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Guest Essay
By Matthew Schmitz
Mr. Schmitz is a founder and an editor of the magazine Compact.
As Donald Trump assembles his economic team, a tension seems to have emerged between his desire to reassure Wall Street and his promise to push back against globalization by enacting sweeping tariff policies.
Despite calling himself “a tariff man,” Mr. Trump has influential backers who would apparently like to see him forget his trade priorities. Elon Musk recently cheered tariff-cutting moves by President Javier Milei of Argentina. Some leading candidates for top economic posts in the new administration, such as the hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, as well as Mr. Trump’s pick for secretary of commerce, the Wall Street executive Howard Lutnick, have been criticized as too committed to World Trade Organization protocols or insufficiently supportive of Mr. Trump’s tariff plans. Mr. Trump himself is reportedly concerned that his nominee for Treasury secretary not disrupt the stock market’s strong performance since his election victory.
But to deliver on his longstanding economic vision of prioritizing American workers and industry, Mr. Trump will need people in his administration who share his understanding of trade and can advance it effectively. This means people who regard tariffs not just as a negotiating tactic or foreign-policy tool but also as a broad means of raising revenue and promoting industry. It also means people with a track record of working within institutions while building consensus across partisan and ideological divides.
For these reasons, Mr. Trump should assign an important role on his economic team to Robert Lighthizer, the veteran trade negotiator who has championed Mr. Trump’s plans to........