
Trump’s Cabinet Is Taking Shape
The transition process to the next Trump Administration will be a determining factor in its success, especially in the first hundred days, which is taken by Americans as an indicator of the future success of the Administration. Donald Trump has placed particular emphasis on preparing for a smooth transfer of power, trying to avoid the situation of 2016, when the Administration’s organizational problems and sabotage from the party he had taken over by force largely wasted the first two years of his term until he reached a compromise with the Republican nomenclature. At that time, thousands of positions in the Trump Administration remained vacant, with many potential employees fearing for their careers if they worked for the “danger to the republic”. Trump was forced to keep people from the Obama era on the roll, other key positions remained vacant for a very long time, and Trump appointed unsuitable people (we are not just talking about his family) due to a lack of options, affecting the ability to implement his agenda. This time, the Heritage Foundation, the first major think tank to side with Trump in 2016, trying to gain influence over him in this way, began two years ago to recruit thousands of people for a future Trump Administration. The “2025 Project” has sparked strong reactions, due to the very conservative ideological filters (of an American type) applied by the Heritage group to develop a Trump team. Even though Trump has disavowed any influence of this initiative on him personally, the stakes of those who implemented the project are that Trump’s need to secure thousands of employees in the Administration to implement the Trumpist agenda will push him to accept the Heritage package. Americans say that “personnel is policy”, because the President decides the broad lines and makes major specific decisions, but thousands of discretionary, administrative and regulatory decisions are made by the lower echelons, where a political inclination can be decisive. This very problem with Obama-era personnel and Republicans who were not loyal to the Trump agenda has tainted, dragged out, and sabotaged the first two years of the 2016-2020 term, if not the entire term. Because it is very difficult for us to observe personnel politics at the micro level, those who analyse the handover of the White House look at the proposals for the leadership of major departments and state agencies, trying to anticipate political disputes, policy preferences, and guidelines of the Administration. Trump’s choices have stirred controversy, especially for their radicalism, and anti-Trump observers hope that defectors from the Republican party, such as Rand Paul, will bridge the gap with Democrats to block certain figures, given Trump’s weak majority in the Senate, where the hearings will take place. For the rest of the world, the spectacle of the transition process to Trump represents an opportunity for an American “Kremlinology”, especially in relation to major international issues such as Ukraine, Israel or Taiwan.
Trump’s criteria
From the choices made so far, we can make three assumptions about the selection criteria for important posts (leaving aside the appointment for ambassadors or other visible but not very influential positions that, in the American style, will reward big donors or the loyalty of key allies). First, Donald Trump will select loyal or seemingly loyal people, informed by the problems of his first term, when the Administration had many leaks and important figures such as advisers John Bolton and HR McMaster publicly attacked him after leaving government, including in books that presented the chaos inside the White House. The second criterion is to satisfy factions within the Republican Party. Big supporters will also be rewarded, such as the independent candidate (but nominally Democratic) and very influential through his pedigree, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose anti-vaccine candidacy would have stolen votes from Trump, or the Democratic defector Tulsi Gabbard from the non-interventionist side of the Democrats. Given the American two-party system, the major parties are actually umbrella organizations for a large number of regional or interest factions, some formal and some informal. We could say that the appointment of RFK Jr satisfies the eco-hippie side of Republicans, Tulsi Gabbard satisfies the non-interventionists, Marco Rubio those in the Republican mainstream, Chris Wright those pro-energy diversity, Stephen Miller and Tom Homan the anti-immigrationists, Jay Bhattacharya critics of anti-covid policies. Third, many of Trump’s appointments are very harsh critics of the organizations they could end up leading, thus being more in tune with the populist, reformist and anti-institutional current of the MAGA movement, which appeals to the electorate. This is how the criticism related to the “swamp” appointments of the first term is addressed. Last but not least, many proposals are actually ploys to create panic and focus negative, oppositional campaign energies on a bait and switch. By comparison, the real proposal will seem much more reasonable. We have already seen an example with Congressman Matt Gaetz in the role of Attorney General, who, although he had the necessary political experience, loyalty and anti-establishment attitude, came with legal and image baggage. Replacing him with Pam Bondi, another Floridian but with far fewer flaws and eccentricities, seems an almost trivial appointment. There will probably be more such replacements, such as the rumored one of Pete Hegseth at Defense with DeSantis, a much better politician and administrator, but with a strong rivalry with Trump. Certainly, many would like to see RFK Jr removed from Health, but it is unlikely to happen. The hope would be that the most eccentric characters would be guided by the institutions they will lead in order to avoid causing major problems and to select realistic elements from the reformist agenda (which also exists in Health, where RFK Jr. pontificated loudly not only on anti-vaccination, his best-known position, but also on the real problem of obesity and food additives).
What makes a successful appointment?
There are four types of people who can do well and project confidence in key executive positions:
- Political operators – generally legislators in the federal Congress, who have the connections and ability to navigate the committee system to advance the interests of the organization (and, occasionally, those of the public);
- Administrative operators – people raised in institutions, with the ability to reconcile factions, navigate bureaucracy, and advance key projects, including reform projects;
- Theory experts – people with a good understanding, including theoretical, of a field and who are brought in from outside to advance the organization’s mission (perhaps the most famous example is Henry Kissinger, taken from the chancellery of Harvard University to be Richard Nixon’s national security advisor and then Secretary of State);
- Experts in the field – often people from the private sector who know the sector’s problems inside out and make a transition, often contested as corrupt, into the area of governance.
Generally, the people nominated in this way have attributes from several categories, although we should not be naive about their quality or the main reasons for the selection which remain political or ideological.
The anti-Trump media apparatus in the US has criticized his selection very harshly, focusing especially on the unorthodox proposals, but it should not be forgotten that Trump’s approaches have worked in the past. The happiest case for an unorthodox nomination is to end up like Secretary of Energy Rick Perry (2017-2020) from the first Trump term. Rick Perry was derided as a joke appointment when he was proposed to lead a department he had said he would like to see abolished and whose name he failed to recall during the 2015 primary debates. However, he had 15 years of experience as Governor of Texas, which gave him political and administrative skills. He had been unfavourably contrasted with his Obama-era predecessor, a famous academic in the field, Ernest Moniz (typical of the Democrats’ credentialist focus in their new electoral coalition).
However, even the media was forced to acknowledge the transformative effect he had on the Department of Energy. Instead of abolishing it, Rick Perry obtained another $10 billion from Congress, increasing the budget by 20%, and initiated transformations with long-term impact on energy security, critical infrastructure protection, and the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Among his team’s achievements, we list the creation of a special department for energy cybersecurity, replacing the previous bureau for cybersecurity which was nestled into the department for power line maintenance (a useful move considering the constant attacks on energy infrastructure later). He also initiated the first research projects in the Department in the management of networks and industrial control systems with artificial intelligence and involved private sector technology companies, developing critical products. Despite the Republicans’ reluctance to address climate change, Perry’s team funded research projects in battery storage that are now facilitating the growth of electrified transportation and the management of renewable energy grids (including in Texas, which is now the US state with the highest growth in renewables and energy storage to stabilize the grid, despite its traditional association with fossil fuels).
Last but not least, he recognized the potential of the US as a strategic energy exporter and pushed Trump to promote the concept of “freedom gas”, especially in Europe as an alternative to Russian gas. At the time, he was ridiculed for this effort, given the price difference, but events since then have proven the importance of the concept and have validated the initiative to develop infrastructure and export licenses to position the US at a later date to deliver liquefied natural gas to Europe in the wake of sanctions on Russia. For these reasons, notable also for the absence of personality and institutional conflicts with Donald Trump (unlike Rex Tillerson at the State Department, a competent but institutionally marginalized pick), Rick Perry at the Department of Energy was a positive example. He is all the more so since the period was so chaotic that he was one of the few positive examples and free from scandal and overt political infighting, despite the ideological baggage of the energy domain.
Key appointments
A few key figures stand out as indicators of the Trump agenda. For example, Chris Wright at the Department of Energy, through his role in the private sector in the shale gas and shale oil revolution and later in the nuclear area, promises a non-ideological approach to energy and the continuation of the Western nuclear renaissance initiated by Trump and continued more covertly by Biden. In my view, this is perhaps the most important appointment from the perspective of the stability of energy markets and the energy security of Europe, given the failed and ideological policies of the Biden Administration, which were only temporarily reversed in the first phase of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I will not repeat what I wrote in a previous article, but suffice it to mention Biden’s cancellation of new exploration licenses on federal land, of new infrastructure to transport oil and gas to major markets (including Europe), and additional natural gas export licenses to Europe (which would create the physical capacity to increase exports to the EU beyond current levels if needed). Another important appointment is Tom Homan as border officer – massive illegal migration to the US, which may reach 12 million people in total at the Southern border during Biden’s term (based on the reported average of 300 thousand people encountered by border agents per month in 2022-2023), is a major factor in the radicalization and internal destabilization of the US, which ultimately affects its ability to serve its role on the international stage.
Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon, despite his popularity with the military and his elite education, is a poor choice and DeSantis would be a much better fit, especially given the critical period of reform and retooling the military for new missions, the failure of the seventh consecutive Pentagon budget audit, and the unresolved issues highlighted in 2015 by the McCain Commission (led by Senator John McCain), which noted that $150 billion annually disappears from the Pentagon budget without explanation. The Secretary of Defense has a critical role, but another insider like Mark Esper lacks the ability or will to truly reform the Pentagon.
Trump’s appointments to the FBI and the Justice Department indicate a desire for reform that could translate into punitive oversight. America needs to restore trust in politicized justice institutions, especially after the abusive surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016 and the legal harassment he appears to have been subjected to in recent years through the application of a double standard. The line between reform and deepening politicization in preparation for new abuses is very fine and difficult to see from the outside.
Troubled appointments
There were two big surprises in Trump’s appointments. The first is Marco Rubio at the State Department, which is the most important cabinet position. Despite his extensive congressional experience, Marco Rubio is not known for his expertise or interest in foreign affairs. His appointment is odd, given the rivalry during the 2015 primary campaign and the extreme antipathy of the MAGA electorate towards him over his participation in the “Gang of 8,” a group of four Republicans and four Democrats who in 2013 proposed a border security bill that would have amnestied illegal immigrants and offered a path to citizenship (perhaps Trump is grateful for his personal role in the extraordinary radicalization of the electorate on immigration). Rubio may be an olive branch for mainstream Republicans, but the result of the nomination, which is sure to pass through the Senate without a hitch, will be a return to the marginalization of the State Department as it was under Tillerson. Trump will run his foreign policy through the National Security Advisor, who does not need congressional approval, undermining Rubio in front of allies and rivals when it comes to negotiations and key messages. Tillerson has complained bitterly about Trump’s attitude, but for Trumpists, the State Department institution is a key ideological and political obstacle, because it is considered progressive by default, just as the Pentagon is associated with conservatives. There are more precedents. Most famously, Nixon ran his foreign policy agenda with Henry Kissinger, including the opening to China and the negotiations with Vietnam, without the knowledge or coordination of the State Department. Kissinger mocked Secretary of State William Rogers as the first person appointed to the position specifically for how little he knew on the subject. A famous case was the secret negotiations between Kissinger and Le Duc Tho to end the Vietnam War, which took place in Paris starting in 1970 and which William Rogers learned about more than a year after the end. For Nixon, as for Trump, the State Department was an ideological entity that would have stood in the way of his foreign policy agenda and would not have implemented it in the spirit required. He may be right, but American diplomacy with its allies and rivals will suffer from this inability to coordinate the Department’s key resources. The only period of harmony was the tag-team of Mike Pompeo at the State Department and Robert O’Brien at the National Security Council in 2019-2020, when they were able to coordinate to force Europe to abandon 5G projects with China.
The second appointment is the role of billionaire Elon Musk at the so-called “Department for Government Efficiency” (DOGE) alongside Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk has been a critical ally through his Twitter platform (now X) and his role in creating a group of pro-Trump tech billionaires (Marc Andressen, Peter Thiel, Bill Ackman, etc.). The problem is that the idea of reforming public administration is a noble one, but it does not lend itself to private-sector methods, given the specifics of public institutions. DOGE has no legal existence, Congress will not create it, and it is unclear how it will interact with other institutions for the purpose of reform (although there are some clear points where reform is obvious, possible, and desirable). Most likely, by the time Musk’s relationship with Trump breaks down (again), Musk will end up presenting executive orders for Trump to sign if he feels like it that day and will not have his own authority to reform, which will undermine its potential (both positively and negatively). My personal impression is that Musk is wasted in this role he chose out of vanity and a better position would have been either at the National Science Foundation, to reform American research (affected by waste and demoralized by the woke movement), or as an “industry czar” (a kind of minister without portfolio with a cross-sectoral role) responsible for coordinating strategic industrial projects such as the area of semiconductors.
Conclusion
We do not have long before the inauguration of Donald Trump’s second (and potentially more radical) term. His team has learned from past experiences and is looking to prepare in advance for a smooth transition that will help implement his domestic and foreign policy agenda. The critical period is the first hundred days, when Trump’s main proposals for ministers and agency heads will be heard and confirmed. Halfway through his term, as is typical of Americans, he will most likely lose one of his legislative majorities and his ability to impose himself will become much more limited. His proposals are, by and large, congruent with the MAGA agenda and serve to implement clear strategic directions, but his Presidency can be derailed by both political rivals and eccentric or poorly prepared allies for the roles they assume. Energy and migration seem to be in good hands, but foreign affairs and defense present many uncertainties, and justice and law enforcement will be the epicentre of major political and institutional conflicts as “some debts get paid” and we find out whether it is possible to return to political norms that do not treat institutions as weapons in the American political competition.
Photo source: Joshua Santos.