Robert Zoellick

< Distinguished speaker series

December 5, 2023

Event information

Robert Zoellick

Former President of the World Bank

Former Deputy Secretary of State

Former Special Trade Representative

American Foreign Policy and the Lessons of History

DATE: December 5, 2023 6:00 pm

LOCATION: World Trade Center Baltimore

Robert Zoellick is one of those rare foreign policy experts who’s viewed with awe across party lines. “One of the country’s pre-eminent statesmen,” is how CIA director William Burns describes him. The late Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called him “one of the country’s smartest and most capable foreign policy practitioners.” And James A. Baker III, also a former Secretary of State, says: “Few people understand statecraft or have practiced it as adroitly as Robert Zoellick.”

Among the posts Robert Zoellick held: President of the World Bank, Deputy Secretary of State, U.S. Trade Representative, Deputy White House Chief of Staff. It’s almost as many top posts as James Baker, though usually one step down the ladder.

Robert Zoellick will be our next speaker on December 5.

His topic is “American Foreign Policy and the Lessons of History,” and it draws from his recent book titled America in the World: A History of U.S. Diplomacy and Foreign Policy. This is a highly readable recounting of major turning points in American diplomacy, from Benjamin Franklin to George H.W. Bush.

General David Petraeus (ret.) called it “a wonderful book to read, one that reflects the pragmatism of an experienced practitioner, the painstaking research of a serious scholar, the trained eye of a historian and the judiciousness of thinking that has distinguished the best episodes in America’s foreign policy.”

Zoellick turns up stories most of us haven’t heard before. Take the role of Will Clayton, the “forgotten titan” of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, who scoped out the economic basis for the Marshall Plan for European recovery after World War II. Clayton’s ideas, writes Zoellick, “would eventually become cornerstones of today’s European Union.” Speaking of the Marshall Plan, did you know that Marshall, “in an amazing oversight,” never showed the president an advance draft of his historic speech?

Zoellick’s central theme is that American diplomacy at its best is practical and pragmatic. Its biggest successes have been in opening trade with the world. He scorns Donald Trump’s disdain for NAFTA and his trade tariffs against China.

Future presidents can learn from these tales about “trying what works.”

Please join us December 5 for what is certain to be an enlightening discussion with Robert Zoellick.