Former hedge fund manager and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — the White House’s main conduit to beleaguered financial markets — is now at the helm, with populist Peter Navarro relegated to the sidelines and Wall Street punching bag Howard Lutnick recast into the role of “bad cop,” according to three people close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak frankly about internal dynamics.
The diminished roles of Lutnick, the Commerce secretary who for weeks had been the administration’s point person for foreign leaders on tariffs, and Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, reflect this week’s turmoil over Trump’s trade policy and a shift toward the “fair trade” policies Bessent has been advocating. One of the people, who is close to both Trump and Navarro, said the trade hawk still has the ear of the president, adding that Trump respects Navarro’s aggressive populism but that “doesn’t mean he’s at the center of it.” A second person said the White House believes it can leverage Lutnick’s difficult personality in negotiations.
Two of the people added that Elon Musk, who has been vocally advocating against the president’s tariff regime, has not been a factor in the discussions or that his name had not been mentioned to them.
The personnel shuffle comes amid a tug-of-war in the White House between the “fair trade” and protectionist camps, with Trump on Wednesday levying, and then pausing, a hefty regime of tariffs on dozens of countries he said had long “ripped off” the United States. The White House is now trying to chart a path forward as it navigates dozens of individual trade deals with countries in just a couple of months — and grapples with the fallout from 10 percent levies against every country in the world and a massive trade war with China that still threatens to send the United States into a recession.
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