President-elect Donald Trump has chosen economist Kevin Hassett to be director of his National Economic Council and Jamieson Greer to serve as U.S. trade representative.
Hassett, 62, worked in economic affairs under Trump during his first administration. He served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2017 until 2019 and then as a senior adviser to the president on economic issues for a few months in 2020.
In that role, Hassett frequently made the case for Trump’s tax overhaul and regulatory reforms in the media. Hassett published analyses finding that the 2017 tax cuts would lead to much higher wages for workers.
“He will play an important role in helping American families recover from the Inflation that was unleashed by the Biden Administration,” Trump said in a statement announcing Hassett’s nomination. “Together, we will renew and improve our record Tax Cuts, and ensure that we have Fair Trade with Countries that have taken advantage of the United States in the past.”
Greer, for his part, served as chief of staff to Robert Lighthizer, the trade representative during Trump’s first term in office. In that time, he helped negotiate the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. He is a lawyer who previously served in the Air Force.
As trade representative, Greer would be tasked with carrying out the administration’s imposition of tariffs, a tool Trump used heavily in his first term. He would lead the renegotiation of the USMCA and trade deals with China if confirmed.
“Jamieson will focus the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on reining in the Country’s massive Trade Deficit, defending American Manufacturing, Agriculture, and Services, and opening up Export Markets everywhere,” Trump said in a separate announcement.
A Massachusetts native, Hassett got a degree from Swarthmore College and then earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, the same university that Trump attended.
Hassett was a professor at Columbia University in the early 1990s before going to work as an economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
He was chief economist for the 2000 presidential campaign of former Sen. John McCain and was an economic adviser on the campaigns of George W. Bush in 2004 and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) in 2012.
Hassett is currently a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. His name has been floated as a choice for Fed chairman when Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s term in office concludes.
In the new role, Hassett will work closely with Trump and figures like Scott Bessent, who was nominated to lead the Treasury Department. Trump has vowed major increases in tariffs and this week announced he would levy them against Mexico and Canada in order to compel them to prevent drugs and immigrants from flowing into the U.S.
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Hassett would replace Lael Brainard as director of the NEC, a role she has served in since 2023. Greer would replace Ambassador Katherine Tai, who was sworn into the position in 2021.
Greer is currently a partner at the law firm King & Spalding, where he deals with cases on international trade.
