Commerce secretary has become an important administration role in recent years.
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