By Janine Zacharia
Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Robert Hormats, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc.executive nominated for a top State Department economic post, said today he would raise human rights concerns with China and discourage international investment in Iran.
“I expect to be working in China a fair amount if confirmed,” Hormats, 66, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at his confirmation hearing in Washington. Human rights will be “an important topic” in conversations, he said.
President Barack Obama nominated Hormats to be undersecretary of state for economic, energy and agricultural affairs. In addition to 27 years at New York-based Goldman, he served as deputy U.S. trade representative from 1979 to 1981 and in other posts at the State Department.
Hormats’s pledge to integrate concerns about China’s treatment of its citizens came in response to a question by Senator Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat. Cardin lamented that the Obama administration “has not, so far, placed a high enough priority on human rights in China.”
Separately, Hormats was asked about the initial public offering in 2000 of Beijing-based PetroChina Co. and its business with Sudan while he was at Goldman Sachs. Hormats said he wasn’t involved in the IPO’s structuring and that he received assurances at the time that there were adequate mechanisms to prevent money from the public offering from going to the government of Sudan.
Deal Questioned
Washington-based Genocide Intervention Network and Investors Against Genocide sent a letter to the committee raising questions about Hormats’s nomination last month because of the PetroChina deal, which they said ended up funding the Sudanese government.
Sudan was designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. in 1993 for its ties to international terrorists.
On Iran, Hormats said he would work to dissuade companies and countries from investing in Iran “both in the petroleum sector and in a broader way underscoring the kind of risks that are involved in investing in Iran.”
U.S. trade with and investment in Iran is restricted by sanctions. An effort to halt international energy investment in Iran began in 1996 with the Iran Sanctions Act. Still, no companies have been sanctioned under it, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Hormats also said that he would work on persuading energy- producing countries to invest their petrodollars more transparently, saying he would make fighting corruption “a very important priority in conversations with other countries.”
Broadly, Hormats said he would prioritize working to foster trade, strengthen American ties with emerging economies and place “strong emphasis” on food and energy security.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a speech July 15, two days before Hormats’s nomination was announced, that she hoped to make economic policy and trade a larger part of U.S. diplomacy.
“The role of the economic agenda of the State Department needs to be strengthened,” Clinton said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Janine Zacharia in Washington atjzacharia@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: September 9, 2009 14:01 EDT