Howard Lutnick on April 25. Photo: Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg via Getty Images
President-elect Trump will nominate Howard Lutnick to lead the Commerce Department, a transition source tells Axios' Mike Allen and Courtenay Brown.
Why it matters: The Commerce Department plays a key role in overseeing and implementing the CHIPS and Science Act and export controls on emerging technologies.
- The department will have to carry out any new laws to block technology to China, an effort that is going to gain a lot of momentum next year with a Republican sweep of Congress.
- Trump panned the CHIPS and Science Act as "so bad" and said that the subsidies are only going to "rich companies" during an interview on "The Joe Rogan Experience" before the election.
- He instead proposed imposing high tariffs to make chip manufacturers build factories in the U.S: "You tariff it so high that they will come and build their chip companies for nothing."
Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, has served as co-chair of the presidential transition team.
- Lutnick has been a full-throated supporter of Trump's economic agenda, including plans for widespread tariffs that rattled corporate America, per our Axios colleagues who reported earlier Tuesday on Trump's expected selection.
- He had also been in contention for Treasury secretary.
The big picture: Commerce has grown significantly in importance and prominence since Wilbur Ross led the department during Trump's first administration, with a higher public profile thanks to Secretary Gina Raimondo and the CHIPS Act.
- Like Ross, Lutnick is poised to navigate policy-by-tweet as seen during Trump's first administration, when major economic decisions were announced on the social media platform.
- Rolling back Raimondo's CHIPS work would rattle districts across the country where Republicans have gained political favor from the investments.
Yes, but: A lot of money authorized by CHIPS hasn't been appropriated by Congress to begin with.
- And much of the money that does exist has been funneled to the states, which Trump would have a hard time clawing back.
