Howard Lutnick, a billionaire Wall Street executive, has been appointed as the commerce secretary by U.S President-elect, Donald J. Trump.
This gives Mr. Lutnick one of the most important and influential economic positions in the federal government.
Over the past year, Mr. Lutnick, the CEO of the financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, has been one of Mr. Trump’s key economic advisors and has been in charge of his transition team.
He has advocated for reduced corporate taxes, more American energy output, and tariffs to shield American companies from overseas competition.
Mr. Trump stated that Mr. Lutnick “will lead our tariff and trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative” in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday.
Over the past two years, Mr. Lutnick has donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s super PAC, according to federal election records, and hosted a fund-raiser at his Bridgehampton, N.Y., home that raised $15 million.
Mr. Lutnick has been an ardent defender of Mr. Trump’s plans for imposing tariffs on imports. He has suggested, however, that they should be used to negotiate trade deals with other nations and that goods that the United States does not produce should not necessarily face tariffs.
Mr. Lutnick had been under consideration to serve as Mr. Trump’s Treasury secretary and had garnered support from Elon Musk, who has become an influential adviser to the president-elect
If confirmed, Mr. Lutnick would join a long line of commerce secretaries who have been chosen from among a president’s biggest donors. But the Commerce Department — which has an $11 billion budget and roughly 51,000 workers — has grown in importance in its own right in recent years.
The agency is the nation’s primary advocate for the commercial interests of U.S. businesses globally.
However, it also oversees an increasingly important system of technology restrictions, which bar exports of certain technology, including semiconductors, to China, Russia and elsewhere, for national security reasons.
It is also charged with dispensing tens of billions of dollars of subsidies to U.S. chip manufacturers under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, and regulating artificial intelligence. Because of this, it is considered one of the most critical parts of the government in determining whether China or the United States will dominate industries of the future.
Under the current secretary, Gina Raimondo, the Commerce Department has signed preliminary term sheets agreeing to grant many U.S. chip manufacturers money, but it has not disbursed many of the funds. It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration follows through with those plans, or tries to make major changes to that program.
Mr. Lutnick will also inherit an effort by the Biden administration to provide broadband internet access to at least 6.25 million households and locations across the country by 2025.
The department has a sprawling array of other responsibilities and is sometimes jokingly referred to as the “hall closet” of government. Its other roles include counting the U.S. population during the census, overseeing America’s fisheries, forecasting the weather and helping to develop global technological standards.
Bureaus within the department promote American businesses owned by minorities, grant patents and trademarks, and oversee business activity in space. The department also analyzes the world’s oceans and atmosphere, researches the effects of climate change and provides much of the data that the country uses for weather forecasting and severe weather warnings.
In addition to being chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, Mr. Lutnick is also chairman of BGC Group Inc., a brokerage and financial technology company, and of Newmark Group, a commercial real estate service provider. He could face questions during the confirmation process about his finances and potential conflicts of interest.
His companies are involved in nearly every sector in the U.S. economy. Newmark Group consults on commercial real estate around the world.
