Donald Trump asks arch protectionist Robert Lighthizer to run US trade policy

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Robert Lighthizer, who was US trade representative when Donald Trump launched his trade war with China, has been asked to take the job again as the president-elect starts to build his cabinet team.

Several people familiar with the discussions inside Trump’s transition team said Lighthizer had been asked to return to the top trade role even though he had lobbied for a different position, including commerce secretary.

Lighthizer had also expressed interest in serving as Treasury secretary, but that position will most likely be offered to a financier, with contenders including the hedge fund managers Scott Bessent and John Paulson.

But the potential reappointment to the pivotal trade role of an arch protectionist will make US trading allies, as well as China nervous, given how closely Lighthizer and Trump are aligned on trade policy. Trump has vowed to impose high tariffs on all imports into the US and especially Chinese goods.

Trump had considered Lighthizer for commerce secretary but the people familiar with the personnel discussions said the president-elect was most likely to offer that job to Linda McMahon, the billionaire co-chair of Trump’s presidential transition team.

Brendan Boyle, the Philadelphia congressman who is the top Democrat on the influential House budget committee and a senior member of the ways and means committee that oversees trade, welcomed the news.

“When Bob Lighthizer was USTR I worked with him on the USMCA [US-Mexico-Canada Agreement]. He was bipartisan in his approach and is well respected on both sides of the [political] aisle,” said Boyle.

It remains unclear if Lighthizer will accept the position. Lighthizer did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Trump also did not immediately respond.

Robert O’Brien, who served as national security adviser during the first Trump administration and was viewed as a strong contender for secretary of state or to serve again as national security adviser, this week told his private sector consultancy clients that he would not join the administration, according to one person familiar with the decision. 

Lighthizer was highly regarded by Trump and was one of the few top level officials who did not suffer his wrath during Trump’s first term as president.

As Trump’s trade tsar, he presided over a turbulent era for global trade as the administration repeatedly hit its largest trading partners — including its allies — with steep levies and tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of imports.

A former lawyer for the US steel industry, he frequently clashed with the Geneva-based World Trade Organization, which oversees international trade disputes, calling it a “mess” that had “failed America”.

His appointment would also signal bad news for Nippon Steel, the Japanese company that has proposed a $15bn acquisition of US Steel. Trump has already signalled his opposition to the deal, but Lighthizer would almost certainly be a strong opponent.

Lighthizer spent three decades as an attorney at Wall Street law firm Skadden Arps, where he fought imports from China on behalf of the US steel industry, including US Steel. In the early 2000s, he helped persuade George W Bush’s administration to impose tariffs on steel imports to protect the US industry.

During his previous tenure as trade representative, Washington moved away from striking trade deals driven by business interests and instead focused on measures designed to reshore manufacturing and protect American workers. Despite this, Lighthizer agreed limited trade deals with China and Japan, and updated the US’s deal with Mexico and Canada.

Writing in the Financial Times just before the US election, Lighthizer blamed free trade for the loss of American manufacturing jobs and called the US trade deficit “alarming”. “Facing a system that is seriously failing our country, Trump has decided that action must be taken,” he wrote.