Trump’s Commerce Pick: Tariffs Will Make US Money, Protect US Workers

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Donald Trump’s pick for Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, explained to CNBC how Trump’s tariffs will not only make the U.S. money, but also protect the American worker and boost American manufacturing.

As Howard Lutnick explained back in September, before Trump even won and Lutnick was nominated for an administration role, tariffs are “a bargaining chip” and an “amazing tool.” He described how the post-World War II-era Marshall Plan and similar projects long outlasted their usefulness and ended up creating a system rigged against American manufacturing, and in favor of our competitors in Europe and Asia.

Lutnick told the skeptical CNBC hosts on “Squawk Box” at the time that “We can’t sell a Ford or G[eneral]M[otors] in Europe. You go to Europe, you can’t sell [or] afford a GM. Why? There’s 100% tariffs. How about in Japan, 100% tariffs.” If Trump threatened 100% tariffs on European and Japanese autos, “Do you think they’re going to allow Mercedes and all these Japanese companies and Porsches and BMWs to all of a sudden, have 100% tax in America? Of course not, they’re going to come and negotiate and their tariffs are going to come down. And finally, Ford and General Motors are going to be able to sell in these places.”

One CNBC talking head began repeating over and over that Trump needed to impose tariffs “strategically” rather than “across the board.” Lutnick countered, “When you’re running for office, you make broad statements so people understand you, okay. Tariffs are an amazing tool by the President to use.” Trump does, however, understand “don’t tariff stuff we don’t make, right? … It’s pointless. But use tariffs to build in America. If we want to make it in America, tariff it, or [impose it] if we’re competing with a tariff.” He emphasized the key point: “But you got to remember, we need to protect the American worker. Finally, someone is going to protect the American worker, and Donald Trump is here to” do that.

When another CNBC talking head cut in to challenge Lutnick on multiple potential outcomes of imposing tariffs, Lutnick launched into an explanation that even the CNBC host admitted was the best explanation she’d heard on the topic. “So which is it, do we make a lot of money on tariffs, or we bring productivity here and we drive up our workers here?” Lutnick asked. Either way, “it’s a win-win scenario.” Now Trump and Lutnick will be able to make that scenario a reality.

He predicted, “I think what’s going to happen is we’ll make a bunch of money on the tariffs, but mostly is everybody else is going to negotiate with us, and we will be more fair. In 1948, right, we came up with something called the Marshall Plan, right? The world, Germany and Japan were destroyed after World War II, and we wanted to export our economy to them. So we made a rule, they could tariff us and we won’t tariff them. So they can rebuild.”

At the time, Americans generously decided, “Our economy is so awesome that we’ll use it to help you rebuild. When should that have ended? What do you think, 1980 right? 1985? I mean, why [for] years are Japan and Germany and all of Europe still tariffing the heck out of our auto industry, tariffing the heck out of our furniture industry.” He challenged the hosts, “Do you realize all your furniture buying. that’s made foreign. It seems crazy. Why? it’s because they tariff us, and we don’t tariff them. It’s so obvious.” Now the obvious, common sense economic policy can again be implemented, by Trump, Lutnick, and the incoming administration.