Trump picks China hawk to be top State Department economic policy official

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Jacob Helberg to be the State Department’s top economic policy and trade official, selecting a China hawk for an integral role in U.S. efforts to secure supply chains.

In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, Trump said Helberg, one of the leaders in the push to ban Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok, will be “a champion of our America First Foreign Policy” as undersecretary of State for economic growth, energy and the environment. He added that Helberg “has the knowledge, expertise, and pragmatism to defend America’s Economic interests abroad.”

The undersecretary of State for economic growth is often referred to as the senior U.S. economic diplomat and advises the secretary of State on international economic policy. They also oversee bureaus that manage policy around tech, energy resources, global food security and the environment.

Helberg will face a Senate confirmation process for the role, and his current work for defense contractor Palantir — he is a senior adviser to the company’s chief executive officer — may attract scrutiny from lawmakers concerned about potential conflicts of interest. But it is not expected that he will face sharp resistance from Senate Republicans, as he is not seen as a particularly polarizing figure in policy circles.

Helberg, a tech executive who serves as a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, has been an advocate for a more muscular policy toward Beijing. In 2023, he founded the Hill and Valley Forum, which brings together venture capitalists and lawmakers concerned about the rise of China and its impact on the U.S. tech sector.

That group was critical in his efforts to rally support for a 2024 law that will ban TikTok in the United States unless its Chinese parent company — ByteDance — sells the platform by January 2025.

Helberg was a major donor to Trump’s 2024 campaign. But he was previously donated to then-South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign.