The most striking process announcement this week was the creation of the National Trade Council, which is also supposed to deal with industrial policy. This new entity will presumably sit alongside the existing National Economic Council, as well as the Domestic Policy Council and the National Security Council. Three significant problems with this structure leap to mind:

Redundancy. Navarro will be a White House official tasked with overseeing trade policy and coordinating between relevant agencies. That's almost exactly the job description of the current USTR (an agency that is in the broader White House). Issues of industrial policy are also issues of economic policy, so would presumably be in the domain of the National Economic Council, to be headed by Goldman Sachs veteran Gary Cohn. Competing policy processes sound like a prescription for confusion and turf battles.

Congress. Trump is not the first to arrive in Washington with plans to reorganize the trade policy process. His predecessor tried to do the same. As noted above, though, Congress ultimately controls trade policy and an important key to success is keeping Congress happy. Trump's announced plans seem likely to set off alarms on Capitol Hill. Trade is overseen by the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Finance Committee. They are used to having a cabinet-level principal reporting to them (the USTR). In addition to the empowerment of Navarro, who as a White House official would not have the same relationship with Congress, Trump has indicated that the Commerce Department, under Secretary-designate Wilbur Ross, would lead on trade. Commerce is primarily overseen by Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and by House Energy and Commerce. If this sounds trivial, you've never seen a Capitol Hill turf battle.

Other countries. Trump talks of striking better deals with U.S. trading partners. The question is who will strike those deals. With an empowered USTR, this is not really a question. That person, an ambassador, both leads policy creation and flies around to conclude deals. What happens when the roles of trade policy architect and trade negotiator are separated? We don't have to speculate; that was essentially the case in President Barack Obama's first term, when Ron Kirk was USTR, flying around to national capitols, and Michael Froman was deputy national security advisor. Froman, sitting in the West Wing, was the true overseer of trade policy creation. Other countries quickly figured out that they were not talking to the right guy. Most of the Obama administration's advances in trade policy had to wait for the second term, when Froman took over as USTR and the two roles were reunited.