When she served as U.S. trade representative from June, 2006 to January, 2009, the rap against Sue Schwab — a former foreign service officer, congressional aide, corporate consultant, and academic — was that she lacked the requisite political savvy to pry open markets for American exporters. So when President Barack Obama tapped Texas politician Ron Kirk for the job, the nomination was generally well-received. Kirk is a former mayor of Dallas whose ambition is to serve in the U.S. Senate. It’s reassuring that a man with real political smarts, a man who knows how to produce concrete results, will follow technocrat Schwab — or so the conventional wisdom has it.

But is it right?

Sue Schwab came into office with a deep appreciation of how the politics of international trade fit into the real world of diplomacy. As U.S. trade representative, technocrat Schwab had more successes than she is given credit for — notably including difficult issues involving China. As a former diplomat, Schwab understood the importance of using the right tone when addressing America’s trading partners. By contrast, neophyte Kirk seems inclined to adopt the old-style tone of Uncle Sam, the hectoring world’s trade policeman, always on the lookout to score political points against U.S. trading partners (China heads the list) whose word can’t be trusted. And on substance, Kirk has already blundered in the eyes of some foreign policy heavyweights by threatening to re-negotiate a pending trade deal with a major American ally: South Korea.

While Kirk may grow in his job — think of Robert Strauss, another politically minded Texan who performed admirably as U.S. trade representative in the 1970s — Obama’s new chief trade negotiator comes into office facing a very steep learning curve. At least, that was the thrust of concerns that were raised about Kirk last week at a well-attended conference of senior foreign-policy experts who convened at Washington’s famous Willard hotel to discuss U.S. national security strategies for Asia. One old Asia hand who was in the audience quipped that Kirk’s touting of his foreign policy credentials regarding Mexico reminds him of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s deep insights into neighboring Russia.

The March 11 conference rolled out a new 82-page study of various national security concerns that will face the incoming Obama administration across the Asia-Pacific region, and also a analysis of the U.S.-South Korea alliance that ran to 88 pages. The studies were written by seasoned Asia experts who are affiliated with an array of respected think tanks: the Center for Naval Analyses, the Institute for Defense Analyses, the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, Pacific Forum CSIS (the Honolulu-based affiliate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies), and the Center for a New American Security.

While Kirk’s performance two days earlier at his March 9 confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee went over well with the lawmakers, the foreign policy heavyweights who convened at the Willard weren’t as impressed. The main source driving the concerns that the new administration’s trade agenda could be heading into rough political waters: Kirk’s own words to explain how he intends to go about his new job.

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Since the collapse last July of the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round, the object of which is to enable the expansion of international trade flows by persuading the WTO’s 153 member countries to slash tariffs and trade-distorting subsidies, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy has refused to accept defeat. Lamy pressed as hard as he could to put a deal together by the end of 2008, so it would be in President Barack Obama’s in-box, come January 20, 2009, ready for him to put on the final touches. (Of course, the diminished support in the U.S. for trade wasn’t the only major worry for the WTO negotiators, but it was a major concern, given the importance of obtaining American support.) The idea was that despite the many protectionist IOUs that he had accumulated on the campaign trail, once in the White House, President Obama would not abdicate America’s international economic leadership by walking away from a deal that was all-but-done.) But the talks failed again in December, and the Doha process went back into intensive care. And now, President Obama seems content to put multilateral trade liberalization on indefinite hold.

But Pascal Lamy, a well-known marathon runner, doesn’t give up easily. He has been issuing a steady stream of warnings in recent months of the dangers associated with rising protectionism measures that are being taken by some WTO member countries. This is especially dangerous, Lamy has explained — repeatedly — as the current global wave of economic nationalism comes as the international economy is in a deep global recession, and trade flows are shrinking. In late January, Lamy issued a confidential 14-page report to the WTO’s 153 member countries, in which he singled out some recent protectionist developments in the European Union, India, South Korea, Indonesia and the United States as reason for particular concerns. Later this month, Lamy is expected to follow up with a second, even more detailed, report. Lamy’s basic argument is based on clear economic reasoning: if political leaders could now find the will to bring the Doha Round to a successful conclusion, that would constitute an economic stimulus package that would help expand international trade flows and help jump-start the global economy. In short, Pascal Lamy has been thinking strategically.

The chief executive officers of America’s major corporations are also supposed to be strategic thinkers, always looking over the horizon for looming economic troubles. So what has the premier corporate lobby in Washington, D.C. done by way of advocating what America’s top international trade priorities should be? The Business Roundtable — whose members include such sophisticated global operators as Caterpillar Inc., General Electric, FedEx, IBM, Cummins Engines, Deere, Procter & Gamble, and dozens more — has dropped its previous support for the Doha Round as a top priority. Nearing the end of last year, just when Lamy’s attempts to rescue Doha were at their vital make-it-or-fail point, the BRT’s corporate leaders decided to drop from the BRT website all mention of the Doha Round as any sort of a priority. BRT President John Castellani has declined repeated entreaties to comment on the Doha negotiations.

You could call it: small ball.

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Reams of newsprint, and considerable air-time on television news programs, have been devoted recently to the controversial Buy American stipulations that require the use of only American-made steel in federal infrastructure spending — highways, ports, airports, railways, and so forth — that Congress inserted in President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package. But as often happens when hot political issues meet the usual flurries of press attention in 24-hour news cycles, the basic economic point as to whether Buy American makes sense, or doesn’t, has tended to be obscured. But it’s really pretty simple.

Richard Fisher got right to the nub of the matter in just two lines. “Protectionism is the crack cocaine of economics,” observed the witty president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in a recent speech. “It provides a temporary high but is instantly addictive and leads to certain economic death.”

For sure, that prospect of certain economic death extends even to the advocates of Buy American laws themselves. This is perhaps the strangest thing about the whole controversy: the most ardent Buy American proponents would quickly see their own businesses ruined, if those laws were applied to their own business practices.

President Obama, to his credit, has tried to limit the damage that has been done to America’s international economic prestige by saying that these are no times for Beggar Thy Neighbor policies. But Obama is the man who shares much of the blame for creating the confusion in the public’s mind in the first place, en route to the Oval Office as the candidate of economic nationalism. At one point during last year’s presidential campaign, Obama took the position that the government should be required to buy only American-made motorcycles, referring to that American icon, Harley-Davidson. Obama made fun of Republican rival John McCain for not going along with that idea. Nobody — especially McCain, an instinctive free trader who apparently didn’t know enough about basic global economic realities to respond effectively in terms that ordinary voters could easily understand — pointed out that if Obama’s economic prescription for Harley were to be taken, the dose of protectionism would kill the corporate patient.

Last week, on his first foreign trip as president, Obama had to back peddle the Buy American cause when he flew across the Canadian border to visit Ottawa, marking Obama’s first trip on foreign soil in his presidency. And he was subjected to a little lecture by his Canadian host, who (smartly) used terms that American presidents are not used to hearing from their trading partners.

It’s not hard to see why the Buy American subject has become an embarrassment in respected international economic circles. Let’s begin with a quick look at the estimable members of the American Iron and Steel Institute, whose lobbying with the congressional steel caucus drove the Buy American provisions in the stimulus bill. Try to imagine a world where the domestic steel manufacturers would themselves have to Buy American.

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