https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5189964-lutnick-trump-tariffs-recession/Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday that President Trump’s tariff policies will be worth it, even if the economy ends up in a recession.In an interview that aired Tuesday, CBS News’s Nancy Cordes asked Lutnick whether the tariffs will “be worth it if they lead to a recession, even a short-term recession.”Lutnick responded: “These policies are the most important thing America has ever had.”“So it is worth it?” Cordes pressed.“It is worth it,” he said.Lutnick quickly added: “The only reason there could possibly be a recession is because of the Biden nonsense that we had to live with.”Lutnick has been a fierce defender of Trump’s approach to tariffs and said over the weekend that Americans should “absolutely not” be concerned about a possible recession.In the latest interview, Lutnick doubled down on his support for the president’s tariff policies and insisted they are not chaotic.“These policies produce revenues,” Lutnick said.“So you’re saying when it looks chaotic and unpredictable from the outside that there actually is a master plan when it comes to these tariffs?” Cordes asked.“It is not chaotic,” Lutnick said. “And the only one who thinks it’s chaotic is someone who’s being silly.”
On Tuesday, Trump threatened to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum imports in response to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s plan to issue a retaliatory surcharge on electricity to a trio of states. Ford backed off, and Trump reversed course hours later, promising talks in Washington on Thursday about a renewal of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) before reciprocal tariffs go into effect early next month. Lutnick defended Trump’s approach in the interview.“He needed to break some guy in Ontario who said he was going to tax American energy 25 percent. The President of the United States, in the White House, says, ‘Oh no, you won’t,’ and breaks him. And you think that’s chaotic?” Lutnick said.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/11/trump-allies-lutnick-tariff-turmoil-00225137President Donald Trump is struggling to message a scattered economic agenda, but his Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, is taking the blame.White House and administration officials, as well as Trump’s outside allies, are growing increasingly frustrated with Lutnick, privately complaining about the close proximity he has to the president and the counsel he is giving him on economic issues. It’s an exasperation compounded by recent television appearances, they say, that suggest a lack of understanding of even the basics about how tariffs and the economy work. He has also at multiple points over the last week gotten out in front of the president on announcements and contradicted his messaging.Those factors, coupled with an abrasive personality, have left Lutnick with few friends in the administration — and a growing consensus within it that he could be forced to take the fall for the economic turmoil generated by the president’s unsteady tariff policies, according to five people close to the administration. The Dow slid nearly 500 points Tuesday after Trump announced and then walked back new tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, amid ongoing economic uncertainty — after closing 890 points down Monday.Lutnick, one of the people close to the administration said, is “constantly auditioning for Trump’s approval.”“He’s trying to be a mini-Trump. I don’t think he got the memo that only Trump gets to be Trump,” the person said. “It just reinforces that he doesn’t really know how to do the job.”
In total, POLITICO interviewed 11 Trump allies, administration officials, Republican lawmakers and others, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the perception of Lutnick inside the administration, for this article.White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement that Lutnick’s “long and immensely successful private sector career makes him an integral addition to the Trump administration’s trade and economic team.” He added that Lutnick is aligned with the rest of the administration on “delivering economic prosperity for the American people,” pointing to the February jobs report that showed the addition of 151,000 jobs and nearly $2 trillion in investments secured from businesses since Trump took office.“Every member of the Trump administration is playing from the same playbook — President Trump’s playbook — to enact an America First agenda of tariffs, tax cuts, deregulation, and the unleashing of American energy,” Desai said.Lutnick did not respond to a request for comment.Lutnick, the former CEO of the well-regarded financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, hails from Wall Street, which is traditionally skeptical of tariffs, but shares the views of many in the pro-tariff community. But he has struggled to earn the trust of either camp, four people close to the administration said. Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer are seen by the pro-tariff community as more ideologically pure than Lutnick, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is viewed by Wall Street as more credible on the economy, despite the fact that Lutnick once managed Cantor’s more than 10,000 employees.
Still, because of his proximity to the president, Lutnick has become the go-to person for Hill Republicans and foreign officials seeking to sway the president’s tariff policy. He played a key role Tuesday, for instance, in negotiating a deal with Ontario Premier Doug Ford that led to the province suspending a threatened 25 percent tariff on energy exports, and Trump to back off plans for a 50 percent tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum.Lutnick has also had regular conversations with Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc, mostly over text, and the Canadian government views Lutnick as “really having the levers when it comes to the imposition of tariffs,” according to a senior Canadian government official.Lutnick first connected with LeBlanc at the Mar-a-Lago dinner attended by outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in November, the person said, adding that Canadian officials feel like they have “a solid and reliable interlocutor” in Lutnick because he and the president are so close.And the president himself appears to continue to be pleased with Lutnick’s performance. Lutnick joined Trump on Air Force One on Friday as he headed to West Palm Beach for the weekend and has remained a constant presence in the Oval Office.Still, Trump allies fear Lutnick is telling the president what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear, on tariffs and their overall economic impact.And even as he has become Trump’s “yes man” on tariffs, Lutnick has found himself repeatedly out of step — and even out in front of — the president on his economic messaging, taking to the airwaves to share messages that have not been approved by the White House.
It undermined the message that the president and the administration have spent much of the last week arguing — that tariffs will produce positive effects in the long-term for the country, even if they cause some short-term price increases and economic pain. Trump, during his joint address to Congress, acknowledged his tariffs were likely to cause some “disturbance,” a point White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt underscored during her Tuesday briefing, calling the current moment “a period of transition.”“The president and Bessent are being more direct and honest because they believe the people are on their side. You don’t have to lie to people because you know what you’re doing is for their betterment,” the first person close to the administration said. “Lutnick is out there saying, ‘No, it’s all gonna be amazing.’”Bessent, in a statement to POLITICO after this story published, called the reporting “fake news.”“Howard, the entire economic team and I are working together to implement the President’s agenda to rebuild the economy for the American people,” Bessent said.Bessent has vigorously defended the administration’s trade policies while also echoing Trump’s warnings that the U.S. could experience some economic turbulence. He last week said tariffs would be a “one-time price adjustment” and acknowledged that the economy could be “starting to roll a bit” amid the administration’s cutbacks to federal spending.An official with the United States Trade Representative’s Office echoed Bessent’s comments, saying in a post-publication statement that “every principal in the administration is working together nonstop to implement President Trump’s America First Trade Policy” and that the team is “unified.”
Lutnick last week jumped the gun and said tariffs could be paused on Mexico and Canada for a month before Trump had made the announcement, spilling the beans in a TV interview on CNBC while the president was still wrapping up negotiations with Mexico and trying to eke greater concessions out of Canada, two people close to the president said. The result was greater confusion to a timeline the White House has been struggling to keep straight.Lutnick earned significant goodwill with the president for being one of his top 2020 and 2024 fundraisers, helping him secure the position of co-chair of Trump’s transition. Yet Trump allies have long speculated that Lutnick would be among the first — if not the first — to leave the administration, owing to his polarizing personality and his penchant for overstepping. During the transition, he overstayed his welcome in Trump’s orbit, frustrating others in the inner circle by controlling the flow of information to the president. The move was likely a factor in why Lutnick was passed over for the Cabinet position he really wanted — Treasury secretary.Asked whom Lutnick had angered so far in the administration, the second person close to the president said “everyone.” The person added that Trump is still listening to Lutnick for now, but it’s starting to trend toward what happened in the transition before he was sidelined.“It’s getting to the point it did during the transition where it was like, ‘Why does this guy feel like my de facto roommate?’ Every time I turn around he’s there,” the person said.
On the Hill, Lutnick has become members’ go-to contact person on tariffs because he’s been particularly accessible and has the ear of Trump, rather than Navarro, who they don’t know well, and Greer, whom they only know from his confirmation process, a Trump ally in Congress said. Congressional Republicans — even those who disagree with the president’s trade policy — want stability. And many of them are signaling their willingness to wait it out, seeing tariffs as one part of a broader plan that includes tax incentives to reshore businesses, greater energy production and tax cuts.“I’m not a fan of tariffs. It needs to be a tool in the toolbox, I understand that,” said Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), who chairs the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade. “But what was successful about the previous term was that parallel engagement that I think brought people to the table and ultimately things got done.”Some lawmakers are hoping that Greer will take a more prominent role in crafting the administration’s tariff policies, now that he has been confirmed as trade representative. But while Greer has the policy chops — he served as chief of staff to former Trump Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer during the first administration — it’s unclear whether he has the relationship or personality to steer Trump in Oval Office conversations, two of the people close to the administration said.
In the meantime, Republicans from farm states are going around Lutnick and Greer and appealing directly to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.Some on Wall Street say there’s been outreach from the administration to get a sense of whether the coming tariffs and further trade uncertainty are the driving force behind turmoil in markets, although it’s unclear whether the response — yes, of course — is affecting the policy thinking at all. Complicating matters is the sense that Lutnick lacks the relationships on Wall Street needed to understand the seriousness with which the market is reacting to the tariff announcements.“Howard Lutnick has no respect from the CEO community. He was a broker’s broker. He was an institutional broker that not any CEO knew his name,” a third person close to the administration said. “They’re really missing connectivity to the business world.”
>>1391043They'll be worth it for Trump and co. They'll either abscond to Russia or die with billions as the rest of us suffer.
>>1391043>Trump imposes steel tariffs on UKThere was a man at that which embodies America: The Alamo. Never forget that. But a senile orange thing has.Those who don't forget remember that man's name: Jim Bowie. Something he carried is synonymous with his name: the Bowie Knife.That made of steel as hard as Jim was made in Sheffield. UKThe Alamo was ultimately worth it. You'll never be, Trump.
>>1391043>Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
>>1391043*sigh* I have a crazy idea... how about everyone stop tariffing everyone? Can we just stop and just trade like normal people?
>>1391189>>>/x/
>>1391167Because that's globalism and it makes poorly educated like >>1391189 mad.
>>1391126Counterpoint: The Alamo was a waste of manpower and resources for nothing.
>>1391043If I have to pay double at the grocery story to get inflation under control, so be it.
>>1391189I'm Jewish for being tired of everyone trying to out-tariff each other? Oy vey my credit rating just went up.
>>1391237Who told you paying double for groceries is going to bring inflation under control? Why did you believe them?
>>1391244Trump loves jews though
>>1391237>I'll gladly play an inflated price for goods to stop the price of goods from being inflated!
>>1391132They want the poor brown people to die. They aren't even trying to hide it.
>>1391268I wouldn't mind some poor brown people dying tbqh. They're horrendously annoying, lazy and entitled.
>>1391273That's funny, they say the same thing about you.
>>1391268>only brown people are poor :)
>>1391548Yes.
The difference between Republicans and Democrats in the US Senate is that the Dems have to pretend to be against what Trump is doing ... but not enough to stop them from happening.You watch, the CR will pass with 60 votes on Friday and the Dems who vote for it will have some line about "not wanting to cut vital services and benefits for the American People". Pure bullshit. Every millionaire on the planet is on board with Trump.
>>1391613Honestly some part of me wants the dems to greenlight every single republican economic package to give the voters exactly what they voted for. Give them enough rope to hang themselves with.
>>1391615if only it worked that way. Bannon said it best: he wants a civil war, because virtually everyone with a badge, uniform, and gun is on the side of MAGA.For about 30% of Americans, it will never get bad enough to change their minds about Trump. Combine that mass delusion with armies and LE at all levels and there won't be any more valid elections.
>>1391623>Bannon said it best: he wants a civil war, because virtually everyone with a badge, uniform, and gun is on the side of MAGA.They really believe that? Especially now that they're removing the vet benefits from those same people when they're not directly firing them?
>>1391647Bernie Sanders is the face of "gov't failure to take care of veterans", vets are not voting Democrat. They're either voting GOP or not voting at all.
>>1391613I doubt any Dems will vote for it. Maybe John Fetterman will because he has brain damage, but it definitely won't hit 60. This is the one tiny bit of power democrats have in this congress and I doubt they'll want to squander it, especially for such a shit deal. Besides republicans should be passing this through budget reconciliation. Republicans want a free pass on the filibuster and dems shouldn't give it to them.
>>1391613>Every millionaire on the planet is on board with Trump.Nah, millionaires don't like it. While they like the taxcuts and cuts to governments, they don't like all the economic turmoil. Now if you said billionaires, they definitely do like everything that's happening.
>>1391656Source for any of this bullshit?
>>1391548yeah.
