Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated Republican billionaire Howard Lutnick to be secretary of commerce.
Trump announced in a statement posted on Truth Social that Lutnick, the CEO of financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, would “lead our Tariff and Trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of United States Trade Representative.”
Lutnick has been the co-chair of Trump’s transition team since August, and has expressed support for Trump’s ill-defined plan to impose broad tariffs on foreign producers, a scheme experts say would shock the U.S. economy and cause increases in consumer prices across the board. Even Lutnick himself has admitted Americans would bear the brunt of tariffs, but he still wants to impose them anyway.
In September, Lutnick told CNBC that “tariffs are an amazing tool for the president to use—we need to protect the American worker.” Lutnick also gushed about tariffs at Trump’s fascistic rally in Madison Square Garden last month, claiming that America was better off 100 years ago, when it had “no income tax and all we had was tariffs.”
He made several other disturbing remarks during his appearance in New York City, suggesting that Trump’s critics ought to be charged with treason, and taking a bigoted swipe at Muslim voters. Lutnick has also claimed that vaccines have “not been proven,” making him the second openly anti-vaccine in Trump’s Cabinet after proposed DHS head Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
This story has been updated.