Trump to call Howard Lutnick to guide Commerce Department | EUROtoday

Donald Trump is anticipated to call investor Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of his transition group, to guide the US commerce division, in keeping with CBS News, the BBC’s US associate.

If confirmed, Lutnick would oversee a division that helps enhance home manufacturing and US firms.

It is usually a key participant in areas the place enterprise and nationwide safety pursuits collide, similar to limiting know-how exports to China or enacting tariffs to guard US metal.

Lutnick, the chief govt of economic agency Cantor Fitzgerald, had additionally been within the working for treasury secretary, a extra high-profile position.

Trump has but to decide about that submit, which has sweeping authority in areas similar to financial and tax coverage.

The struggle has spilled into public view, with advisers similar to billionaire Elon Musk selling Lutnick for the place and criticising one of many various candidates, Scott Bessent, as too “business as usual”.

Commerce is smaller than the treasury division, with a workforce of about 50,000 folks. Beyond its position within the US-China commerce and tech conflict, its tasks embody patent approvals, publishing financial knowledge, and conducting the US census.

Lutnick, a local of Long Island, New York, is a long-time Republican and supporter of Trump, with whom he overlapped within the New York social scene.

He has defined his help for the president-elect by describing himself as a “strong capitalist” and saying Trump has a “competitive growth model”.

During the marketing campaign, he served as a spokesman for a few of Trump’s most radical plans, together with wide-ranging tariffs and the elimination of the earnings tax.

His embrace of these views put him out of step with some on Wall Street, which has traditionally seen tariffs as dangerous for company America.

Lutnick joined Cantor Fitzgerald proper after his 1983 commencement from Haverford College, which he attended on scholarship. He misplaced each of his mother and father as a youngster – his mom to most cancers and his father to a medical mistake.

Within 10 years, he rose to be president and chief govt of the agency. It is understood right now partially for its investments in crypto and its affiliate within the property trade, the Newmark brokerage.

Lutnick’s public profile rose after the September 11 assaults, which killed greater than 600 folks working within the firm’s workplaces that morning, together with his brother. He was not at work as a result of he was taking one in all his youngsters to kindergarten.

Lutnick, who speaks with a New York accent and is understood for his blustery fashion, wept on TV within the days after.

Twenty years later, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he mentioned the day was a dividing line in his life, “before 9/11 and after” and for years following “it was still so raw it felt like yesterday”.