President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Gary Cohn, a 17 year veteran of Goldman Sachs and a former Goldman commodities trader, to be the director of the National Economic Council, a key policy position not requiring Senate confirmation that will make Cohn one of the most influential voices on economic decisions in the White House. Historically, the NEC director has had an extremely broad portfolio of issues ranging from such issues as banking rules to tax policy and, in some administrations, the Director’s proximity to the president has given the NEC Director a level of influence comparable to that of the Treasury Secretary.
Mr. Cohn, who has been Goldman’s CEO since 2006 when then Goldman Sachs CEO, Henry Paulson, left the company to become the Treasury Secretary, is said to have wide-ranging global knowledge of capital markets, tax and trade issues. At the time of the appointment, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Cohn, currently the President and Chief Operating Officer of Goldman Sachs, Inc., would be his “top economic adviser”.
Coupled with the outsized roles that veteran Goldman Sachs alumni Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin, Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Trump Transition Adviser Anthony Scaramucci are playing in the forthcoming Trump administration, several Congressional Democrats complain that President-elect Trump is already ignoring his campaign pledges to “drain the swamp” and is instead providing undue influence in economic matters to Goldman Sachs, a global financial powerhouse and what they say is a paradigm of the corrupt business elite that Mr. Trump repeatedly excoriated during the presidential campaign. (Within the last 24 hours, Mr. Trump also announced his intention to nominate Jay Clayton, a Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer, to be the SEC Chairman. Goldman Sachs is a client of Sullivan & Cromwell and Mr. Clayton’s wife, Gretchen, works for the bank.) Mr. Cohn joined Goldman in 1990 and became a partner in 1994, the same year as Mr. Mnuchin.
Mr. Cohn, who is dyslexic, says that his dyslexia has given him a competitive advantage: a comfort level with failure that has made him more willing to take risks than many of his competitors. While Mr. Cohn and the president-elect appear to share many views, they also do have some material differences, especially regarding China. Mr. Trump said that China’s currency, the yuan, is too weak and he promised that he would designate China as a currency manipulator on his first day in office. In contrast, Mr. Cohn thinks that the yuan is too strong and is the most expensive currency in the world.
Mr. Cohn, a registered Democrat who grew up in Cleveland, has made political contributions to both Republicans and Democrats, including Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), the Ranking Member on the Senate Banking Committee, whom Cohn has known for many years.
