By Anupreeta Das and Nick Timiraos
Donald Trump's successful insurgent bid for the White House
promised to upend a global power structure that benefited large
corporations. Now, several Wall Street financiers and other
successful business leaders could be in line to run top posts in
his presidential administration.
People close to Mr. Trump have said he is considering Steven
Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who became his
national campaign finance chairman in May, as his pick for Treasury
secretary. If tapped for the job, Mr. Mnuchin would become the
third Goldman alumnus in the last 20 years to head the Treasury,
following Robert Rubin and Hank Paulson, who both served as the
bank's chief executive.
After a 17-year career at Goldman, where Mr. Mnuchin led the
mortgage-trading department and was the bank's chief information
officer, he turned to investing. He briefly worked for a hedge fund
tied to George Soros, the big Democratic donor. In his closing
campaign ad, Mr. Trump featured both Goldman and Mr. Soros as "the
establishment...who control the levers of power in Washington."
Advisers to Mr. Trump have said promptly filling senior
appointments would help calm jittery markets, which saw volatility
soar after it became apparent that Mr. Trump, a political outsider
who broke with the political philosophy that has defined both
parties, would win the election.
"Just as he comforted a lot of people when he picked Mike Pence
as his running mate, they'll be much more comfortable when they see
what the team will be," predicted Wilbur Ross, the private-equity
investor who has advised Mr. Trump on economic policy. Business
leaders have been "incorrectly worried about what might happen
under Trump," Mr. Ross said.
In addition to his role as the campaign's finance chair, Mr.
Mnuchin became a key economic adviser along with Sen. Jeff Sessions
(R., Ala.) and the senator's former aide, Stephen Miller, who
served as the campaign's policy chief.
Mr. Trump's campaign advisers included an eclectic mix of
business associates such as Mr. Ross and Thomas Barrack, the Los
Angeles-based founder and executive chairman of investment firm
Colony Capital Inc.
Mr. Trump is also drawing from conservative economists and
business leaders who have long championed lower taxes and less
regulation, such as Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation and
David Malpass, the former chief economist at Bear Stearns who is
handling the presidential transition for the Treasury Department
and economic issues.
Working under Mr. Malpass to oversee financial regulation for
the transition is Paul Atkins, a former Republican commissioner of
the Securities and Exchange Commission and a critic of
post-financial crisis rule making.
Critics of U.S. trade policy, including Peter Navarro, economics
professor at the University of California, Irvine, and Dan DiMicco,
former CEO of steelmaker Nucor Corp. , have also joined Mr. Trump's
team.
Uncertainty over Mr. Trump's executive appointments runs
unusually high not only because he is a political outsider who has
never served in government, but because many Republican policy
hands and CEOs involved in past campaigns steered clear of Mr.
Trump.
The result is that Mr. Trump's economic group relied on a
closer-knit circle of advisers animated less by an overarching
political philosophy than by their faith in Mr. Trump.
Messrs. Navarro and Ross said Tuesday night revamping the
health-insurance markets created by President Barack Obama's
Affordable Care Act would be a priority after Mr. Trump takes
office. "That's a No. 1 target and played a big role in his
victory," Mr. Ross said. It was unclear how high financial
deregulation would rank in the Trump administration.
In August, Mr. Trump announced an economic advisory team that
included Mr. Barrack, who advised the campaign on banking,
regulation and international finance.
John Paulson, a hedge-fund billionaire, was tapped as an adviser
because of his understanding of housing, one adviser said. Mr.
Paulson, who made a spectacularly well-timed bet shorting the U.S.
subprime mortgage market in 2007, has more recently taken large
stakes in the mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac, which have been in a government-run conservatorship since the
2008 financial crisis. Shares of Fannie Mae were up nearly 17% to
their highest levels of the year on Wednesday.
Stephen Feinberg, the co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management
LP, had a busy morning Wednesday tracking volatile markets but was
relieved by Mr. Trump's victory, a person familiar with the matter
said. Mr. Feinberg came on board as an economic adviser because he
believed Mr. Trump's proposals would reverse low capital spending
by corporations and spur companies to hire more workers and
increase wages, the person said.
The Trump campaign sought Mr. Feinberg's assistance because of
his experience turning around multiple businesses at Cerberus,
including in the auto industry, people close to the campaign said.
Cerberus became well known for buying Chrysler in 2007, only to
have its equity wiped out in the car maker's subsequent
bankruptcy.
Sharon Terlep contributed to this article.
Write to Anupreeta Das at anupreeta.das@wsj.com and Nick
Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 09, 2016 17:44 ET (22:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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