NEW YORK (AP) – President-elect Donald Trump pressed to fill senior posts in his administration on Tuesday even as new questions emerged about his priorities at home and abroad.
His inauguration less than three weeks away, Trump tapped as U.S. trade representative a former Reagan official who has condemned Republicans’ commitment to free trade. The incoming president indicated that Robert Lighthizer, who is expected to take a hard line against China, would do “an amazing job helping turn around the failed trade policies which have robbed so many Americans of prosperity.”
Lighthizer, Trump said, would represent “the United States as we fight for good trade deals that put the American worker first.” The new administration’s specific plans for crafting new trade deals, spokesman Sean Spicer said, “will come in time.”
While several hundred high-level White House posts remain unfilled, just a handful of outstanding Cabinet-level vacancies remain, specifically in the departments of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs, as well as a director of national intelligence. Trump’s private meetings Tuesday included one with Leo MacKay, a senior executive at a military contractor who previously served in the Department of Veterans Affairs under President George W. Bush.
While tending to his Cabinet, the president-elect and his senior advisers also worked to craft a domestic and international agenda while huddled behind closed doors in his Manhattan skyscraper. Trump offered few details on his specific plans for governing in the months leading up to his stunning victory.