President-elect Donald Trump continues to surprise with some of his cabinet picks, announcing he will nominate an attorney who has criticized the trade policies of some conservatives to be his U.S. Trade Representative.
Robert Lighthizer, deputy U.S. trade representative in the Reagan administration, has more recently been working to promote “market-opening trade actions on behalf of U.S. companies seeking access to foreign markets,” according to his law-firm biography.
In 2008, Lighthizer wrote an opinion article for the New York Times criticizing Republican presidential nominee John McCain. McCain, a senator from Arizona, and other conservatives, such as the late Sen. Jesse Helms, for their trade policies, according to Lighthizer’s writings.
“Mr. McCain may be a conservative. But his unbridled free-trade policies don’t help make that case,” Lighthizer wrote at the time, suggesting that free trade had long been popular among liberals.
“Moreover, many American conservatives have opposed free trade. Jesse Helms, the most outspoken conservative in the Senate for three decades, was no free trader. Neither was Alexander Hamilton, who could be considered the founder of American conservatism.”
“Ambassador Lighthizer is going to do an outstanding job representing the United States as we fight for good trade deals that put the American worker first,” the president-elect said in a statement announcing his selection.