US Senate confirms Howard Lutnick as Trump’s commerce secretary

The US Senate has confirmed Wall Street billionaire Howard Lutnick as the 41st Secretary of Commerce, who will assist President Donald Trump with his bold trade policies.

Lutnick immediately stepped down as CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald after he was confirmed to lead the Department of Commerce in a 52-45 vote on Feb. 18.

Lutnick is a crypto advocate, and Cantor Fitzgerald holds a stake in crypto stablecoin issuer Tether. However, Lutnick said he’d sell shares in all 818 businesses and other private investments that he holds positions in within 90 days, which lands on May 19.

He’ll now head around 50,000 Commerce Department staffers who do everything from gathering business data, looking after patents, drumming up foreign investment, and weather forecasts.

He’ll also take a key role in working with top US trade negotiators to deliver Trump’s plans to impose import taxes on US trading partners. 

Trump has already imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese imports while raising US taxes on foreign steel and aluminum. He also threatened a 25% tariff on products coming from bordering countries Canada and Mexico before delaying that decision until early March.

Lutnick told a Senate confirmation hearing last month that the idea that tariffs would lead to inflation was “nonsense” and backed Trump’s plans to create more “reciprocity, fairness and respect” for the US in world trade.

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Cantor Fitzgerald has been one of Tether’s most important banking partners at a time when the company was cut off by many banks around the world.

The company held most of the Tether (USDT) token reserves in November — which were valued at $134 billion and have since expanded to over $141.7 billion, according to Tether’s website.

Senator Elizabeth Warren publicly pressed him last month over what she claimed was his “deep personal ties” to Tether, which she said was a “serious concern” as he will have “extraordinary access” to President Trump and other officials responsible for regulating the stablecoin giant.

Lutnick said in December 2023 that he was a “fan” of crypto, particularly Bitcoin (BTC), pointing to Bitcoin’s halving cycles and lack of a centralized entity as two main reasons he sees value in holding it.

Lutnick’s confirmation comes about three months after Trump selected him to fill Gina Raimondo’s position for his second stint in office.

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