Republican Mixes Pragmatism and Persuasiveness : Yeutter--Apostle of Free Trade

WASHINGTON —  During the Ford Administration, when Clayton Yeutter was a deputy special trade representative, he personally intervened to hear the urgent plea of a Republican state politician, fund-raiser and businessman for trade protection for his declining industry.

But, instead of chiming in with partisan agreement, Yeutter treated his visitor to “a real Adam Smith lecture” on the true Republican virtues of free trade and competition, and somehow the man left satisfied, a former aide recalls.

Now Yeutter, who has just wound up a visit to Japan in his first mission abroad as the the Reagan Administration’s new trade representative, is likely to bring the same approach to bear as the clamor for protectionism mounts in Congress, those who know him say.

They predict that he will be forthright to the point of bluntness in expressing his strong belief in free trade--and he may well take positions that are politically unpopular.

But he also recognizes the need to be persuasive as well as principled, says John C. L. Donaldson, who was assistant trade representative for congressional liaison when Yeutter was in the office under Ford in the mid-1970s.

“His commitment is to the freest possible trade, but he’s not one to go down with the ship for the sake of a lofty goal,” Donaldson said. “He’s not above cutting a deal--which is what we need. He has a questioning mind, and basically he’s a negotiator.”

Donald M. Nelson, a former assistant trade representative for agricultural policy who knew Yeutter during the latter’s brief tenure in the 1970s as assistant secretary of agriculture for international affairs, says that Yeutter “is imbued with the principles of free trade, but he recognizes the importance of furthering the interests of the United States.”

Yeutter (rhymes with “fighter”) has told interviewers that the proudest achievement of his earlier tenure in government was his success in persuading the European Economic Community to withdraw some of its agricultural subsidies 10 years ago in the so-called cheese war between the United States and the EEC.

Yeutter, who succeeded William E. Brock III in June, took a big step toward duplicating that achievement just a month ago when he negotiated a truce in this summer’s “pasta war” with the Europeans, under which a threatened increase in U.S. tariffs on Italian pasta was suspended in return for 45% cuts in subsidies for pasta exports to the United States.

“Basically he’s a pragmatist, and he’s not strictly ideological,” notes Joseph A. Kinney, a Chicago-based agriculture consultant who, as a legislative assistant to the late Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minn.), had frequent dealings with Yeutter in the mid-1970s. “But he’s also a consummate persuader,” Kinney added.

“He always has had time to see people, talk to them about a problem, and he’s generally pleasant to be around. That’s very unusual in Washington, because, as a rule, their egos won’t allow them not to be suspicious of their surroundings.”

Yeutter’s second tour in Washington follows a seven-year tenure as president of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a time when the Merc’s trading volume more than tripled. Yeutter worked hard and traveled widely to expand international operations at the exchange.

Nebraska Native

A native of Eustis, Neb., Yeutter, now 54, graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1952 and served five years in the Air Force before returning to receive a law degree from Nebraska in 1963 and a doctorate in agricultural economics three years after that.

“Clayton K. Yeutter has always been first in everything he’s ever done,” said Kinney, who sees much of Yeutter’s background an apprenticeship for his current role. “When he sets his mind to do something, he does it. The bottom line is, don’t sell him short.”

But for Kinney, a Democrat, the supreme accolade is his observation that Yeutter, “if he had grown up in Detroit or Philadelphia, would probably have grown up a Democrat and would have been a secretary of labor in a Democratic Administration by now. He’s a Republican mainly from his background in Nebraska rather than from any ideological conviction.”

But Yeutter is, in fact, a staunch Republican who worked hard for President Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and was high on some lists to be secretary of agriculture in the first Reagan term, a post he is said to have coveted.

His reputation as a GOP loyalist alarmed the professional staff at the office of the trade representative in 1975, when Yeutter came aboard as deputy, recalls Donaldson, also a Democrat.

“Some of us careerists were afraid he’d be too political,” Donaldson said.

“But, in fact, I found he was extraordinarily bipartisan. He worked well with Democrats in Congress as well as Republicans and kept them equally informed.”

Head Off Congress

With calls for protectionism now echoing from both parties in both the Senate and House, Yeutter will have to continue that tradition.

And his real task, as he holds off European agricultural subsidies and tries to talk the Japanese into opening their domestic markets to more imports, is to head off the apparently inexorable push in Congress to seize the initiative of trade policy from the Administration and dictate a new era of protectionism.

“An activist like Clayton, who will grab a problem and wrestle with it, is just what we need at this time, when we’re searching for a trade policy,” Donaldson said.