The president-elect’s pick for budget director, Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R., S.C.), has opposed raising the debt ceiling, but Mr. Trump has proposed steep tax cuts and large increases in defense and infrastructure spending that many economists believe will cause the deficit to grow.
Several of his cabinet selections backed a trade deal negotiated by President Barack Obama with Asian nations, which Mr. Trump opposed and has vowed to abandon.
..Thomas Barrack, a longtime Trump friend and chairman of the inaugural committee, said the president-elect manages with an “open door” policy, where aides debate the merits of proposals while Mr. Trump “curates” the information and makes a final decision.
..Monitoring one potentially rogue agency could be challenging for any new administration, and Mr. Trump may need to keep an eye on several of them to ensure they promote policies in line with his promises and not the preferences of his appointees.
.. “This is a great, unanswered question,” said David Axelrod, who was a top adviser to Mr. Obama. “It seems that Trump does not come to this with a well-developed philosophy so much as a well-conceived marketing strategy. Now there will be a behind-the-scenes battle to fill in the void that will mirror the battle between factions of the Republican Party.
.. Wilbur Ross, his selection for commerce secretary; Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who’s been tapped to become ambassador to China; and his selection for defense secretary, retired Gen. James Mattis, have all
spoken favorably of the Obama administration’s proposed trade deal with Asian countries,
.. His pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has called a federal policy that forces increased use of ethanol and other biofuels into the U.S. fuel supply
“unworkable” and backed a 2013 lawsuit challenging the measure.
.. But, before the first caucuses during his early Republican primary fights, Mr. Trump told Iowans supporting the ethanol mandate he was “with you 100%.”
..it isn’t out of the ordinary for presidents to appoint cabinet members with differing viewpoints.What is unusual about the incoming Trump administration, he said, is that his core White House leadership team doesn’t have the administrative background that’s useful in managing policy differences.
“The key here is not the fact that these are smart, successful people who view the world differently,” Mr. Naftali said. “That’s not new. It’s the fact that the center of the operation has absolutely no experience managing policy differences.”
An additional concern, he said, is that Mr. Trump may permit people to approach him through back channels that disrupt an “orderly policy process.”