Senate confirms Raimondo to lead Commerce Department

The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of confirming Gina Raimondo as secretary of Commerce, tasking the former Rhode Island governor with a key role in reviewing the Trump administration’s trade policies.

Raimondo’s new position will place her at the head of a sprawling department whose duties include forecasting the weather, managing ocean fisheries and handling trade cases. The job will give her an influential voice in how to handle steel and aluminum duties on global trading partners and restrictions on Chinese telecom and defense firms, as well a role in executing the White House's plans to fight climate change.

Senate vote: The Senate confirmed Raimondo in a 84-15 vote, overcoming opposition from Republicans who accused her of being soft on China.

The criticism stemmed from her confirmation hearing, when Raimondo initially declined to commit to keeping Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei on the Commerce Department’s Entity List, a blacklist that prohibits U.S. firms from doing business with hostile foreign companies.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) subsequently put a hold on her nomination, forcing the Senate to overrule him in a procedural vote Monday evening. In floor comments on Tuesday before her confirmation, he again bashed her nomination as “part of a pattern” of the Biden administration easing pressure on China.

"She wouldn't even commit to keeping Huawei on the list, which is unabashedly an espionage agency of the Chinese Communist Party," Cruz said.

But most senators dismissed those concerns, placated by Raimondo’s subsequent promise to keep Huawei and other firms on the list for now. Democrats touted her private sector experience and workforce training programs ahead of her confirmation vote.

Business-friendly Democrat: Raimondo will come to her post fresh off six years as Rhode Island’s first female governor, where she rolled back business regulations and overhauled the state’s pension plan. Before that, she served as the state’s treasurer and worked at a venture capital firm backed by Bain Capital. A graduate of Harvard and Yale Law, she previously clerked at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Trade disputes raging: Raimondo will have to arbitrate a number of international trade disputes initiated by her predecessor, Wilbur Ross.

Ross expanded the department’s role in trade, spearheading the administration’s effort to impose tariffs on global imports of steel and aluminum with a seldom-used national security provision in U.S. law.

For the first time, he also exercised the agency’s authority to set tariffs on nations it designates as currency manipulators. And he was responsible for adding Huawei, as well as several Chinese military and surveillance firms, to the Entity List.

Climate change: The Commerce Department, home to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, could also play a major role in the Biden administration's climate change plans. As governor of a coastal state, Raimondo signed an executive order to move Rhode Island toward a 100 percent renewable electricity future by 2030 and worked with a local company to complete the first offshore wind farm in the U.S.

Policy reviews coming: Raimondo has given little indication how she will handle former President Donald Trump’s tariffs or the numerous exclusions Commerce granted to U.S. steel and aluminum importers.

Raimondo promised a thorough review of those Trump policies in follow-up comments to senators last month, keeping with the Biden administration’s pledge to hold off lifting any duties despite pleas from major segments of U.S. industry harmed by the tariffs.

Those reviews will involve not just Commerce, but also the U.S. Trade Representative, Treasury secretary and White House national security and economic teams.