GMF - The German Marshall Fund of the United States - Strengthening Transatlantic Cooperation

Malcolm Baldrige, Ronald Reagan’s first Commerce secretary, was a cowboy who got things done.

A Nebraska native, former corporate CEO, and ardent horseman, Baldrige died in a rodeo accident in 1987. He delighted in entertaining visitors to his vast office on 14th Street by demonstrating his proficiency in lassoing a chair on the far side of the room. The act was shrewd political theater calculated to demonstrate to Washington sophisticates that he was not one of them.

No rube, Baldrige also knew how to wield political influence in the corridors of power. When the American steel industry sought protection against foreign imports, Baldrige knew that President Reagan, an outspoken free trader, was skeptical. So, sharing the president’s penchant for time in the saddle, Baldrige arranged to go riding with Reagan in Virginia.

In that congenial atmosphere, away from the president’s aides, Baldrige convinced Reagan that imposing duties on foreign steel was good for America.

In Baldrige’s memory, the Commerce Department created the Baldrige National Quality Award to encourage U.S. competitiveness. It was an honor he earned through his indefatigable efforts to bolster American economic interests in the face of mounting global competition. 

On Tuesday, the Senate Commerce Committee will consider the nomination of John Bryson to be President Obama’s second secretary of Commerce. The former CEO of Edison International will take office facing an equally daunting set of challenges.

“Right now,” said Clyde Prestowitz, author of the recent book The Betrayal of American Prosperity, “the job of the secretary of Commerce is really more important than that of the secretary of Defense, or at least it should be.”

Senators need to press the nominee on what he intends to do to defend U.S. trade interests and to boost American competitiveness.

Bryson inherits a department that has largely been AWOL in recent Washington policy debates. In the last two-and-a-half years, the Commerce Department has done little to revitalize the American manufacturing sector, to spur the renewable-energy technology business, or to defend the U.S. market from unfair foreign competition.

Before the Commerce Committee rubberstamps Bryson’s nomination, committee members might want to elicit his views on the following issues that go to the heart of his vision for the department and the U.S. economy:

1. Gary Locke, Bryson’s predecessor, was on a short leash because any competitiveness agenda smacked of “industrial policy,” a concept Obama’s former chief economic adviser Larry Summers abhorred. Now that Summers is gone, does Bryson have more running room to articulate a proactive U.S. policy to revive American manufacturing and to boost competitiveness?

2. Bryson has long been an advocate of renewable energy. What specific new programs does the secretary-designate have in mind to make America a world leader in renewable-energy technology?

3. Key leaders in Congress thought the Commerce Department would be the right home for efforts to revive the American auto industry. Commerce turned down the opportunity, pleading it lacked the expertise. Instead, the effort was led by the Treasury, which has no industrial expertise. Is Bryson prepared to rebuild the capacity of the Commerce Department so that it is once again knowledgeable about the industrial base?

4. What plans does Bryson have for public-private partnerships, such as Sematech, which in 1987 helped revive the U.S. semiconductor industry?

5. Is Bryson prepared to develop an international debt clock that would highlight the size of the current account and trade deficits, as well as the growing level of U.S. debt owed to overseas countries and companies?

6. What are Bryson’s plans to help America produce more of what it consumes to curb the trade deficit?

7. The secretary of Commerce has the authority to self–initiate anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations. In the mid-1980s, it was just such an anti-dumping investigation of Japanese semiconductors that led to the negotiation of the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement, under which the Japanese halted dumping of semiconductors in the U.S. market. Will Bryson self-initiate similar actions against subsidized Chinese products attempting to enter the U.S. market?

8. Does Bryson endorse proposals to consolidate various trade agencies to better achieve the president’s goal of doubling exports by 2014? If so, what agencies should be in any new department? How does he suggest reapportioning oversight responsibility on Capitol Hill? And how does he plan to placate powerful committee chairmen who will lose jurisdiction?

Since it came into office in 2009, the Obama administration has failed to take the Commerce Department seriously or to let its Commerce secretary show the leadership some of his predecessors have demonstrated. A new secretary creates the opportunity for a fresh start with a more proactive agenda.

Baldrige demonstrated that the Commerce Department can provide a bully pulpit for promoting U.S. competitiveness—if the secretary has the will and the White House gives him free rein.

Photo by Bert Van Dijk