US President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday the appointment as Commerce Secretary of Howard Lutnick, CEO of the investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and a keen critic of China.
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Cited among the favorites for the post of Treasury Secretary, Mr. Lutnick, who co-chairs Mr. Trump’s transition team, will head the department responsible in particular for restrictions on exports of American high-tech products to China.
Mr. Lutnick is also given “direct responsibility” for the White House Trade Representative (USTR), an important position reporting directly to the American president. This representative takes care of the implementation of customs duties and international trade negotiations.
“I am delighted to announce that Howard Lutnick will join my administration as United States Secretary of Commerce,” Trump said in a statement. “He will lead our trade and customs duty policies,” added the Republican president-elect.
Aged 63, a professed Democrat for many years, Mr. Lutnick supported the campaign of Republicans and Democrats during the 2016 general elections, before becoming one of Mr. Trump’s main donors in 2020 and then this year.
He has never hidden his support for the president-elect’s desire to impose customs duties of 10 to 20% for all products entering the United States and up to 60 to 100% for products arriving from China.
In October, he lamented the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States and called electric cars “elite nonsense” in an interview with entrepreneur and investor Anthony Pompliano.
He also stressed the need to bring down inflation, one of the main subjects of the presidential campaign.
But the billionaire financier especially attacked China, in the wake of Mr. Trump, designating it as the origin of the spread of fentanyl in the United States. This deadly opiate, far more powerful than heroin, is responsible for tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year.
“China is attacking America in the guts,” he accused.
He also wants to significantly reduce existing standards and had received the support, for the post of Treasury Secretary that he coveted, from Elon Musk, another now close to Mr. Trump.
Comparing Mr. Lutnick and Scott Bessent, another potential favorite to take the head of the Treasury, Mr. Musk had estimated on his X account that “Bessent would be a choice of status quo, while Howard Lutnick would really implement the change” desired by Mr. Trump.
