Name: Chris Campbell
Position: Majority staff director, Senate Finance Committee
Alma Mater: UC-Santa Barbara, Thunderbird School of International Business
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Washington Examiner: What did you do after college?
Campbell: Immediately after college, I started a consulting firm and I worked for some large corporate clients, my biggest being Mattel Toys. They were going through a corporate restructure at the time … I helped with the corporate restructure, helped land a contract with Lucas Entertainment to do their line of toys for the “Star Wars” stuff … Then I also helped design one of their product lines. It was a plush toy bear called Bubba and they ran him for president in the 2000 cycle. So, I built that campaign up.
Washington Examiner: How did you get into politics rather than business consulting?
Campbell: I grew up a really, extremely poor kid. Not politically connected in anyway and in kind of weird circumstances, I grew up also a very shy guy. My parents forced me to run for office in what would have been my freshman year of high school. And, I said and candidly thought I wouldn’t win. I was, like, I’ll do it as long as you shut up and tell me I don’t have to be social anymore.
I did and weirdly, I don’t know how or why, but I won and it kind of got me out of my shell. I worked on an unsuccessful political campaign in California immediately after high school. Having gotten to know a lot of political consultant types in California at that time, that led to actually, weirdly, the guy who introduced me to Orrin Hatch in 2000 for his presidential [campaign].
Washington Examiner: And then you came on staff with [Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah] in the Senate?
Campbell: I joined him originally on the Judiciary Committee, as kind of a political guy on the Judiciary Committee, although it’s all politics over there. And I helped make policy as well at that time [2000-04] and then I really, generally, got burnt out.
Judiciary, just by nature, is a very partisan committee. It’s probably one of the most partisan committees on Capitol Hill. While we were getting a lot of stuff done — Orrin’s a getting-stuff-done kind of guy — the nature of the conversations we had to do and the conflicts were just insane.
Washington Examiner: You went to business school and then rejoined Hatch on Finance. It’s a very different committee from Judiciary. Do you do more policy work now or political work?
Campbell: By definition, you can’t do politics from the committee, but there’s obviously a political aspect to everything we do. And so, I oversee the entire operation. So, we have a great team here. Orrin has chosen a wonderful team of really strong professionals who led all of our policy areas. And we work together really, genuinely, as a team and try to find ways of coming to consensus [for our] decisions.
So my job is resourcing and trying to create where we’re going to land on policy, wherever we’re going to go, and set the dominoes up in a way that when we push that first domino, that they go in the right order and they fall and we actually are successful in whatever strategy we come up with.
Washington Examiner: Who do you talk to for that? What’s your day like?
Campbell: I try to facilitate, as best I can, the conversations on Capitol Hill with whomever I need to speak to to do that. I interact with a lot of staff, a lot of members, and Cabinet folks and those kind of folks. The jurisdiction is so large here, and given this current administration — we have about 85-90 percent of the current administration’s incoming agenda.
We start with healthcare, we move to tax [reform]. On top of all of that at the same time, [President Trump] has a very ambitious trade agenda. We have all of trade as well. And then we have the infrastructure, we have the child care stuff. We just really have the preponderance of the agenda.
Washington Examiner: You mentioned setting up dominoes so they fall in the right order. Probably the most dominoes you arranged, which didn’t necessarily fall correctly, were for [the Trans-Pacific Partnership] last year. Which domino went askew, from your perspective?
Campbell: Unlike what we’ve ever seen in the past, certainly not in my lifetime, trade became an enormous issue in the campaign. So both with Secretary [Hillary] Clinton and with Mr. Trump, it became a lighting rod issue. And you can see the underpinnings of the reasons why, right? You have stagnant wages for 10 years. You have anemic growth in the economy, and you have really generally a global politic of it … You saw that many people felt that the best days of America were behind us.
It’s very easy to blame, in those cases, it’s very easy to blame trade or others for the woes of the country and so, I think trade certainly became a lightning rod and the American people really wanted to shift directions on trade. My team worked very closely, as closely as we could, with the administration to try to find a way to put the agreement right so should the politics align that we could vote for it, that the policy would be in alignment.
We worked both with the administration and with our foreign trading partners in TPP countries, did some shuttle diplomacy to try to find a way to get additional concessions from them to get TPP in a place where it could be voted on. But the campaign just made the politics of trade impossible.
Washington Examiner: Do you believe polling data that shows high support for trade, in light of what you’ve seen? If so, why are the politics so different?
Campbell: Something as big as trade, when the United States enters into an agreement with another country, it just by nature requires the president to be on board. While although Congress has the role of negotiating trade agreements in the Constitution, we give the president that authority by the passage of a granting of trade promotion authority. But with that grant of authority, we put the president under constraint [regarding] what he or she can and can’t do.
And so, by nature, Congress has a significant role in trade because, while we temporarily grant the president our authority to negotiate, we have to say yes to whatever has been negotiated when it comes back, and there’s a lot of consultation requirements in the process.
Data suggests, the facts suggest, the American people significantly benefit from international trade. So the cost of consumer goods and services are way lower. Imported goods are typically much cheaper than goods that are produced here in the United States. And so, through trade, we are able to see a reduction in consumer products, the cost that people pay for stuff, which is a good thing. It certainly helps those that are in the lower end of the income scale.
When trading is done fairly, it can be done so that it actually benefits the American consumer and the American worker. With countries that we engage in trade agreements, in aggregate, we’re actually in a trade surplus. So, trade agreements themselves don’t cause trade [deficits].
We don’t have [a free trade deal] with China, we don’t have one with India. These are countries where we’re losing because we are not trading on an equal footing. From our perspective, I think it’s great to have the president try to engage with those countries and see if there’s a way to level the playing field. I think it’d be a very good thing for America in general.
Washington Examiner: If that’s true, what does the committee now have to do in terms of an outward-facing message to the American people?
Campbell: This is something that you have to work in concert with the administration on. We have to educate and drive home to the American people that trade itself is not the thing that’s causing things [to go badly]. From our perspective, the policies of the last administration are the ones that caused stagnant wage growth and did not allow us to dig out of the hole that was created.
Yes, the committee does have a role, because we have to get the policies right. If we get the policies right, then we can allow them to better be served and trade in a way that America benefits.
Washington Examiner: Switching the didactic question to the intra-government side: President Trump is more skeptical of these deals than other administrations. What are the ramifications of that for your relationship?
Campbell: We have a very unique position because Sen. Hatch was an early supporter of Trump and so he has, I would say, an outsized voice on each of the conversations we’ve had with the president on trade, tax and healthcare. And so, I think — I don’t want to speak for the administration — but I think they look to us for guidance and the best way to engage with Congress and in a way that they can put together, using their philosophy on trade, trade agreements that can pass Congress.
They’ve been not shy about reaching out and asking our opinion, and we’ve not been shy to give them our opinion and best advice on how best to get the policy and the politics in alignment on trade. Recognizing this president takes a different view than former presidents’ administrations have on trade, under that rubric, how do you get the policy and the politics in alignment so that you can still pass something here, but have a gentle reset on trade that reflects the president’s views?
Washington Examiner: What do you do when you’re not dealing with all that? Do you have any hobbies?
Campbell: I love anything adventure sports. I love traveling. I’m dating a girl right now, so I spend a lot of time with her. Scuba diving. Sky-diving. ATV riding, motorcycling. Anything adventure. Anything water. I like water sports as well.
