Early reports say that Kirk is a free trade advocate who has supported NAFTA. This position could definitely conflict with some of the commitments Obama made on the campaign trail to renegotiate NAFTA and change the US trade model to bring greater protections for workers and the environment.
Kirk is also on the Board of Directors of Brinker International, Dean Foods Company and PetSmart Inc. Brinker is a company that owns big restaurant chains like Chili's, Macaroni Grill, On the Border and Maggiano's. Brinker has provided large amounts of funding for Richard Berman's anti-union front groups like the Center for Union Facts that lobby aggressively on behalf of corporations against the labor movement -- including playing a leading role in fighting the Employee Free Choice Act. American Rights at Work has great resources related to these front groups online here. The Center for Media and Democracy/PR Watch just gave a lifetime achievement award to Berman for his long history of lobbying against worker rights and consumer protection. Dean Foods has also been criticized for a range of issues -- from worker discrimination to excessive executive pay to undermining organic food production.
In 2007, Kirk reported being paid $745,765 by Energy Futures Holdings for lobbying for the private equity firm that purchased TXU. He also lobbied for investment bank Merrill Lynch.
It is hard to say what positions Kirk will take as USTR and if he will be an advocate for enforcement of labor rights in US trade policies. Kirk does not appear to have much experience working on trade issues, so there is still a lot to learn about his positions, but his background does reveal some causes for concern. When voters hit the polls in both 2006 and 2008, they called for a reversal in US global trade policy and we need to be sure that the new Administration heeds our call for a better trade system for workers everywhere.
Our friends at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy just put out a great press release on what Kirk must do to fix our broken trade policy -- check it out!
Comments
re: Obama's US Trade Representative Pick
Nice post.
I've been reading rants from the Left all day about a whole range of Obama-related problems related to his choices. Unlike practically every other post I've come across over the last few days, your remarks on Mr. Kirk are informed and lacking hysterics.
Thank you for the informed analysis.
re: Obama's US Trade Representative Pick
Here's an interesting take on matters, and you might want to read my comments to the post as well: http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2008/12/ron-kirk-hilda-solis-an...
BTW, in addition to the work of Petersmann I mentioned, there is also available a nice paper by Frank J. Garcia:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=240611
And check out Garcia's book at a university library (it's prohibitively priced by Brill): Trade, Inequality, and Justice: Toward a Liberal Theory of Just Trade (2003).
None of this stuff is for the philosophically faint of heart, but it serves to provide one with a nice theoretical anchoring point for linking trade and justice (both domestic and global) issues so as to articulate a thoughtful, progressive, pro-trade agenda and policy.