President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Howard Lutnick, Chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and a prominent cryptocurrency advocate, to serve as the United States Secretary of Commerce. The announcement was made on November 19, and Lutnick will play an important role in advancing the president’s economic and trade agenda.
His responsibilities include leading the administration’s tariff and trade policies and overseeing the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Trump praised Lutnick’s leadership as co-chair of the Trump-Vance Transition Team, describing the system he developed as instrumental in assembling “the greatest administration America has ever seen.”
Lutnick has long advocated for Bitcoin and stablecoins and urged U.S.
regulators to classify Bitcoin as a commodity in a previous Fox Business interview. Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial services firm Lutnick leads, has expanded its operations to include cryptocurrency services. It manages Tether’s U.S. Treasury holdings that support its USDT stablecoin and recently launched a $2 billion Bitcoin financing initiative.