If Howard Lutnick is approved as trade minister by Congress, the Trump administration's first message about tariffs on China and EU countries such as Sweden may come quickly after taking office in January. And the tariffs will likely come into force as early as 2025, according to Elisabet Kopelman.
When Trump took office in 2017, the first tariff decisions took about a year.
Now, one believes that the tariffs will come as early as 2025 and that one will not wait until 2026, says Kopelman.
A Negotiation Game
How Swedish companies are affected by the tariffs depends, among other things, on where they produce what they sell in the USA. However, regardless of which laws Lutnick and Trump lean on in their expected tariff decision, there will be a certain investigation and adjustment period, so that companies get a certain opportunity to adapt, according to Kopelman.
One can announce the plans quite quickly, but then it takes a little longer before the tariffs are implemented. It's also part of a negotiation game, she says.
Lutnick as trade minister is no unexpected choice by Trump. The two know each other well from many years. They play golf together occasionally and Lutnick has, in a series of interviews during the autumn, loudly defended the incoming president's view on tariffs as a tool to strengthen the US economy and labor market.
Trump went to the election on introducing tariffs of 10-20 percent on all countries – including the EU and Sweden – and 60 percent tariffs on Chinese goods. Many economists and Wall Street profiles have warned that the effect will be a trade war and that it will ultimately be American consumers who will pay the bill in the form of higher prices on all imported goods.
"A Fantastic Tool"
But according to Lutnick, tariffs are "a fantastic tool" that the president can use to strengthen the US position and get companies to move production that currently takes place abroad to the US.
If we compete with something, put on tariffs, he said in an interview with CNBC in October.
Finally, someone who will protect American workers, he said in another CNBC interview about Trump's trade policy.
The proposal for tariffs has topped Trump's political agenda ahead of the shift in power, alongside issues such as immigration, mass deportations of immigrants without residence permits, and a major tax reform.
The 63-year-old Howard Lutnick is the CEO of the finance company Cantor Fitzgerald. He is described in The Wall Street Journal as a close ally of Tesla founder and the world's richest man, Elon Musk, who, after a series of giant donations, is deeply involved in Trump's work ahead of the shift in power in Washington.
Lutnick has emerged as a key figure in the Trump campaign during the autumn and has also been mentioned in speculations about who will become the Trump administration's finance minister, a post where Trump has not yet put his foot down.
Prior to Trump's announcement on Tuesday that he will be nominated as trade minister, Lutnick has spent a lot of time at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, including as vice chairman of the working group handling the planning for the Trump administration's takeover in two months.
