Portman Selected as Trade Representative

President Bush announced today that he has chosen Ohio Rep. Rob Portman (R) as U.S. Trade Representative.

If confirmed by the Senate as the nation's top negotiator on matters of international trade, Portman, 49, will replace Robert Zoellick, now top deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Portman, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and a former international trade lawyer at the Washington firm of Patton Boggs, is a relatively bipartisan figure in Congress, having worked with such Democratic stalwarts as Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) on numerous tax-related legislative initiatives.

He is also politically close to the Bush family, having worked in the presidential campaigns of former president George H.W. Bush and the current president.

In announcing the cabinet level appointment this morning, President Bush stressed Portman's ability to work both sides of the aisle in Congress.

Portman, he said, "can bring together people of differing views to get things done." He also praised Portman as a "tireless advocate for America's manufacturers and entrepreneurs" with a "deep dedication to free and fair trade."

"I've asked him to take on a bold agenda," Bush said, including completion of the Central American free trade accord and the Doha round of trade talks designed to reduce global barriers to trade.

"As an Ohioan, Rob knows firsthand that millions of American jobs depend on exports, including one in every five factory jobs," Bush said in announcing his choice of Portman at a White House ceremony in the Roosevelt Room.

"To keep our economy growing and creating jobs we need to continue opening foreign markets to American products. Rob knows that America's farmers and workers can compete with anybody anytime anywhere in the world so long as the rules are fair."

Appearing with his wife and children, Portman said his young daughter admitted that she didn't know what a U.S. trade representative did, but said she told him, " 'Dad, it sounds like a really neat job,' and it is.' "

"Open markets and better trade relations are key components to a more peaceful and more stable and more prosperous world," Portman said. "Here at home, trade policy opens markets to create jobs, a higher standard of living and greater economic growth."

Fresh out of the University of Michigan Law School, he was a junior advance man in the 1980 presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush and later worked in the White House counsel's office during the elder Bush's administration.

Elected to the House of Representatives from Cincinnati in 1993, he returned to presidential politics during the George W. Bush campaign in 2000 campaign, helping to prepare both Bush and Vice President Cheney for their respective debates then as well as in 2004.