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Highlights
& Quotes
To what degree do neoconservatives and militarists control U.S. foreign
policy? And how much influence do the less ideological figures like former
National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice have over President
Bush?
These questions were continually debated by observers during the
last three years of the first Bush administration. And at the onset
of Bush’s second term, assessing the new ideological/realist
balance in the foreign policy team is again a main topic of Washington’s
foreign policy community.
The president’s nomination of Condoleezza Rice and her selection
of Robert Zoellick as her top deputy indicate that the ultra-hawks
and neocon foreign policy revolutionaries won’t completely dominate
the second administration. (1) Neither Rice nor Zoellick, who served
as the U.S. Trade Representative during the first administration,
are ideologues. But neither are they moderate conservatives. Only
when compared with such figures as Rumsfeld and
his deputies at the Pentagon—like Paul
Wolfowitz, Stephen
Cambone, and Douglas
Feith—could they be considered moderates.
Both Rice and Zoellick are non-ideological foreign policy operatives
who are not idealists or true believers. Rather they are realists
who accept the neoconservative premise of U.S. global supremacy but
want to wisely manage that power to further their notions of U.S.
national security and interests.
At first glance, Zoellick could be mistaken for an ideologue, as
an evangelist for free trade and a member of the neoconservative vanguard.
But when his political trajectory is more closely observed, Zoellick
is better understood as a “can-do” member of the Republican
foreign policy elite—a diplomat who always keeps his eye on
the prize, namely the interests of Corporate America and U.S. global
hegemony. Based on his record in the Bush Sr. administration and the
current Bush presidency, Zoellick is highly regarded as an astute
dealmaker.
Rice’s surprise selection of Zoellick was greeted with an almost
palpable sense of relief inside Washington’s foreign policy circles.
The great fear, outside the neoconservative and militarist camps, was
that Cheney and
company would insist that the shrill unilateralist John
Bolton, current undersecretary for arms control, serve as Rice’s
deputy.
Zoellick's Track Record
Robert Zoellick, who enjoys long-distance running, has a long track record
in the economic policy and diplomatic affairs of Republican administrations
since the late 1980s. During the second Reagan administration, Zoellick, who
began his career as a Harvard-educated lawyer, served as a special assistant
at the Treasury Department. During the Bush Sr. administration, Zoellick became
a key figure shaping post-Cold War economic policy as a senior officer in
both the Treasury and State Departments, and as a personal adviser to the
elder Bush.
While serving in the Bush Sr. administration, Zoellick was instrumental
in sealing the NAFTA accord with Mexico. When negotiations hit a rough patch,
Zoellick managed to jump-start the stalled talks. As an indicator of the degree
that U.S. foreign policy in the 1990s increasingly became focused on global
economic policy, Zoellick, while serving as a counselor at the State Department
and Under Secretary of State for Economics, played a key role in launching
the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. In recognition of this achievement,
Zoellick received the Distinguished Service Award, the State Department’s
highest honor.
Zoellick shuttled across the globe during the Bush Sr. administration to
promote U.S. global economic policy. Before the founding of the World Trade
Organization, Zoellick was the Bush administration’s top negotiator
with the European Union at a time when the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade
negotiations was blocked by U.S.-European differences over agricultural trade
liberalization. He helped break the logjam by forging the Blair House Accord,
which helped save the foundering negotiations. (2) Zoellick also served as
the administration’s “sherpa” at the G-7 summits in 1991
and 1992.
His reputation as an Atlanticist was secured during the Bush administration
when he persuaded the U.S. government to support the reunification of West
and East Germany. According to the New York Times: “He is most
widely remembered in foreign policy circles for being the United States’ representative
at the multiparty negotiation over the future of divided Germany. He persuaded
the Bush administration to embrace German unity despite the qualms of allies
and alarm in the former Soviet Union.”
Zoellick is highly respected on Wall Street and by Corporate America. Not
only a highly effective government representative of U.S. capital, Zoellick
has also benefited from direct personal ties with the U.S. financial community
and transnational corporations. He has directly worked in the highest echelons
of the U.S. corporate community, including serving as an executive at Goldman
Sachs. Before joining the Bush Jr. administration as a cabinet official in
the capacity of the U.S. Trade Representative, Zoellick served on an advisory
council at the Enron Corporation. In addition, Zoellick also served on the
boards of such corporations as Alliance Capital, Jones Intercable, Said Holdings,
and the Precursor Group. (3) (4)
A protégé of James Baker, who served as treasury secretary during
the Reagan administration and secretary of state during the Bush Sr. administration,
Zoellick has close ties to the Bush family. He was an adviser to Governor George
W. Bush and served as a foreign policy adviser to candidate Bush.
A New Republican Foreign Policy
In a January 2000 Foreign Affairs article titled “Campaign
2000: A Republican Foreign Policy,” Zoellick demonstrated a firm grasp
of the radical new foreign policy directions that would come with a Bush Jr.
administration. Zoellick faulted the Clinton administration for focusing too
narrowly on economic policy and for promoting social and environmental clauses
within free trade organizations, as Clinton did at the outset of the WTO ministerial
in Seattle. He spelled out a new foreign policy that would be based on the
pre-eminence of military power—a concept of a new American century in
which unquestioned U.S. military superiority would allow the United States
to shape the international order.
Zoellick was perhaps the first Bush associate to introduce the concept of “evil” into
the rhetoric of the then-administration-in-waiting. In Foreign Affairs,
Zoellick wrote: “A modern Republican foreign policy recognizes that
there is still evil in the world—people who hate America and the ideas
for which it stands. Today, we face enemies who are hard at work to develop
nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, along with the missiles to deliver
them. The United States must remain vigilant and have the strength to defeat
its enemies. People driven by enmity or by a need to dominate will not respond
to reason or goodwill. They will manipulate civilized rules for uncivilized
ends.”
Although regarded as a pragmatic promoter of U.S. economic interests, Zoellick
has an idealist streak that also aligns him with the neoconservatives. In
his Foreign Affairs article, Zoellick points to the need for a foreign
policy that recognizes that the “appeal of the country’s ideas
are unparalleled,” and points favorably to the idealism of presidents
Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson in promoting their visions of an international
order based on [visions of] America’s transformational role in world
history. (5)
Zoellick’s Foreign Affairs essay was a companion to another
predictive piece about new directions in foreign policy by Secretary of State-designate
Condoleezza Rice. Zoellick worked alongside Rice in the National Security
Council in the Bush Sr. administration. (6)
In 1998 Zoellick joined a group of neoconservatives and militarists, many
of whom would later form the upper ranks of George W. Bush’s foreign policy
teams, in signing statements of the neocon Project
for the New American Century (PNAC). The statements called for increased
military budgets and a policy of regime change in Iraq. (7)
Coalition of the Liberalizers
The Senate unanimously confirmed Zoellick as USTR in 2001, and his nomination
as deputy secretary of state is expected to receive strong bipartisan support.
Although Zoellick failed to seal a Free Trade of Americas Agreement during
his tenure as USTR, he won respect among the corporate community for his role
in gaining bipartisan support for Bush’s request for “trade promotion
authority,” also known as fast-track authority because it reduces the
role of congressional and public review of new free trade pacts.
When it comes to global economic policy, Zoellick is not a free trade ideologue
or a committed advocate of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Instead, he
regards free trade philosophy and free trade agreements as instruments of
U.S. national interests. When the principles of free trade affect U.S. short-term
interests or even the interests of political constituencies, Zoellick is more
a mercantilist and unilateralist than free trader or multilateralist.
Zoellick coined the phrase “the coalition of the liberalizers” prior
to the failed WTO ministerial in September 2003 in referring to the group
of countries that have joined the United States in bilateral or regional trade
pacts. In the face of mounting opposition from Brazil and other developing
nations to the U.S. global economy agenda, USTR Zoellick began forging a “coalition” of
trade partners that agree to open their markets and protect U.S. investment
in order to ensure coveted access to the huge U.S. market. (8)
In early 2003 Zoellick outlined a free trade strategy that anticipated rising
opposition to Washington’s liberalization agenda. Instead of committing
itself to making the compromises necessary to completing another negotiating
round in the WTO, the Bush administration announced that it would pursue its
agenda through free trade agreements (FTAs) with single nations or subregional
groupings. “Our FTA partners are the vanguard of a new global coalition
of open markets,” declared Zoellick.
At the beginning of the Bush administration, the United States had FTAs
with only a few nations, including Canada, Israel, and Mexico. However, once
Congress in 2002 gave the executive branch Trade Promotion Authority—the
go-ahead to pursue “fast-track” trade negotiations—the Office
of the U.S. Trade Representative launched free trade initiatives around the
world outside the WTO. Zoellick took the lead in negotiating the Central America
Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in May 2004. That same month the USTR announced
the start of bilateral trade negotiations with Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru
(and possibly Bolivia) as part of the planned U.S.-Andean Trade Agreement
as well as the beginning of free trade negotiations with Panama. (8)
Zoellick termed his free trade strategy one of “competitive liberalization.” By
establishing numerous bilateral and regional agreements outside the WTO, the
United States hopes to undermine opposition to its aggressive liberalizing
agenda and weaken developing country demands for U.S. market access, subsidy
reduction, and Special Treatment in the WTO. In a July 10, 2003 op-ed in the Wall
Street Journal the administration’s trade czar clearly articulated
the U.S. global trade and investment strategy. Zoellick explained that under
WTO consensus procedures, “one nation can block progress” in extending
economic liberalization to new areas. Explaining that Washington can pursue
its liberalization agenda outside the WTO, Zoellick warned: “It would
be a grave mistake to permit any one country to veto America’s drive
for global free trade.”
Although other nations remain committed to a multilateral forum and universal
trade rules, Zoellick signaled that Washington was willing to proceed unilaterally.
He predicted, “The WTO’s influence will wane if it comes to embody
a new ‘dependency theory’ of trade, blaming developed countries …” Seeing
the recalcitrance of many developing countries to approve new trade and investment
rules, the Bush administration has adopted a “my way or the highway” approach
to global economy issues. This unilateral posture with respect to trade and
investment rules mirrors its unilateralism in foreign and military policy.
The day the WTO talks broke down in Cancun, the USTR said that the “won’t
do” countries had won the day over the “can do” countries.
Referring to the developing country coalitions that had come together to block
the must-do agenda of Washington and the EU, Zoellick issued a veiled threat
to the multilateral process: “We’re going to keep opening markets
one way or another,” he said.
The Bush administration’s decision to raise agricultural subsidies
by $80 billion in the 2002 farm bill underscored the charges that the United
States is a free trade hypocrite. But protectionism and subsidies have political
payoffs. When Zoellick returned from the failed Cancun talks, he was praised
by leaders of the American Farm Bureau Federation for not budging on the issue
of farm subsidies. This hypocrisy galls many developing countries, who see
their competitively priced exports blocked by U.S. protectionism while at
the same time heavily subsidized U.S. exports flow into their own domestic
markets.
The USTR relentlessly pressured other nations, particularly poorer ones,
to liberalize their economies. For the Bush administration, however, free
trade serves more as a battering ram to knock down national barriers to U.S.
trade and investment than as a universal principle.
In a speech to the right-wing Heritage
Foundation in Washington, Zoellick made the case that there is no alternative
to globalization and that U.S. companies and consumers were already benefiting
in countless ways from this new wave of corporate-led economic integration.
To drive his point home, Zoellick noted: “Even the funeral business has
gone global, with a Houston-based company now selling funeral plots in 20 countries.” (8)
Neoconservative-Realist Balance in New Bush Administration
The selection of Rice and Zoellick to direct the State Department points
to President Bush’s determination to consolidate his foreign policy
team. Although Rice and Zoellick are not blazing hawks like Rumsfeld, Cheney,
and Wolfowitz, they are loyalists and hardliners when it comes to promoting
U.S. military supremacy and corporate economic interests. Replacing Colin
Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, Rice and Zoellick can be counted on
to reduce frictions within the foreign policy apparatus and to seek more “policy
coherence” with the Pentagon and Cheney’s office.
Part of that policy coherence was expressed by Zoellick in the aftermath
of the September 11th attacks when he conflated his free trade initiatives
with the war on terrorism. “Now we have a clear enemy who is not only
trying to do us great damage, but is also trying to terrorize us, to paralyze
us by terrorizing us,” said Zoellick. “The terrorists deliberately
chose the World Trade towers as their target. While their blow toppled the
towers, it cannot and will not shake the foundation of world trade and freedom.
Our response has to counter fear and panic, and counter it with free trade.”
This coherence was also on exhibit during a speech by Zoellick at the Institute
for International Economics in 2003, when he linked economic agreements with
political adherence to U.S. foreign policy. “The United States seeks
cooperation—or better—on foreign policy and security. Given that
the United States has international interests beyond trade, why not try to
urge people to support our overall policies? Negotiating a free trade agreement
with the United States is not something one has a right to do—it’s
a privilege.”
Although not part of the new right’s militarist and neoconservative camps,
Zoellick’s unilateralism and his loyalty to Bush and the Republican Party’s
new radical elite make him a perfect fit for Bush’s new foreign policy
team. |
