Senate Committee Approves USTR Nomination

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-News.com, Washington

13 March 2009

The Senate Finance Committee has approved Ron Kirk's nomination by President Obama to the post of the American government's chief trade negotiator.

The committee, which has jurisdiction over all international trade matters affecting the United States, approved Kirk's nomination by a voice vote on March 12, setting up a vote by the full Senate in the coming days. Senator Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican, was the only member of the 23-strong panel who objected to the nomination, which has, like several of the President's other key nominations, been surrounded by controversy due to the recent discovery by the Internal Revenue Service of discrepancies in some of Kirk's tax returns.

“I congratulate Mayor Kirk on this vote and this show of support,” said committee Chairman Max Baucus. “These tough economic times demand a sound trade agenda. My colleagues and I look forward to working with Mayor Kirk on a plan that makes international trade a key driver of economic growth and jobs in America.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the committee, said that he was satisfied that Kirk has been "transparent and honest" about the outstanding tax issues, but was more reserved about the former Dallas Mayor's views on international trade.

"Based on his responses to my questions, there appear to be some policy areas in which our views converge," Grassley, an advocate of free trade, said in a committee statement. "But there are some other areas in which I continue to have concerns, particularly where his responses provided insufficient detail to determine whether we can have a convergence of views."

For a candidate with little practical experience of the complexities of international trade, Kirk, a lawyer who served as Mayor of Dallas from 1995-2001, will have a tough mandate implementing the Obama administration's trade policies, which have called for the renegotiation of key trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement. However, as Kirk himself told the finance committee, the US government is unlikely to be doing much in the way of new deal making anyway.

"I don't come to this job with deal fever, and we're not going to do deals just for the sake of doing some," he said.

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