President Trump appoints a new economic adviser

GARY COHN resigned from office on March 6th after President Donald Trump unveiled tariffs on aluminium and steel imports. On March 14th his replacement as the president’s top economic adviser was confirmed. Larry Kudlow, a 70-year-old television pundit, will soon assume the role, which does not require confirmation in the Senate.

Mr Kudlow, like Mr Cohn, advocates free trade. He has not hidden his opposition to Mr Trump’s tariffs. On March 3rd he wrote an online column deriding them as tax rises in disguise that would, supposedly, put 5m jobs in harm’s way. On his appointment, Mr Kudlow told the Associated Press that he is “in accord” with the president’s policy, though still opposes the tariffs. For his part, Mr Trump says he has talked Mr Kudlow around to supporting tariffs as a “negotiating point”.

Mr Kudlow, a history graduate, does not have a formal economics qualification. He studied for a master’s degree in politics and economics at Princeton University, but dropped out. This did not stop him building a career in the field, first at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and later at Bear Stearns, an investment bank, where he became chief economist. A stint in the Reagan administration followed. Mr Kudlow returned to Bear Stearns in the late-1980s, before mostly swapping Wall Street for punditry.

Trading on his experience in the Reagan White House, Mr Kudlow has built a reputation as a cheerful advocate of tax cuts and deregulation, whatever the economic weather. He has never been a deficit hawk. In 2016 he co-authored a book on the “secret history of American prosperity”. It claimed that both John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan had unlocked sustained economic growth by cutting taxes.

Mr Kudlow’s singular perspective on economic policy has not always served him well. In 1993 he predicted that tax rises under President Clinton would squelch economic growth. When the late-1990s boom ensued, he credited it to the Reagan tax cuts. In mid-2005, giddy from George W. Bush’s tax cuts, he derided as “bubbleheads” those who foresaw problems in the housing market. In December 2007, now known to be the first month of the Great Recession, Mr Kudlow declared “there’s no recession coming. The pessimistas were wrong.” In 2009, he wrongly fretted about inflation and suggested that the Obama administration might have been exerting too much influence on the Federal Reserve.

Fluent and charming, Mr Kudlow appeared on television for more than an hour after his appointment to tell the story of how it came about. “Just let it rip, for heaven’s sake,” he said of economic policy, adding that he hopes the Fed does not “overdo” interest-rate rises. A willingness to comment on the central bank, if sustained in office, would contrast with Mr Cohn’s reticence on the subject, and that of Steve Mnuchin, the treasury secretary.

Mr Kudlow is, in some ways, the quintessential representative of the business wing of the Republican Party. Yet his presence in the White House will not provide the same degree of reassurance to investors as that of Mr Cohn, who wielded far superior experience and never backtracked on his opposition to tariffs. But just like Mr Cohn, he will be a reliable cheerleader for tax cuts. Both Mr Trump and congressional Republicans have begun hinting that a second tax bill is in the works. There’s a thought to worry fiscal hawks.

Correction (March 16th): An earlier version of this article omitted that Mr Kudlow worked as chief economist for Bear Stearns before joining the Reagan administration (as well as after leaving it). Sorry.