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                     Obama Fills Key Spots on Economic Team

   by Reuters

   President Barack Obama on Thursday will nominate Mike Froman and Penny
   Pritzker for the last two vacant Cabinet slots on his economic team,
   turning to a law school classmate who is already one of his chief
   advisors and a  billionaire businesswoman who helped put him in the
   White House.

   White House officials said Obama would announce the selections shortly
   before leaving on a trip to Mexico.
   Froman, Obama's pick to be U.S. Trade Representative, is little known
   to the American public but a heavyweight in diplomatic circles for his
   role as White House chief international economic affairs advisor, a
   post he has held since Obama took  office in 2009.
   The former Citigroup executive will continue many of his current
   responsibilities as he moves out of the White House to the trade post,
   a White House  official said.
   Pritzker, tapped to become the U.S. Commerce secretary, is an heir to
   the Hyatt Hotel fortune, runs her own real estate and investment
   companies, is ranked  271st on Forbes Magazine's list of the wealthiest
   Americans and eighth on Chicago Magazine's list of the city's most
   powerful people. She was national finance chair for Obama's first
   president campaign in 2008 and co-chair for his 2012 race.
   Both have long ties to Obama, in Froman's case going back to the days
   when they were editors on the Harvard Law Review.
   Pritzker met Michelle and Barack Obama in the late 1990s, when she took
   her children to a basketball clinic run by the Michelle's brother,
   Craig Robinson.
   If confirmed by the Senate, Froman will take the reins at USTR in time
   to potentially oversee the completion of a landmark free trade
   agreement, the  proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership among 12 countries
   in the Asia-Pacific region.
   Those talks, which have recently been expanded to include Japan, are
   slated for conclusion this year.
   But difficult decisions on issues ranging for rules for state-owned
   enterprises to protections for workers rights and the environment to
   phasing out tariffs on sensitive agricultural and manufacturing
   products could push the talks into 2014.
   After winning re-election in November, President Obama replaced several
   key members of his economic and national security policy team. He
   tapped his White House budget director Jack Lew to replace Timothy
   Geithner at the Treasury Department and  put leaders at the State
   Department, Pentagon and CIA.
   'Enormous opportunities and challenges'
   The United States and the 27 countries of the European Union are also
   preparing to launch talks on the proposed Transatlantic Trade and
   Investment Partnership, a free trade pact covering more than half of
   world economic output.
   "The new USTR has both enormous opportunities and enormous challenges
   that have be reckoned with,'' said Charlene Barshefsky, who held the
   post in the late  1990s under former President Bill Clinton.
   In addition to forging the regional trade pacts, the United States
   needs to confront threats to its competitive advantage from other
   countries ripping off  its intellectual property and stealing valuable
   corporate trade secrets, she said.
   During his confirmation hearing, Froman is likely to face questions on
   how forcefully Obama will push for "trade promotion authority.''  That
   legislation, also known as "fast track,'' allows the White House to
   submit trade agreements to Congress for straight up-or-down votes
   without any amendments.
   The trade law tends to divide Democrats in Congress between those who
   see trade agreements as an engine for economic growth and those who
   blame them for  manufacturing job losses.
   Congress last passed a trade promotion authority bill in 2002 after a
   bitter fight in the House of Representatives.
   Dan Price, who was former President George W. Bush's chief
   international economic affairs adviser, said Froman's nomination was a
   sign that Obama is more  committed to trade negotiations and
   legislation now than he was in his first term.
   "Froman is a superb choice and will bring both energy and experience to
   the post ... [It is] good news for all those wishing to see a more
   globally engaged United States,'' he said.
   .
   Fundraiser
   Pritzker, a Stanford University-trained lawyer, would bring a member of
   one of the country's most successful business families to the helm of
   the Commerce  Department.
   The department has played a key role in Obama's five-year goal of
   doubling exports to about $3 trillion by the end of 2014. But after
   fast export growth in 2010 and 2011, the pace faltered in 2012, raising
   doubt the goal can be reached.
   Pritzker's new post would also put her in charge of a diverse array of
   agencies, including the Census Bureau, the U.S. Patent and Trademark
   Office and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
   Pritzker is on the board of the Hyatt Hotel Corp, which her uncle
   founded in 1957 two years before she was born. She also has pursued a
   separate career in real estate and investment as founder and chairman
   of PSP Capital Partners and its affiliate, Pritzker Realty  Group.
   When she was finance chairman for the Obama campaign in 2008, she
   oversaw the raising of nearly $750 million, busting the previous
   record.
   Pritzker could face questions during the Senate confirmation process
   over her family's reputation for sheltering income to avoid taxes,
   Hyatt's battle with the Unite Here labor union and the 2001 failure of
   Superior Bank, which was half-owned by the Pritzker family.
   Unite Here has organized a boycott of Hyatt, which it calls "the worst
   hotel employer in America'' because of the company's treatment of
   workers, failure to reach a new labor contract covering thousands of
   its employees and opposition to allowing  workers at additional Hyatt
   hotels into the union.
   During the 2008 presidential campaign, Republicans attempted to tar
   Penny Pritzker with the failure of Superior Bank, which in the 1990s
   was a pioneer in subprime mortgages that a decade later were blamed for
   the global financial crisis.
   Regulators closed the bank in July 2001 after auditors concluded that
   income from the mortgage securitizations had been overstated. Five
   months later, the Pritzkers agreed to pay the Federal Deposit Insurance
   Corporation $460 million over 15 years  as part of a deal where the
   family and the other half-owner admitted no liability.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-to-nominate-top-economic-team-p
   ositions/1653087.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-to-nominate-top-economic-team-positions/1653087.html