Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, known on Wall Street as the “king of bankruptcy” for his record of buying failing companies, is in line to be Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, putting an advocate of renegotiating US trade pacts in a key economic post.
Mr Ross was a close adviser during the campaign and helped develop the president-elect’s policies for corporate tax cuts, increased infrastructure spending and international trade.
He declined to comment when contacted by the Financial Times but his nomination would be the latest sign that Mr Trump has no intention of backing away from his more controversial economic policies in the White House.
A former investment banker who specialised in corporate turnrounds, Mr Ross has been particularly outspoken on the need to overhaul business taxes, advocating cuts in corporate rates and incentives for US groups to repatriate profits parked overseas. “Trump is putting fiscal policy to work . . . there is a real limit to what monetary policy can do,” he told the FT this month. “Tax cuts will boost earnings by 30 per cent.”
Mr Trump has reached beyond his immediate inner circle in recent days to pick outsiders for education secretary, UN ambassador and housing secretary. But those posts have relatively little power in Washington – key education and housing decisions are made by local governments – and Mr Ross’s nomination comes amid signs that Mr Trump will give top economic posts to loyalists. Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker who served as Mr Trump’s campaign finance chairman, is seen as frontrunner for Treasury secretary.
Mr Ross has strong free-market views and long experience in one of the more ruthless corners of finance, but is known for a low-key, self-effacing style, a stark contrast with other high-profile Wall Street figures.
In 2000, he set up WL Ross and did several deals with struggling companies in the industrial Midwest, an area crucial to Mr Trump’s victory. A New Jersey native based in New York, Mr Ross also has a house in Palm Beach near Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
“We are tying to spur more investment; the big lagging thing in our economy has been the shrinkage of gross private sector investment,” Mr Ross said of corporate tax cuts.
Speaking to the FT last week, Mr Ross said he was not antitrade and was keen to encourage international commerce.
However, echoing the arguments advanced by Mr Trump, he insisted any trade deals needed to be carefully structured to benefit the US. “Cutting our balance of payments deficit doesn’t mean slapping 45 per cent tariffs on everything from China,” he said. “We should treat ourselves as the world’s biggest customer and treat nations that are selling to us as suppliers to us.”
Additional reporting by Gillian Tett
