America has a long tradition of appointing political outsiders to the administration. The “can do” attributes that business and the military bring to government have on the whole served America well.

Yet Trump is taking this penchant for non politicians to a whole new level. It is hard to think of any line-up that more perfectly matches Dwight Eisenhower’s depiction of government by the “military industrial complex” than this one. Generals, billionaires, business leaders and Wall Street financiers are utterly dominant.

One way or another, Goldman Sachs always has a placeman or two in the administration, but to have three alumni – Cohn, Mnuchin and Bannon – in key positions is unprecedented. Trump’s cabinet has begun to resemble a kind of cross between the Fortune 500 rich list, a financier’s reunion party and a military junta.

It could admittedly all turn out very badly. The scope for cronyism is obvious. What’s more, business people can find the transition to the intense public scrutiny of democratically-accountable government difficult and frustrating.

Most companies are benign dictatorships where even key decisions are automatically executed from the top down. Government by consent is by contrast necessarily more complex, compromised and slow-moving.

Yet if the likes of Tillerson can bring even half the determination shown in business to Trump’s new administration, then we are in for a very different and decisive form of politics. Exxon once came first. Now it will be America. No more half-hearted adventurism or senseless adherence to past loyalties and causes; just hard headed focus on the bottom line.

David Fuller's view

Donald Trump is going to be the most controversial US president in living memory.  It will be an interesting four years.  I hope he is re-elected because that would suggest a successful first term.  A cabinet drawn from largely outside the two Houses of Congress is refreshing.  That should be good for the US economy and if so, the global economy will also benefit.  

Here is a PDF of Jeremy Warner’s column.