Rice's deputy signals conciliatory US foreign policy

Robert Zoellick, the US trade representative, is set to become deputy to the Secretary of State-designate, Condoleezza Rice, which could portend a more conciliatory foreign policy in George Bush's second term.

According to White House officials, the formal announcement of Mr Zoellick's new job will only be made after the confirmation hearings of Ms Rice herself, currently set for 18 and 19 January, just before Mr Bush's inauguration on 20 January. But the news, first reported yesterday in The Wall Street Journal, will be a considerable relief to European and other governments whose relations with Washington have come under strain, especially over the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

It banishes their worst nightmare, that the job would go to the hardline neo-conservative John Bolton, currently under-secretary for arms control and international security.

The choice of Mr Bolton, a leading proponent of tough action against North Korea and Iran and a bitter foe of the International Criminal Court, would have been a clear signal that Mr Bush intended to continue in the unilateralist style that caused so much friction in his first term.

As US trade representative and during a long previous career at the Treasury and State Department under presidents Reagan and Bush, Mr Zoellick, 51, established a reputation as a strong defender of US interests. But he is also known as a pragmatist and deal-maker, with special expertise in international economic affairs. He also played a large part in the launch of the Doha trade liberalisation round in late 2001.

His move to the State Department will cause new uncertainty over the successor to John Wolfensohn as president of the World Bank. That job has by informal agreement always gone to an American. Despite quiet lobbying, Mr Wolfensohn, a Clinton appointee in 1995, has failed in his bid for a third term.

Mr Zoellick had been considered front-runner to succeed him. The favourites now are Randall Tobias, in charge of the Bush administration's global Aids policy, and Christine Todd Whitman, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who resigned in 2003.