All aspects of the North American Free Trade Agreement “will be put on the table” once Donald Trump’s administration takes over, the president-elect’s nominee to be commerce secretary said on Wednesday during his Senate confirmation hearing.

Nafta, the controversial trade agreement, will be a “very, very early topic in this administration”, Wilbur Ross said. The agreement dominated Wednesday’s hearing, with Chinese-American relations and Donald Trump’s potential to benefit from the presidency among other topics of interest.

Ross said he was generally unimpressed with previous administrations’ international trade deals and, if confirmed, he would attempt to craft a template trade deal from which the US would always negotiate as a matter of policy. Regularly reworking the deals should be a matter of course, he said: “There should be systematic reopeners of trade agreements after a few-year period.”

Ross also criticized multilateral trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in general terms, saying that while he was not opposed to them on principle, he felt that two-party agreements were always preferable.

“The more complex the environment in which you’re negotiating, the less likely you are to get to a sensible result,” Ross said.

Asked by Jim Inhofe, a South Dakota Republican, whether the US could immediately begin bilateral talks with Taiwan, Ross replied that such talks would represent “a very complex negotiation because of the ‘One China’ and ‘Two China’ policies”.

The hearing was briefly interrupted by a group of protesters who appeared to agree with Ross: they began chanting in protest against the TPP.

“That was not part of my prepared remarks,” Ross said, laughing.

The hearing was largely cordial, though things became heated when senators questioned Ross over his employment of an undocumented worker. Ross told the senators that he had asked his household staff to prove they were allowed to work in the US and only one person had been unable to do so. Ross said he therefore dismissed that employee.

This is not without precedent – previous nominees to cabinet positions have been withdrawn from consideration when it was discovered that they had employed undocumented workers.

Ross’s nomination looks all but certain to meet with Senate approval; indeed, Trump’s nominees have already moved toward confirmation. On Wednesday, Gen James Mattis was approved by a Senate panel to become secretary of defense. The decision now moves to the full Senate.