With fewer than 70 days before he’s scheduled to take office, Donald Trump has over 4,000 political positions to fill, the most pressing of which is the transition team that will help ensure a smooth entrance to the coveted office. He must also fill Cabinet positions and security positions as well as to choose high ranking economic advisors and policymakers. At the beginning, Trump’s transition team, lead by future Vice President Mike Pence and Rick Dearborn, included several lobbyists, despite Trump’s constant criticism of prior governments for including anyone to whom politicians could be beholden. In recent days and hours, however, Trump has removed lobbyists from his team to make good on his commitment, confirmed an aide from the transition team.
Forer Rep. Mike Rogers, a respected public voice on security issues, resigned from the transition team yesterday, while a clerical error halted additional progress on the transition, leaving the team to take a break for what they claimed would be ‘the rest of the day and night’.
Of specific concern for traders is Trump’s promise to ‘get tough on trade,’ a policy he left unexplained during the campaign and one that may be hard, if not impossible to implement, certainly without a concrete plan. The actualization of this promise rests primarily on those who Trump chooses to assign to his economic committees. Among Trump’s appointments was Dan DiMicco, the former CEO of the Nucor Corporation, the largest U.S. steel producer, as his trade advisor. As recently as last month Trump committed to restoring the Midwest as the ‘manufacturing hub or the world again,’ and to fighting for steel business that has been diverted elsewhere.
DiMicco has publicly commented that in the past, trade agreements were structured by those who had interests in expanding exports rather than favoring balanced trade. He will presumably try to reverse this trend, in conjunction with Trump’s other trade negotiators, whom he has promised will be both ‘tough’ and ‘smart’.