Trump's Commerce Secretary Nominee Explains How U.S. Gets Screwed In Trade

President-elect Donald Trump tapped fellow billionaire investor Wilbur Ross to serve as commerce secretary.

According to a CNN Money report, Ross shares Trump's vision of cracking down on countries such as China that are taking advantage of U.S. policies in trade. Specifically, he called out China and other countries for "malicious" trading when speaking to the U.S. Senate on Wednesday.

Ross explained that some of the tactics includes as excessive tariffs and dumping excess aluminum and steel. Other examples include unprofitable Chinese companies that are being backed by the state.

"They're being kept alive. That looks and feels -- and tastes a lot like artificial subsidies," he said.

Another example Ross cited was the mad cow hysteria. According to government statistics, there have been just four confirmed cases of mad cow disease in the U.S. from 1993 through 2015. Nevertheless, concerns over American beef are vastly exaggerated by other countries who have been curtailed imports of U.S. meat.

Ross also highlighted a common tactic in which American products suffer "inordinate delays" at foreign ports caused by "undue inspections." This amounts to an activity which can be characterized as "harassing the export process."

Ross' message was quite clear: American companies can compete in the global stage "very, very effectively" but only if it is a "fair fight" - which in a lot of cases it most certainly is not.