Donald Trump announced Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as his pick for secretary of the Department of Commerce on Tuesday, selecting his transition co-chair for a key role in an administration that the president-elect has promised will enact sweeping tariffs.
“He will lead our Tariff and Trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative,” Trump said in a statement.
Lutnick, who has served as the co-chair of Trump’s presidential transition team since August, had been in a battle with hedge fund manager Scott Bessent over the role of Treasury secretary after throwing his own name into the mix.
CNN reported earlier Tuesday that Trump was expected to nominate Lutnick, according to two sources familiar with the process. In being tapped for Commerce, Lutnick edged out Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative during Trump’s first term, and Linda McMahon, an administrator of the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019, for the role. Both were informed in the last day or so that Lutnick was getting the job.
The move surprised several in Trump’s orbit, given McMahon had been the clear front-runner for the role. Then, last week, Lighthizer appeared closer to getting it. And then, amid the battle for the Treasury, Trump decided to go with his transition co-chair.
For the last several months, Lutnick and McMahon have co-chaired the transition together, with Lutnick handling personnel matters, such as vetting and advising Trump on Cabinet nominees, and McMahon running the policy side. McMahon had become frustrated that Trump hadn’t named her to the Commerce role last week, when it became clear he was considering Lighthizer and thinking of an ambassador position for her instead. Then, she was abruptly informed that her transition co-chair was actually being awarded the Commerce job.
The Commerce secretary is tasked with supporting US businesses and often acts as an emissary between other nations to negotiate trade deals and increase foreign investment. There are 13 bureaus housed under the Commerce Department, including the Census Bureau, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Patent and Trademark Office.
Project 2025 — the controversial blueprint for a newly reimagined federal government that Trump tried to distance himself from during the campaign despite numerous ties to its authors — called for NOAA to be “broken up and downsized” and said the agency was part of the “climate change alarm industry.”
The Commerce secretary often works hand-in-hand with other members of the president’s Cabinet tasked with carrying out and advising on economic policy. During Trump’s first term, then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was heavily involved in the heated trade war with China and was a key advocate for levying higher tariffs on the nation.
At Trump’s Madison Square Garden campaign rally last month, Lutnick said the US was most prosperous during the early 1900s, when there was “no income tax and all we had was tariffs.”
“We had so much money that we had the greatest businessmen of America get together to try to figure out how to spend it,” said Lutnick, 63, who has been advocating for higher tariffs. As a candidate, Trump pledged to impose 60% tariffs on goods from China, as well as 10% tariffs on goods from other countries.
Lutnick came under fire for recent comments he made to CNN on “The Source,” in which he defended Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unproven view that vaccines are contributing to higher rates of autism in children. Trump announced Kennedy as his pick to serve as Health and Human Services secretary last week.
After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Lutnick started a relief fund for families who lost loved ones. Cantor’s headquarters occupied some of the highest floors of the North Tower, and on the day of the attack, the company lost several hundred employees, including Lutnick’s brother.
Lutnick sits on the board of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Ella Nilsen contributed to this report.
