(Reuters) -Former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has not been asked by President-elect Donald Trump to return to the agency overseeing trade policy in his new administration, contrary to a Financial Times report, two sources familiar with the matter said.
The FT earlier reported that Lighthizer had been asked to lead Trump’s trade policy from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, citing unnamed people familiar with the talks among the Trump transition team.
One of the two sources familiar with the matter called the report “untrue.” The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
Lighthizer declined to comment on the report and on deliberations within Trump’s transition team about cabinet positions. The longtime Washington trade lawyer advised Trump’s 2024 campaign.
Lighthizer was one of the leading figures during the then-president’s first term in the imposition of hefty tariffs on Chinese imports and the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, with Mexico and Canada.
He has frequently been mentioned in Republican circles as a potential candidate for other Trump cabinet positions, including Treasury secretary and commerce secretary.
The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment. On Thursday, Trump announced he had picked Susie Wiles, one of his two campaign managers, to be White House chief of staff.
The president-elect aims to kick the aggressive trade agenda from his first four-year term into higher gear with across-the-board 10% tariffs on imported goods and even higher levies on imports from China and elsewhere. If enacted, they would push up consumer prices.
China’s top envoy to the United States warned on Thursday that there are no winners in tariff or trade wars, nor in wars over science and technology or industry.
(Reporting by David Lawder, Costas Pitas, Steve Holland and Bipasha Dey; editing by Rami Ayyub and Jonathan Oatis)
