DAVOS, Switzerland -- The incoming U.S. administration wants to reduce the trade deficit by boosting American exports, not by restricting trade, Anthony Scaramucci, an adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, told The Nikkei in an interview here.

The American hedge fund manager has been named a key White House aide to Trump, who takes office Friday. He was in Davos as an emissary of the president-elect at the World Economic Forum.

The new administration is not looking to "slow down trade." Rather, it wants "trading partners to buy more of our goods and services," Scaramucci said.

Anthony Scaramucci

For his administration, Trump picked a "creative group of people who recognize we want free trade and we want it to be fair," he said when asked about the widely held fear that Trump's America will turn to protectionism. "You probably get fairness and symmetry more easily in bilateral deals than you can in multilateral deals," the founder of U.S. investment firm SkyBridge Capital said. He said this week that he has sold the business.

The Trump administration will "lift demand for goods and services" through sizable tax cuts and various economic measures, Scaramucci said. He predicted that the U.S. will become a "strong, robust engine of growth." "It will be better for the world. So, let's focus on that," he continued.

To those who fear a U.S.-China trade war, Scaramucci had this to say. "Trump wants fair trade, but [the current situation] is imbalanced." "China is not stupid. They will cut deal," he predicted, adding that Beijing sees mutual benefits in building strong and prosperous relations with the U.S.