Commerce secretary has become an important administration role in recent years.
President-elect Donald Trump selected billionaire Howard Lutnick for the role of commerce secretary, in which he will oversee the U.S. trade representative’s office.
If confirmed, Lutnick, CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald and co-chair of Trump’s transition team, would hold a position that has increasingly become a crucial policy role.
Gina Raimondo, the current head of the Department of Commerce, has employed President Joe Biden’s economic agenda of reviving U.S. industry. Through her oversight of the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, Raimondo has extended billions in funding to domestic and foreign companies to enhance U.S. manufacturing.
Wilbur Ross, who served as commerce secretary in Trump’s first term, enacted the president’s trade policies, from engaging in high-stakes negotiations with China to working on trade relations with the post-Brexit UK.
Lutnick will be given a vast portfolio of 47,000 employees and various sub-agencies and bureaus that manage intellectual property rights regulations, export controls on sensitive technologies, and weather forecasting. Some of these entities include the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Census Bureau, and the Patent and Trademark Office.
If confirmed by the Senate in January, the chairman and CEO of investment titans Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC Partners will be tasked with instituting Trump’s vision of returning jobs to the United States and championing cryptocurrency adoption.
Potentially, the first policy pitstop for Lutnick could be tariffs.
Tariffs
The president-elect proposed imposing a universal 10–20 percent tariff on all goods entering the United States and a 60–100 percent levy on Chinese imports.
American trading partners will brace for the Lutnick nomination process and his position on trade.
If Trump’s first term is an indicator, Lutnick will have access to trade weapons.
In 2018, for example, Trump tapped the department’s authority over the “Section 232” national security trade statute to impose a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum and a 25 percent levy on imported steel. Two years later, he bolstered these tariffs to cover specific derivative products.
By Andrew Moran
