WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday named billionaire Carl Icahn, a vocal critic of what he calls government overregulation, to serve as a special advisor to overhaul “strangling regulations.”

He also tapped Peter Navarro, an outspoken China critic, to head the White House National Trade Council, a new office that will oversee trade and industrial policy, in the latest sign he is moving ahead with plans to overhaul US economic policy. He said President Barack Obama had crippled America's business owners with what he says is more than $1 trillion in new regulations and over 750 billion hours dealing with paperwork. “It’s time to break free of excessive regulation and let our entrepreneurs do what they do best: create jobs and support communities,” he said. Icahn was one of Trump’s earliest supporters, and his intimate knowledge of what businesses need to grow and thrive makes him a trusted voice in developing President-elect’s ‘America First’ economic agenda, the media statement said. “He is not only a brilliant negotiator, but also someone who is innately able to predict the future especially having to do with finances and economies,” the real estate billionaire added. “His help on the strangling regulations that our country is faced with will be invaluable.”

Trump’s appointment of Narvarro signals he is also moving to reshape relations with China after having heightened rising tensions between the world’s two largest economies with a series of snubs and criticisms. A professor at the University of California, Irvine, Navarro’s books include “Death by China,” in which he criticizes Beijing for waging economic war by subsidizing its manufacturing industry and blocking American imports. He described Navarro as “a visionary economist” in a statement, saying the brash investor would “develop trade policies that shrink our trade deficit, expand our growth and help stop the exodus of jobs from our shores.”

Like many of Trump’s picks for his future administration, both Navarro and Icahn are staunch loyalists of the divisive president-elect who have no experience in government. In her new post, Ms Conway will play a key advisory role in the White House when Mr Trump takes office, helping to manage the New York businessman's messaging and legislative priorities, according to the statement. He began his career on Wall Street in 1961, and has held substantial or controlling positions in numerous American companies over the years, including RJR Nabisco, Texaco, Philips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, Viacom, Revlon, Time Warner, Motorola, Chesapeake Energy, Dell, Netflix, Apple, and eBay. Icahn also owned the last glitzy Trump casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Trump Taj Mahal, until it finally failed a closed last month, after going through two bankruptcy reorganisations since it opened in 1990.
President-elect Donald Trump names Carl Icahn as the Special Advisor to the President on Regulatory Reform.