Robert Bruce Zoellick

Robert Bruce Zoellick is a former U.S. trade representative, deputy secretary of state, president of the World Bank, and vice chairman of Goldman Sachs (2006-2007). As U.S. trade representative, Zoellick played a key role in the passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, the U.S.-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, the Jordan Free Trade Agreement, and the restoration of fast track negotiating authority via the Trade Act of 2002. He was also a top U.S. negotiator during the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations that lead to the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Zoellick is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, which received $765,000 from Peterson's foundation from 2009-2011. The Peterson Institute's board is stacked with current and former Fortune 500 CEOs from companies that would benefit from Fix the Debt's proposed lowering of corporate tax rates and sharp lowering of taxes on repatriated profits. Zoellick is a steering committee member of Fix the Debt.

Ties to Pete Peterson's "Fix the Debt"
The Campaign to Fix the Debt is the latest incarnation of a decades-long effort by former Nixon man turned Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson to slash earned benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare under the guise of fixing the nation's "debt problem."

Zoellick is listed as a member of the Campaign to Fix the Debt's steering committee.

This article is part of the Center for Media and Democracy's investigation of Pete Peterson's Campaign to "Fix the Debt." Please visit our main SourceWatch page on Fix the Debt.

Profiles
Zoellick was unanimously confirmed as President of the World Bank on June 25, 2007. Zoellick was nominated for the position on May 30, 2007, by President George W. Bush.

At the time of his nomination, Zoellick was serving "an executive at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., where Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who will recommend candidates for the World Bank job to President George W. Bush, was chairman until June [1996]."

"The German government has told the Bush administration that it would support" Zoellick's nomination to head the World Bank. Zoellick "would serve a five-year term, subject to the approval of the bank's board", to replace Paul Wolfowitz, whose resignation is effective June 30, 2007.

Deputy Secretary of State
Zoellick was nominated February 10, 2005, by President George W. Bush to be Deputy Secretary of State vice Richard L. Armitage, who resigned. .

U.S. Trade Representative
Prior, Zoellick was appointed United States Trade Representative and assumed office on February 7, 2001. As a member Bush's Cabinet, he served with the rank of Ambassador. Zoellick is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as the Trilateral Commission, and was one of the signers of the January 26, 1998, Project for the New American Century (PNAC) letter to President William Jefferson Clinton.

Zoellick completed negotiations to bring China and Taiwan into the World Trade Organization (WTO), developed a strategy to launch new global trade negotiations at the WTO meeting at Doha, shepherded Congressional action on the Jordan Free Trade Agreement and the Vietnam Trade Agreement, and worked with Congress to pass the Trade Act of 2002, which included new Trade Promotion Authority.

Under Secretary of State for Economic and Agricultural Affairs and Counselor to the Department
"During President George Herbert Walker Bush's Administration, Bob Zoellick served with Secretary of State James Addison Baker III as Under Secretary of State for Economic and Agricultural Affairs, as well as Counselor to the Department (Under Secretary rank). In August 1992, Ambassador Zoellick was appointed White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President."

Other Positions
He served in various positions at the Department of the Treasury from 1985 to 1988, including Counselor to Secretary James A. Baker III, Executive Secretary of the Department, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Policy. Zoellick was also appointed the President's personal representative, or Sherpa, for the G-7 Economic Summits in 1991 and 1992. After leaving government service, Ambassador Zoellick was appointed an Executive Vice President at Fannie Mae (1993-1997).

Zoellick has served as the John M. Olin Professor of National Security at the U.S. Naval Academy (1997-1998), Research Scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy of Government at Harvard University, and Senior International Advisor to Goldman Sachs.

He also serves or has served as a board member on a number of private and public organizations: Alliance Capital, Said Holdings, and the Precursor Group; a member of the advisory boards of Enron and Viventures, a venture fund; as a Director of the Aspen Institute's Strategy Group, Council on Foreign Relations, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and the World Wildlife Advisory Council; and a member of Secretary William Sebastian Cohen's Defense Policy Board.

Zoellick was raised in Naperville, IL. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1975 from Swarthmore College and received his J.D. from the Harvard Law School and a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 1981.

On Climate Change
In an October 2007 speech to the National Press Club, Zoellick stated that "we are working with our Board to significantly step up our assistance to the international efforts to address climate change. At our upcoming Annual Meetings and at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali this December, I hope to outline a portfolio of ways the World Bank Group can help integrate the needs of development and low carbon growth. We need to focus particularly on the interests of developing countries, so that we can meet the challenge of climate change without slowing the growth that will help overcome poverty.

Other Ties

 * Director Emeriti, European Institute
 * Main architect of CAFTA
 * A founder of the Business Humanitarian Forum
 * Member, Inter-American Dialogue

Featured SourceWatch Articles on Fix the Debt

 * Fix the Debt Portal Page
 * Fix the Debt's Leadership
 * Fix the Debt's Partner Groups
 * Fix the Debt's State Chapters
 * Fix the Debt's Lobbyists
 * Fix the Debt's Parent Group
 * Fix the Debt's Corporations
 * Pete Peterson
 * Peter G. Peterson Foundation
 * America Speaks
 * Simpson-Bowles Commission
 * Erskine Bowles
 * Alan Simpson
 * Social Security
 * Medicare
 * Medicaid

External Articles

 * Kevin Watkins, "Trade hypocrisy: the problem with Robert Zoellick," Open Democracy, December 20, 2002.
 * Toni Solo, "Robert Zoellick and 'Wise Blood'. The Hazel Motes Approach to International Trade," CounterPunch, November 8, 2003.
 * Tom Barry, Robert Zoellick: a Bush Family Man, CounterPunch, January 14, 2005. Overview of Zoellick and compared to the neocons.
 * Michael Duffy, "The Man Who'll Replace Wolfowitz," TIME Magazine, May 30, 2007.