Brown an Aggressive Advocate for U.S. Business

As the Democratic head of an agency that was high on the Republican hit list, Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown disarmed many potential critics by becoming the leading overseas salesman for American business.

Although his globe-trotting style had a large element of showmanship and the specific accomplishments of his trade missions may have been overhyped, observers say Brown should be credited with putting American business interests near the top of the list of U.S. foreign policy objectives.

As such, he may have made the Commerce Department--or some successor agency--a primary mechanism for pushing American interests abroad in an era when competition among nations has become more economic than political.

“He put a whole different face on the Commerce Department,” said C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics in Washington. “Under Ron, it became outward-oriented and expansionistic rather than a vehicle for protectionism.”

Brown’s approach won him genuine respect from business people who might ordinarily have been suspicious of a career politician and Democrat with little business background.

“There, of course, were forces looking to close Commerce, but I think for those who looked at what Ron Brown actually did, they could not help but be converts,” said James Cole, vice president of Clorox Co., the Oakland-based bleach manufacturer. Brown and his subordinates helped Clorox open factories in China, Latin America and elsewhere, he said.

Although Brown played a key role in tough negotiations last year to open Japanese markets to U.S. autos and auto parts, he switched his agency’s overall focus away from disputes with developed countries and instead concentrated on emerging global economies, making sure that American business could get in those doors.

In one example, Brown’s personal phone calls to Indonesian government officials helped Irvine-based Edison Mission Energy Co. land a contract to build a power plant there, S. Linn Williams, senior vice president, said Wednesday.

“I served in two Republican administrations and I have loyalties that run the other way,” Williams noted, but he ranked Brown as one of the country’s two most effective commerce secretaries, along with the late Malcolm Baldridge, a Reagan appointee.

Brown also saw economic development as a tool of peace. His mission to Bosnia and Croatia was one of many involving world trouble spots where he thought U.S. business could play a role in rebuilding.

He also figured to help Boeing Co. outmuscle rival Airbus Industrie and sell 18 planes to Bosnia, he told reporters just before the trip.

“Whether in Northern Ireland or Bosnia or Haiti, in addition to stopping the bloodshed, he knew you always had to look ahead to the next phase,” Bergsten said. “Unless you help countries strengthen economically, you can’t keep them from slipping back into conflict.”

Criticism of Brown was naturally subdued Wednesday, but one official of a Washington-based business lobbying group said that rather than flying off on trade junkets, Brown could have spent his time more productively by staying at home and chopping away at the overgrown Commerce Department.

“There are about 19 agencies that deal with international trade alone,” said the official, who asked not to be identified.

An admirer of Brown said that while Brown impressed the business community with his energy and his quick grasp of issues, the controversy that surrounded him--he faced a financial-wrongdoing investigation--may ultimately have done the Commerce Department more harm than good.

That the agency has apparently been spared from elimination for at least this session of Congress may have less to do with Brown’s deft performance than with Republicans’ reluctance to take on so large a fight in an election year, one Washington observer said.

Some in the business community aren’t so sure. “If it wasn’t for him, the Commerce Department would have been dead by now,” said Carl McGill, president of the Black Chamber of Commerce of L.A. County.

Domestically, Brown paid more attention than his predecessors to small business, through the department’s Small Business Administration.

Jere Glover, chief counsel for the SBA’s Office of Advocacy, said the Commerce Department had previously been solely focused on big business concerns but that Brown helped redirect the agency to include small business issues.

Brown often appeared with SBA Administrator Philip Lader at joint speaking engagements and was planning a joint trade mission in May to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore that was to concentrate on small business, Lader said.

In June last year, Brown handed a $250,000 defense conversion loan check to the owner of a small Van Nuys electronics manufacturing firm. After the Northridge earthquake, he met with 40 San Fernando Valley business owners to hear how government could help them.

At the opposite end of the size spectrum, the auto industry also considered Brown a friend.

Brown took a leading role early on in trying to coordinate the Clinton administration’s response to the auto industry’s wishes regarding such things as free trade, the dollar-yen relationship and technology development. He frequently traveled to Detroit, speaking several times before the Detroit Economic Club, and was accompanied by Big Three chief executives on trade missions abroad.

“He took on the job as our national salesman,” said Rob Liberatore, vice president of Washington affairs for Chrysler Corp.

To the auto makers’ delight, Brown was a strong advocate for the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. He argued that both would spur global economic growth and be a boon to U.S. industry.

More important, Brown and U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor took an aggressive position in regard to Japan, arguing that its markets were essentially closed to U.S. autos and auto parts. The Clinton administration responded with a threat in 1995 to put a 100% tariff on Japanese luxury imports. A trade war was averted when Japan agreed to take steps to buy more U.S.-made vehicles and auto parts.

Most recently, Brown had promoted the “transatlantic business dialogue,” a gathering of U.S. and European CEOs who discuss common problems. The group, which is co-chaired by Ford Chairman Alex Trotman, met in Spain last year to discuss such issues as regulatory standardization, trade and investment.

Among the numerous California executives who has traveled with Brown was Ron Burkle, chairman of Yucaipa Cos., the Los Angeles investment firm that controls Ralphs Grocery Co., who accompanied him on a 1993 trade mission to South Africa.

“He did more to improve the relationship between the Commerce Department and the business community than any other Commerce secretary in the history of the country,” Burkle said.

Staff writers Evelyn Iritani, Donald W. Nauss, Vicki Torres and George White contributed to this report.