Trump selects key members of economic team

Donald Trump has named his key members of his economic team, including former Bank of Ireland director Wilbur Ross as his commerce secretary, as he announced plans to separate himself from his business interests.

The US president-elected confirmed the well-flagged cabinet nominations of Hollywood financier and former Goldman Sachs executive Steve Mnuchin as his treasury secretary and Todd Ricketts, co-owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, the recent World Series winners, as his deputy commerce secretary, in addition to Ross.

Mr Mnuchin (53) is the third former Goldman Sachs banker to serve as treasury secretary but has no experience of working in government. A long-time supporter of Mr Trump, the financier has built up a successful business funding movie blockbusters such as Avatar, Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

In an interview with CNBC, Mr Mnuchin promised to introduce “the most significant middle income tax cut” since Ronald Reagan’s presidency a quarter-century ago and to reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 15 per cent, measures that he said could “absolutely” achieve an annual growth rate of between 3 per cent and 4 per cent.

‘Huge economic growth’

“We think by cutting corporate taxes we’ll create huge economic growth and we’ll have huge personal income,” he said. “Taxes are way too complicated and people spend way too much time worrying about ways to get them lower.”

Mr Trump praised Mr Ross (79), a turnaround expert who makes money from investing in distressed businesses, saying that he was “a champion of American manufacturing and knows how to help companies succeed”.

“Wilbur knows that cutting taxes for working families, reducing burdensome government regulations and unleashing America’s energy resources will strengthen our economy at a time when our country needs to see significant growth,” he said.

Mr Ross told Fox Business Network said that he favoured bilateral agreements with trade partners, rather than regional deals.

“There’s trade, there’s sensible trade and there’s dumb trade. We’ve been doing a lot of dumb trade,” he said.

The appointments add to a cabinet comprising multimillionaires, billionaires and former Wall Street financiers who will advise the next president, who was elected on a populist manifesto to shake up the political establishment.

Speculation still swirls around Trump's pick for one of the most high-profile jobs in his cabinet, that of secretary of state, after the businessman was photographed dining with 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in New York alongside Trump's incoming chief-of-staff Reince Priebus at a Michelin-starred restaurant on Tuesday night.

Business interests

On Wednesday morning Mr Trump took to Twitter, his preferred means of communicating, to declare that he would hold a “major news conference” with his children on December 15th to outline how he would be fully removing himself from his business interests “to fully focus on running the country.” He last held a press conference 126 days ago.

Despite heavy scrutiny and sharp criticism about potential conflicts of interest for the first non-politician and non-military leader to hold the presidency, Mr Trump insisted that he was not “mandated” to divest himself of his companies.

“I feel it is visually important, as president, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses,” he tweeted.

In addition to his many overseas assets, Mr Trump's ownership of his new Washington hotel, in the old post office building near the White House, has been the source of much concern because Mr Trump will be both tenant and landlord as president overseeing the federal agency, the General Services Administration, which is in charge of the lease.

On Monday, Democrats on the House of Representatives oversight and government reform committee called for an investigation into Mr Trump's business empire, following reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post about the Republican's private meetings with foreign business partners since he won the presidency in the November 8th poll.