U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross spoke in superlatives about stock market gains since President Donald Trump took office, and praised his boss’s unprecedented candor in trade discussions.

The value of U.S. equities has surged by trillions of dollars “since Donald Trump was inaugurated as president -- that’s pretty good reward for just a few months of a presidency,” Ross, speaking from the White House via Skype, told about 120 people gathered in New York for a luncheon sponsored by the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce.

Trump is “probably the most open president we’ve had in many generations,” Ross, 79, said in response to a question about the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership, a pact being negotiated by the U.S. and European Union.

Ross also criticized Congress for hampering the pace of appointments of government staff. Candidates undergo “more elaborate ethics vetting than had been true before,” he told the audience, which included Mikael Damberg, Sweden’s minister of enterprise and innovation, and Swedish Consul General Leif Pagrotsky.