The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Gina Raimondo, the present governor of Rhode Island and former enterprise capitalist, as the subsequent secretary o
The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Gina Raimondo, the present governor of Rhode Island and former enterprise capitalist, as the subsequent secretary of commerce.
A reasonable Democrat with a background within the monetary business, Ms. Raimondo is anticipated to leverage her personal and public sector expertise to supervise a sprawling forms that’s charged with each selling and regulating American enterprise.
Her nomination was authorized by a vote of 84 to 15. (An earlier model of this text misstated the vote as 85 to 15.)
Underneath Ms. Raimondo, the commerce division is prone to play an important function in a number of of Mr. Biden’s coverage efforts, together with spurring the American financial system, constructing out rural broadband and different infrastructure, and main America’s know-how competitors with China. The division additionally carries out the census, oversees American fisheries, climate monitoring, telecommunications requirements and financial knowledge gathering, amongst different actions.
Maria Cantwell, a Democratic senator from Washington, mentioned she thought Ms. Raimondo’s personal sector expertise would assist her in facilitating new investments and creating jobs, and that she was “relying on Governor Raimondo to assist us with our export financial system.”
Ms. Cantwell additionally mentioned she believed Ms. Raimondo can be a departure from President Donald J. Trump’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross. “I believe he and the President spent much more time shaking their fists on the world group than participating them on insurance policies that had been actually going to assist markets and assist us transfer ahead with getting our merchandise within the door.”
A graduate of Yale College and Oxford College, Ms. Raimondo was a founding worker at Village Ventures, an funding agency backed by Bain Capital. She additionally co-founded her personal enterprise capital agency, Level Judith Capital, earlier than being elected treasurer after which governor of Rhode Island.
The primary feminine governor of the state, she was recognized for introducing a centrist agenda that included coaching applications, fewer laws and diminished taxes for companies. She additionally led a restructuring of the state’s pension applications, clashing with unions within the course of.
Ms. Raimondo drew criticism from some Republicans in her nomination listening to in January, when she declined to decide to maintaining sure restrictions in place on the exports that may very well be despatched to Chinese language telecom agency Huawei.
Underneath Mr. Trump, the Commerce Division performed an outsized function in commerce coverage, levying tariffs on imported aluminum and metal for nationwide safety causes, investigating extra tariffs on automobiles, and putting a wide range of curbs on know-how exports to China.
Ms. Raimondo and different Biden administration officers haven’t clarified whether or not they are going to hold or scrap these restrictions, saying they are going to first perform a complete assessment of their impression.