16 January 2009
Obama’s Top Trade Man Is Master of the Art of the Deal
Ron Kirk praised for driving hard bargains as Dallas mayor
Washington — As a practicing attorney, Ron Kirk’s stock in trade was public finance, helping clients maneuver through regulatory hurdles, not negotiating international trade deals. But that is what he will be doing as the main trade official in the Obama administration if confirmed by the Senate.
Longtime associates say Kirk, the nominee for the post of U.S. trade representative, does not lack experience at driving hard bargains. As evidence of Kirk’s prowess, they cite the deal he struck as Dallas’ first African-American mayor that cleared the way for construction of the $420 million American Airlines Center in the city in 2001.
In some major U.S. cities, sports moguls have wrested steep concessions from local governments as the price for building new palaces for their football, basketball, hockey and baseball franchises. Some deals have cost taxpayers far more than advertised. But not in Dallas.
“He negotiated a beautiful deal for the city,” said Rob Walters, an antitrust lawyer and Dallas civic leader. Kirk insisted on a cap that left Dallas responsible for only a quarter of the final costs, instead of half, Walters said. “It really was a brilliant job for the taxpayers of Dallas and has become a model for municipalities doing public-private partnerships.”
Kirk, mayor from 1995 to 2002, got the owners of the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association and the Dallas Stars of the National Hockey League to bear most of the cost. Moreover, he convinced Dallas voters to boost taxes on hotel rooms and car rentals to help pay the city’s share.
The American Airlines Center pulls in large crowds, not just for sports, but for concerts, rodeos and other events, and has spurred development.
Dallas is the ninth largest U.S. city, with a population of 1.2 million, but the part-time job of mayor is more bully pulpit than chief executive. Kirk also served as Texas secretary of state for a year under former Governor Ann Richards. Asked if Kirk’s skills in promoting Dallas would translate well into challenges in the international arena, Mark Cuban, billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, told America.gov, “No question about it. Ron is very smart and able to see all sides of a business issue. He will excel at this job.”
Kirk’s challenge will be to “thread the needle on keeping trade free and open and … doing it on our labor and environmental terms,” said former law partner Walters, now general counsel of Energy Future Holdings.
Departing President Bush was unable to convince Congress to ratify free trade pacts with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Obama opposed the Colombia deal, saying it did not address labor and human rights issues.
Kirk, for his part, said, “As the mayor of Dallas, I happen to live in one of the most dynamic cities in the world, but it was also in the cross hairs of regional trade and trade for this continent. I’ve seen both its benefits and its costs.” He said he shares Obama’s commitment to “a values-driven trade agenda.”
Kirk’s nomination goes before the Senate Finance Committee, whose Democratic chairman, Max Baucus, welcomed the selection and said his top priority was getting trade-adjustment assistance — help for U.S. workers who lose their jobs due to imports — renewed and expanded. Baucus said he would work with Kirk “on smart trade initiatives that will open markets around the world to U.S. farm products, manufactured goods, and services, and that will create good-paying jobs here at home."
Vinson & Elkins partner Jeffrey Chapman, who helped recruit Kirk to the law firm in 2005, said the Obama administration inevitably will “focus more than the Bush administration did on the labor aspects of free trade.”
Chapman said Kirk, like his mentor, the late Senator Lloyd Bentsen, for whom he once worked in the U.S. Senate, is a Democrat “who believes in business and free enterprise, but is always going to temper that by being particularly sensitive to workers’ rights and interests.”
Still, Kirk does not have a reputation for being in labor’s pocket. Glenn White, president of the Dallas Police Association, told the Dallas Morning News, “It was tough to get anything from him. It always came down to what was best for the company instead of the workers.”
With a new client — not just the president, but the entire United States — that tenacity could stand Kirk in good stead.
More information about Kirk is available on the Web site of the Public Broadcasting Service.
