After appointments on the diplomatic and domestic fronts, Donald Trump is preparing to name his Treasury Secretary and the teams that will lead his trade policy. But the matter has already degenerated into a battle of influence between the various clans surrounding the American president-elect. One of the stakes will be to measure the influence of Elon Musk, 53, appointed to head a commission tasked with sabering federal spending, and that of Robert Lighthizer, 77, former trade representative during Trump's first term (2017-2021) and resolute supporter of tariffs.

Until last week, financier Scott Bessent, founder of Key Square Group, was the front-runner. Unfortunately, the 62-year-old Republican had two handicaps: He is a former employee of George Soros, the Hungarian-born financier who brought down the British pound in 1992 and is hated by the right for his progressive political activism; above all, in an interview with the Financial Times in mid-October, he declared that the tariffs promoted by Trump were above all a negotiating weapon. "At the end of the day, [Trump] is a proponent of free trade. You have to escalate to de-escalate," he asserted, which was seen as an ideological non-alignment with the president-elect.

Elon Musk launched the assault on Mr. Bessent on Saturday, November 16, defending the candidacy of Trump's transition team leader, Howard Lutnick, 63, boss of financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald: "My view fwiw [for what it's worth] is that Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas Howard Lutnick will actually enact change," said Elon Musk on social media network X. "Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another."

Amid this cacophony, Trump is preparing, according to the New York Times, to hold further talks. In the running are Kevin Warsh, 54, a former central banker married to a granddaughter and heiress of cosmetics queen Estée Lauder; Robert Lighthizer himself; Mark Rowan, 62, head of Appolo Global Management; and Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty, a rather traditional Republican (who campaigned for Mitt Romney and John McCain), a former ambassador to Japan but now a Trump supporter. The final choice will show just how seriously to take Trump's threats of an all-out trade war and his desire to drastically cut public spending, while Joe Biden has left deficits at historic highs, excluding Covid-19.

A 'free speech warrior'

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