Trump's nominee for Defense Secretary.. General Steven Mattis, a 4 Star Marine Corps General who led the U.S. Southern and Central Commands.. is a blunt, effective officer who is highly respected in the military and in Congress. I think he's as good a choice as there is for the difficult portfolio.
Most of Trump's ultimate success will be based on his economic program, though, under the direction of Commerce and Treasury.
Commerce
Wilbur Ross, 79, is an merchant banker with Rothschild and a successful investor in steel, coal, textiles and auto parts. He has a Yale BA (Lit.) and a Harvard MBA and his net worth is $2.9 billion He comes from a Catholic family.
Treasury
Steven Mnuchin, 53, comes from Goldman Sachs (17 years), Soros Fund Management and the movie industry, where he produced American Sniper, and Real Estate. He has an undergraduate degree from Yale and net worth of about $40 million. He comes from a Jewish family (so much for anti semitism).
It all really depends on the attitudes and agendas of both these nominees. Certainly Ross' background in the core industries that have been decimated by Free Trade will give him insight into devastation that has rusted out American idustry.. and potential solutions.
I view Mnuchins background at Goldman's as more problematic. The key is whether he sufficiently removed from the monetarist dogma that rules that firm. Because any rebuilding of America will have to rebuild it financial system. It will also require that big Wall Street banks be broken up. And that Glass Steagall Act which mandated commercial and investment banking be operated under separate ownerships be reinstated. That would remove another of Bill Clinton's disastrous economic innovations, along with NAFTA.
There are two distinct cultures on Wall Street. The Investment culture which Ross seems to come from and the Trading culture which is dominant at Goldman's (and Soros). Goldman's fingerprints are all over the smoking gun of 2008 financial fiasco. It's graduates fill Central Banker and government policy roles throughout the West and they are responsible for the desperate economic conditions it has fallen into. It's is very much defined by the radical Monetarism of the last 40 years with its ethos of free markets in currency, credit and derivatives and market deregulation. Steven Bannon, Trump's chief strategist, also came through Goldman's.
The U.S. needs to go back to what worked for it in the centuries lead up to the catastrophic free market era on the last 45 years. This is the paradigm that these two men profited from mightily and we'll have to see whether they have the independence of mind and the character to reinstitute a sustainable and equitable economy.
Certainly the worst choice Trump could make would be to make Mitt Romney as Secretary of State. Romney made his fortune at Bain Capital.. a vulture firm that scavenged on the remains of American industry destroyed by Free Trade. He plundered them, moved them off shore or sold off their assets and fired their workers. He would be a NeoCon redoubt within the administration. Trump already has one NeoCon in his administration with Mike Pense. That is enough. Bringing Romney in would be a flag that he has been coopted by the Republican Establishment.
