it is tough
to find an individual with more
experience and expertise than
Bob Zoellick.'
--U.S. President-elect George W. Bush
"Robert Zoellick is a great choice by President-elect Bush
who, by recognizing the importance of trade to America's
economy, is setting the right tone for his new administration,"
Dreier noted.
Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), the incoming chairman of the House
Ways and Means Committee, called Zoellick "a skilled and
determined negotiator who will be an outstanding
representative for America's interests as new trade
agreements are constructed."
Zoellick’s views on China
Zoellick sees China as a trading partner and its impending
entry into the World Trade Organization "as a business
opportunity for American companies rather than a threat to
the local industries," notes Joe C.C. Wong, the deputy
director-general of the Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office in
Washington, D.C.
"I think he will take a more realistic view of how international
trade is driving the U.S. economy. So I think on that score
this is positive," he said.
One of Zoellick's first jobs as trade representative will be to
complete the United States’ part in the final negotiations on
China's WTO accession, which are expected to take place in
coming months. Then, he will be largely responsible for
assuring that China complies with its commitments.
In this, his role "probably will be a reactive one now—just to
make sure that all the bases are covered in the agreement,"
said one congressional trade staffer.
The 47-year-old Zoellick, an Illinois native, is probably best
known as an aide to former Secretary of State James A.
Baker III in rallying Western Europe to back a speedy
German reunification after the fall of the Soviet Union. But he
also patched together a compromise that led to the creation
of the WTO by acting as the lead negotiator at the final
Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade, as well as the chief negotiator at the North America
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Zoellick has also served as the president's personal
representative at two summits of the G-7 group of
industrialized nations, and at the Treasury Department,
worked on the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement and the
Omnibus Trade Act of 1988.
A Harvard Law School graduate, Zoellick has also served on
the boards of Fannie Mae and the German Marshall Fund of
the United States.
"When it comes to trade issues and trade negotiations, it is
tough to find an individual with more experience and expertise
than Bob Zoellick," Bush said. As USTR, he "will make sure
that America's interests are well represented at the
negotiating table and that our nation will expand on its
commitment to free trade."
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