Bush chooses new budget director

WASHINGTON – President Bush shuffled part of the White House economic team on Tuesday, naming his chief trade negotiator to be his budget director and appointing a new person to lead the nation’s trade negotiations.

If he is confirmed by the Senate as expected, Rob Portman, a former Republican member of Congress from Cincinnati, will serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget. The budget job became vacant this week when Joshua Bolten was promoted to White House chief of staff.

Portman’s job as U.S. trade representative will be filled by his deputy, Susan Schwab.

Trade analysts said the departure of Portman from the trade office, just as international negotiations aimed at liberalizing trade rules were nearing their climax, suggested that the administration had given up on the talks.

In another White House staff change, Jim Towey, director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said he would leave by June 2 to become president of Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa.

Bush announced his nominations of Portman and Schwab during a brief ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.

Portman, 50, portrayed himself as a deficit hawk who at the same time favored Bush’s tax cuts, which he had supported as a member of the House Ways and Means Committee during Bush’s first term.

“Among the main reasons I ran for Congress back in 1993 was to cut the federal deficit. … The common-sense, fiscally conservative values of southwest Ohio guided me then, and they guide me now,” Portman said at the White House ceremony.

He promised to work with lawmakers of both parties to pare government spending that does not serve “our national priorities.” In particular, he said he would seek to wean members of Congress from their practice of “earmarking” millions of federal dollars to pay for pet projects in their districts.

Republicans in Congress were uniform in praising Bush’s choice of Portman to head the budget office.

Even some Democrats praised Portman. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, who successfully co-sponsored a pension bill with Portman in 2000, called him “an excellent choice” who “understands the importance of bipartisanship.”

Bush credited Portman, his trade representative for the past 11 months, with breathing new life into the so-called Doha round of international trade negotiations. He indicated that Schwab’s elevation to chief trade negotiator would maintain continuity at the trade representative’s office.

Outside analysts, however, argued that the switch spelled doom for the troubled trade talks, which are hung up over wealthy countries’ insistence that they maintain their agricultural subsidies. Steven Clemons, executive vice president of the New America Foundation, said Portman’s move showed that the administration was focusing on domestic budget issues and not trade.

“It signals the (Doha) round is dead,” Clemons said. “No one is investing any political capital in it. … It’s just a sign that trade is not going to be a front-burner item.”