President-elect Donald Trump likely will return to cornerstones of his previous economic platform such as tariffs, lower taxes and sanctions when he assumes office in January, his former Treasury secretary said Thursday.
Steven Mnuchin, who held the post throughout Trump’s first term from 2017-21, told CNBC that he sees those items as critical to the Republican’s agenda.
Tax cuts are “a signature part of his program,” Mnuchin said in a “Squawk Box” interview. “I think that should be easy to pass in Congress, particularly if the Republicans control the House as well, which it looks like it will be.”
Also on the agenda would be tariffs, which Trump implemented on multiple items during his first term and promised to do again.
“I think that tariffs do need to be used to get counterparties back to the table, especially China, which is not living up to all of the agreements they made,” Mnuchin said.
Finally, he indicated that nations such as Iran and Russia can expect to see sanctions again. The Trump administration levied measures against petroleum producers in Iran in 2019 because they were owned by the Revolutionary Guard.
“The sanctions on Iran and Russia were very impactful. In the case of Iran, they’re now selling millions of barrels of oil, which needs to be stopped,” Mnuchin said.
Outside of those issues, Mnuchin, who said he likely would not take an official role in the Trump administration but would “be happy to serve from the outside,” expects Trump to take on other issues such as steep deficit spending.
“I think he’s in a position now, particularly with this overwhelming result, to take on difficult issues, and I think that’s got to be part of government spending,” he said.
Mnuchin is the founder of Liberty Strategic Capital.
Austan Goolsbee, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, speaks to the Economic Club of New York in New York City, U.S., April 10, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Business owners and CEOs are already stocking up on inventory, and some American shoppers are panic buying big-ticket items in anticipation of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. The sudden buying binge could cause an “artificially high” level of economic activity, said Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee.
“That kind of preemptive purchasing is probably even more pronounced on the business side,” Goolsbee told CBS’ “Face The Nation” on Sunday, adding: “We heard a lot about preemptive building-up of inventories that could last 60 days, 90 days, if there [was] going to be more uncertainty.”
Businesses stockpiling inventory and consumers accelerating their purchasing decisions — buying an Apple iPhone now, say, rather than waiting until the fall — may inflate U.S. economic activity in April and lead to a slowdown in the coming months, Goolsbee suggested.
“Activity might look artificially high in the initial, and then by the summer, might fall off — because people have bought it all,” he said.
Sectors affected by Trump’s tariffs, particularly the auto industry, are most likely to heavily stock up on inventory now before import levies on goods from other countries potentially rise further, said Goolsbee. Many car parts, electronic components and other big-ticket consumer items are manufactured in China, for example, which currently faces a 145% total tariff rate on goods imported to the United States.
“We don’t know, 90 days from now, when they’ve revisited the tariffs, we don’t know how big they’re going to be,” Goolsbee said.
Some U.S. business owners who buy goods manufactured in China say they already can’t afford to place rush orders on inventory. Matt Rollens, owner and CEO of Granite Bay, California-based novelty drinkware company Dragon Glassware, says he’s temporarily holding his products in China because paying the 145% levy would force him to raise consumer prices by at least 50%, likely drying up customer demand.
Rollens has enough inventory in the U.S. to last roughly until June, and hopes the tariffs will be rolled back by then, he told CNBC Make It on April 11.
Short-term uncertainty and financial pain aside, the Fed’s Goolsbee expressed optimism about the country’s longer-term economic outlook.
“If we can get through this, it’s important to remember: The hard data coming into April was pretty good. The unemployment rate [was] around steady full employment, inflation [was] coming down,” he said. “It’s just a desire of people expressing they don’t want to back to ’21 and ’22, at a time when inflation was really raging out of control.”
IN HIS LOVE of lucre Donald Trump can be crass. In their pursuit of efficiency, free marketeers can be, too. Consider the sale of citizenship. Most people dislike the idea of treating national belonging as a commodity. Yet about a dozen countries hawk passports and more than 60, including America, offer residency in exchange for an investment or donation. Its “golden-visa” scheme is cumbersome, under-priced and inefficient. On this point the president and the market agree.