Robert Lighthizer – a Washington veteran who served as Donald Trump's U.S. trade representative in his last term – is reportedly on the outs with the president-elect’s new transition team and may not join the administration at all, according to a new report.
And that could come with a price for people who valued the economic policies that he successfully saw through in Trump’s first term, POLITICO reported.
“It is a bitter blow to protectionists and a sign of the fluidity in Trump’s political camp that someone as respected and trusted as Lighthizer could be cast aside,” according to the report. “His exclusion from Trump’s Cabinet this time around gives the voices from Wall Street in the White House a much stronger hand in the incoming administration.”
The revelation also calls into question Trump’s threats of imposing sharp new tariffs in his second term on imports from Mexico, Canada and China, the publication noted — Lighthizer was the architect of Trump’s first-term trade agenda and a key adviser of this year's campaign.
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He reportedly sought the high-profile cabinet positions of Treasury or Commerce secretary and was unlikely to accept a lesser role along the lines of a potential “trade czar.”
“Lighthizer has been a champion of Trump for at least 15 years, and he’s been in the background, giving Trump ideas, and putting Trump in the spotlight. And I think he really felt like this was his turn to get rewarded,” one ex-Trump administration official close to Lighthizer told POLITICO.
The official added that Lighthizer’s potential absence from the next administration means the tariff views of Trump’s picks to lead the Treasury and Commerce departments – Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick – will likely win out, the report said.
“It appears like he’s being frozen out,” one person close to the Trump transition team who supports a pro-tariff agenda told POLITICO.
