Trump’s core team
Donald Trump has vowed to introduce swift and radical change from day one when he returns to the White House on January 20th. The people he has nominated to the most powerful jobs share a common theme, loyalty to the top man.
Immigration is one of Trump’s biggest campaign pledges, to secure the border and expel people who have come into the US illegally. The biggest deportation in US history, which some polls suggest has growing support, has been promised. Trump has appointed Kristi Noem as Homeland security secretary to lead the effort. The four-term congresswoman who became governor of South Dakota in 2018 drew national attention with her outspoken rejection of mask mandates and lockdown measures during the covid pandemic. She has been very critical of the open border policies of current of Biden administration. Her appointment requires confirmation by US senators and will likely not be a problem for Trump.
In addition to Noem, Tom Homan has been appointed as “Border czar” with sole focus to secure the U.S. borders. With a decades-long career working as a U.S. border enforcement officer, the former policeman who once ran Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seems the ideal pick for one of Trump’s top tasks. Homan seems to be a great choice for this task.
Putting Homan and Noem at the helm, with another hardliner Stephen Miller in charge of border policy, suggests Trump is serious about delivering on his promises. But mass deportations and workplace raids could put him on a collision course with Democratic-leaning states and jurisdictions that may decide to push back or not cooperate. It is hard to understand why anyone would actively support illegal immigration though.
Another area of concern and focus is the increasingly aggressively and confrontational China. Many believe that China poses the single greatest threat to continued U.S. global dominance, both economically and militarily. While Trump has been more circumspect, limiting most of his China critiques to the realm of trade, he is filling his foreign policy team with vocal China critics who will likely help push through Trump’s pledge for high tariffs.
Marco Rubio will be Secretary of state in the new administration, and he has represented Florida in the senate since 2011. Cuban American Rubio is a veteran public official who once supported bipartisan immigration reform and was an early vocal critic of Trump. The two developed a sometimes heated rivalry when Rubio ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, but he later endorsed Trump. In recent years, he has aggressively defended Trump on the campaign trail and in media appearances and can be seen as a Trump loyalist. Part of the Senate intelligence and foreign relations committees, he is known for his hardline positions on Iran, as well as China. At 53 years old, he still may retain White House ambitions and could use the Department of State posting to elevate his national profile.
Trump selected Michael Waltz as National security adviser, a decorated military special forces veteran, Waltz is a congressman who represents Florida like Rubio. He, too, has talked tough on China, having argued as chair of a House subcommittee for the U.S. to prepare more for conflict in the Pacific.
Trump has appointed two tech figures, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead a cost-cutting effort dubbed the “Department of Government Efficiency” (Doge) as part of his drive to dismantle bureaucracy when he returns to the White House. Musk has floated a possible $2tn in spending cuts, vowing to send shockwaves through the government. This high amount is unlikely as most of the spending is mandatory spending. Ramaswamy has backed eliminating the tax-collecting agency, the IRS, and the Department of Education. It remains to be seen how the Doge, which is not an official government department, will operate. Musk has suggested that transitioning to new technologies can make government smaller, more effective, and more efficient.
Vivek Ramaswamy earned his fortune as a biotechnology entrepreneur and then founded an asset management firm. He ran for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, pledging to take up Trump’s “America First” agenda. He ultimately dropped out to support the former president, but not without attracting attention for his unconventional campaign platform and embrace of conspiracy theories including that the 2020 election was “stolen by big tech” from Trump, and that the 2021 Capitol riot was an “inside job”. This seems to be the case as it is highly unlikely that Joe Biden got more than 81 million votes in the 2020 election and that the FBI was behind the J6 event. He has advocated aggressive cuts to the federal government, including mass firings and the eliminations of entire agencies and departments.
The appointments are an acknowledgment of the help Trump got on the campaign trail from Musk and Ramaswamy. But time will tell what power they go on to have, the department is not an official agency and can only advise on spending, which is partially controlled by Congress. Several of Trump’s appointees have been given roles aimed at aggressively challenging the status quo.
Trump has picked particular fights in each of the areas they would oversee Robert F Kennedy Jr. in the Department of Health and Human Services and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.
Kennedy has said “Ultra-processed food is driving the obesity epidemic. When we get President Trump back in the White House and me to Washington, we’re going to fix our broken food system and make America healthy again.” The U.S. is a country of fat and unhealthy people with unhealthy food products and corporations selling unhealthy products. Selling Happy Meals to children with sodas to wash it down should be criminal. 40.3% of adults are obese and nearly 20% of U.S. children ages 2 to 19 have obesity. Many corporations should be reviewed for selling unhealthy sugary products for example cereal producers, soda producers and fast-food producers. Kennedy would have broad remit over US federal health agencies, including those that oversee approval of vaccines, whose use he wants to review.
Tulsi Gabbard is appointed to lead National intelligence. A military veteran who served with a medical unit in Iraq, Gabbard has routinely opposed American foreign policy and her anti-establishment, anti-interventionist attitudes have been consistent throughout.
Kennedy and Gabbard might be among the most determined supporters of Trump’s plan to dismantle the bureaucratic “deep state”. Both appointees frequently tip over into conspiracy. But bomb-throwers can also make unruly subordinates. Kennedy wants stricter regulation across food and farming industries, which may collide with Trump’s government-slashing agenda. And Gabbard, a fierce critic of American power, will be working for a president who is not afraid to use it.
Key picks will help spearhead a trade and tariff agenda that Trump vows will protect American jobs. They could be asked to execute the import taxes that Trump has threatened on goods arriving in the US, including from top trade partners China, Canada and Mexico. Howard Lutnick will serve as the Commerce secretary and he is the billionaire chief executive of financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald, a company he rebuilt after it lost 658 employees in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. He has vocally backed Trump’s economic plans, including wide-ranging tariffs, which the commerce department would be tasked with enforcing, as well as deregulation of cryptocurrencies.
Scott Bessent is appointed Treasury secretary and is also a veteran financier, whose appointment was viewed as fairly safe by many on Wall Street. Bessent is firmly in the conservative camp, backing budget cuts, deregulation, and increased investment in US oil production. While he supports Trump’s calls for new tariffs on imports, like Lutnick he has suggested that Trump sees tariffs primarily as a negotiating tool and not as a permanent source of US revenue.
There will be a new reality in Washington starting next week and the Trump team is ready to shake things up. This time around, Trump has a loyal team around him, and he has learned from his previous presidency. At the same time, it will never be a smooth ride when Trump is around.