The Daley administration has defended its promotion policy, offering statistical evidence that differences in scores within bands have no correlation with performance on the job.
The Obama administration has made export promotion a central component of its revised economic platform, and last month the White House finalized a long-stalled trade agreement with South Korea.
Since the administration needs Congress to grant Mr Bush trade-promotion authority to negotiate a new trade round, Mr Zoellick's relationships with congressmen may be pitted against his friendship with Mr Lamy.
One of the first things we did was establish an Export Promotion Cabinet made up of Cabinet members and senior administration officials whose work affects exports.