page_title: Robert Mosbacher
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Mosbacher / Political career
caption_attribution_description: English: Robert Adam Mosbacher, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, shaking hands with former Russian president Boris Yeltsin Source: Department of Commerce Photographic Services
context_page_description: Robert Adam Mosbacher Sr. was an American businessman, accomplished yacht racer, and a Republican politician.
context_section_description: Mosbacher was the finance chairman of Gerald R. Ford's failed election bid in 1976. He also lost his own race for delegate to the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, to a slate backing future U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan, Ford's rival for the party nomination. Mosbacher, running in the then 7th congressional district, lost to State Senator Walter Mengden of Houston, 39,276 to 26,344 votes.
  Earlier, Mosbacher in 1970 headed the fund-raising effort for George H. W. Bush in his losing Senate campaign against Lloyd M. Bentsen and again in Bush's campaigns for President in 1980 and 1988.
  As U.S. Secretary of Commerce, he was the principal Cabinet official responsible for initiating the North American Free Trade Agreement  (NAFTA). He was a strong proponent of the agreement, which created the largest unified market  in the world. The agreement was not signed into law in the U.S. until December 8, 1993, during the administration of President Bill Clinton. The agreement went into effect on January 1, 1994.
  Mosbacher was a member of President Reagan's Task Force on Private Sector Initiatives 1981–83, and Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He then became Secretary of Commerce in 1989 after he directed the George H. W. Bush 1988 Presidential Election Campaign. He also served as a Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In 2008, he was the general chairman of  John McCain's bid for the White House.
caption: Robert Adam Mosbacher shaking hands with Boris Yeltsin
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