The US Senate on Monday evening overwhelmingly confirmed billionaire banker and investor Wilbur Ross as President Donald Trump's secretary of commerce.

In a 72-27 vote, Ross had a much easier time obtaining confirmation than many of his Cabinet colleagues over the course of recent weeks as Democrats have drawn out confirmation hearings, posed extensive questions about candidates' conflicts of interest and policy stances and used what power they do have in the Republican-controlled Senate to place obstacles in the way.

In his new post, Ross - who founded an investment fund, has interests in the steel and mining sector and is very critical of US international trade pacts - will have to steer the aggressive foreign trade agenda that Trump has sketched.

Ross, 79, will surely play a key role in Trump's plan, for instance, to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, which the president has called extremely "unfair" to the US.

During his confirmation hearings, Ross promiseD to divest himself of most of his huge portfolio of assets and resign from positions on the boards of many companies and foundations, although - in an agreement with the US Office of Government Ethics - he said he would keep interests in about a dozen real estate and shipping firms but would not make new investments after confirmation.

A group of Democratic senators have been waiting for two weeks for Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor who has served as vice-chairman of the Bank of Cyprus since 2014, to answer a series of questions about possible links between the bank, Russian officials, and current and former Trump administration and campaign officials, reported The Guardian. 

Ross, a private equity investor who has said he would step down from the bank after his final confirmation, had also been asked to provide more details about his own relationship with previous and current Russian investors in the bank, including Viktor Vekselberg, a longtime ally of the Russian president.