- Pritzker Fellows
- Former Fellows
- Fred P. Hochberg
Fred P. Hochberg
Former Chairman & President of the U.S. Export-Import Bank
Fall 2017 Pritzker Fellow
Seminar Series: “The Politics of Globalization: How Trade Became a Four-Letter Word”
Biography
Fred P. Hochberg is a seasoned business executive and government leader, who has navigated organizations through rough waters and brought them to new heights. He recently concluded eight years of service as Chairman and President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), where he became the longest serving Chairman in the agency’s history and one of the highest-ranking LGBT Americans in any U.S. administration.
From 2004 to 2008, Hochberg was dean of the Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy at the New School in New York City. From 1998 to 2001, Hochberg served as Deputy, and then Acting Administrator of the SBA in the Clinton administration. Prior to his service at SBA, Hochberg was the long-time president and chief operating officer of the Lillian Vernon Corporation, where he led the transformation of a small, family-owned mail order company into an international, publicly traded direct marketing corporation. Hochberg is a past Board Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Citizens Budget Commission, and a Director of FINCA International Micro Finance, Fusion Telecommunications, the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, and the Lillian Vernon Corporation. He was also an appointed representative to the New York State Financial Control Board.
Throughout his career in business, academic and public service, Hochberg has been a champion of expanding LGBT rights and promoting LGBT leadership in all sectors of the economy. He served as a board member and later as co-chair of the Human Rights Campaign, and is the founder of the David Bohnett LGBT Leadership Fellows Scholarship at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Hochberg received his undergraduate degree from New York University and his MBA from Columbia University. Hochberg’s partner is writer Tom Healy.
Seminars
“The Politics of Globalization: How Trade Became a Four-Letter Word”
We have a global economy that is more interconnected and ruthlessly competitive than ever before, with governments around the world focused on creating jobs for their rapidly urbanizing populations. These factors, which were accelerated by the Great Recession, have engendered a disruptive rise in nationalism and a desire for retrenchment across the United States. Trade has become a four-letter word.
The unprecedented five-month closure of the Export-Import Bank of the United States in 2015, taken together with the fight over TPP and the role trade played in the 2016 election and the first nine months of the Trump administration, gives us an indication of what lies ahead. Candidates Trump and Sanders aligned on trade; moderate Republicans joined with liberal Democrats to save the EXIM Bank; and President Obama battled his own party on TPP. The political consensus on trade has been obliterated, with nationalism facing off with globalism, and different views on the role of government cutting across both strains.
This seminar will examine the recent history of our trade politics; discuss the roles that business, labor, the political parties, executive branch agencies, and global institutions play in influencing the debate; and dissect the real-world debates mentioned above. We’ll then apply those lessons to what lies ahead: NAFTA renegotiation, a UK-US trade agreement, a trade war with China, the 2020 election, and more. Where will this new left-right anti-trade coalition take us? Can we forge policies that are both pro-worker and pro-trade? And is there a way to reframe the rhetoric so that a new message and a new politics could take hold?
Culturally and economically, there is a deepening divide among those who want to see America as an active, trading and internationally engaged country, and those that think we should focus on American businesses and workers, as well as tighter borders. How is that realigning our politics? How did we get here? What does each side get right, and each side get wrong? Globalism is on its heels, how does it come back? Both in the United States and in Europe?
Special Guest: Doug Holtz-Eakin, Founder, American Action Forum & former Director, Congressional Budget Office
When NAFTA was signed, there were 12 free trade agreements around the world—today there are over 600. We’ll look at the politics of trade in the Clinton, Bush and Obama eras, and examine the trendlines and big events. Did we miss any mile markers along the way? What happened in 2015 and 2016 to make trade such a front-burner issue? What are the different blocks within Congress and the electorate on trade issues? How do America’s trade politics differ from the rest of the world? What does America still make? What is the composition of our exports?
Special Guest: William Daley, former White House Chief of Staff (President Obama) & U.S. Secretary of Commerce (President Clinton)
If global businesses are the biggest beneficiaries of trade, what is their responsibility to advocate for it? Why have the traditional ways of influencing the political process failed—and how can business leaders take back the debate? It’s not all messaging, though. Should businesses embrace new policies and practices? Are businesses getting what they want out of NAFTA renegotiation? Is it even a priority? Is automation making this a moot issue for business?
Special Guests: Doug Oberhelman, former CEO of Caterpillar& Gwen Moore, U.S. Representative from Wisconsin
Labor and progressives have successfully pushed the Democratic party away from the free trade agenda of Clinton, and Obama. How do progressives see this moment in political history, with respect to trade? What should the Democrats’ trade platform look like? Where can labor and business come together on trade? What is needed to address the other, larger threat to workers in America: automation? With the manufacturing sectors’ increasing reliance on overseas customers, how do we get trade right, without turning our backs on job-sustaining growth? How are progressives and labor approaching a Trump administration-led renegotiation of NAFTA?
Special Guest: Edward Luce, Washington Columnist and Commentator for Financial Times & Author of "The Retreat of Western Liberalism"
What does America’s new administration and new position on trade mean for its engagement with the world? How much of our diplomacy is economic and what does that mean for the current debate on trade? Economists understand the academic value of trade, and policymakers embraced the textbook view that it benefits the overall economy. But the failure to properly account for the losers of trade is what has gotten us to this point. What is the latest academic work on this phenomenon and what can policymakers do with new research? How are new policy ideas and think tanks affecting NAFTA renegotiations…or not?
Special Guest: Barry Jackson, Managing Director of the Lindsey Group, former Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush & former Chief of Staff to U.S. House Speaker John Boehner
In 2015 and 2016, two trade-related battles were waged between Congress and the administration simultaneously—and with dramatically different coalitions on each side of the Obama Administration. What does the EXIM battle tell us about the Republican split on trade? Where were the political fault lines? What does the EXIM battle tell us about how to frame the broader trade debate going forward? Likewise, what did TPP reveal about the Democratic split on trade? How did the differences form? And what does TPP teach us about the politics of trade going forward—will there ever be another free trade agreement approved by Congress?
Special Guest: Eric Cantor, Vice President & Managing Director of Moelis & Company and former House Majority Leader
Beyond NAFTA renegotiation, which the seminar will track in multiple sessions, trade issues will be at the heart of our relationships with China, Mexico, a Brexit-ing UK and other countries. How will that change the global framework on trade? How will America’s global cities and trade-dependent states chart their own course? How will trade factor into the 2018 midterm elections? What can we predict about trade’s role in the 2020 presidential election? What will happen if Trump fails to “make America great again” and bring back jobs? Can Democrats win back the white working class through an anti-trade platform?
Special Guest: Rahm Emanuel, Mayor of Chicago
What industries, institutions and roles exist for public servants interested in trade? How does the shifting trade landscape affect career opportunities across the government? Or the private sector? What areas of opportunity are opening up due to the change we’re living through?
Special Guest: Gillian Tett, Author & Journalist, U.S. Managing Editor of Financial Times