Lutnick's bold bet: Trade deals are coming, higher prices aren't
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Axios' Mike Allen interviews Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick at an event in D.C. last night. Photo: Xavier Rodriguez & Carlos Martinez for Axios
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says he's convinced of two things: The U.S. will make a long list of trade deals by mid-summer, and the tariffs forcing those deals won't raise retail prices.
Why it matters: Investors, business leaders and consumers are praying he's right.
Driving the news: Lutnick, a billionaire Wall Street CEO before entering government, was nothing but optimistic in an interview with Axios' Mike Allen at the Building the Future event in Washington.
- Asked how many of the U.S.'s 18 key trading partners would have a deal by the time a tariff pause ends July 8, he said, "I think most countries, we'll have an idea of what we want to do with them."
The big picture: Lutnick is at the forefront of the Trump administration's sweeping efforts to rewrite the rules of global trade, a campaign that has disrupted the U.S. and international economies and created deep uncertainty for businesses and consumers.
- The president's argument: The U.S. has been treated unfairly by the world for decades, at the cost of valuable American jobs — a situation that can only be fixed by a more aggressive approach.
Between the lines: Over the last few days, the single most important question about the tariffs has been what they'll do to the American consumer.
- Lutnick recently decried "silly arguments" that tariffs raise prices. A few days later, Walmart said they'd do exactly that, and a number of other companies have hinted at the same since.
- The commerce secretary didn't flinch, though. "The president has to stand strong, and you can't fix things in a day, and that's still going, but I would expect that prices in America will be unaffected."
Reality check: Notwithstanding Lutnick's certainty, retail executives expect cost pressures to build week by week, with price increases getting much more noticeable by late June or early July.
The intrigue: While U.S. trade relations work through their biggest disruption in nearly a century, Lutnick and Trump are pushing a different incentive for foreign business leaders: a $5 million "gold card" that would confer permanent U.S. residency.
- The website, trumpcard.gov, will launch within a week
- "Everyone I meet who's not an American is going to want to buy the card if they have the fiscal capacity," he said.
- "This is for people who can help America pay off its debt. Why wouldn't you want a Plan B that says, God forbid something bad happens, you come to the airport in America and the person in immigration says, 'Welcome home.'"
