Trump administration Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick defended new tariffs announced Friday, noting “Today was the day of the beginning of saying, I’m sorry, you can’t just live for free off of us.”
In a CNN interview, Lutnick explained that “the largest tariff and trade barrier country in the world is China. And they don’t have inflation.”
“So these things don’t occur the way people suggest they do. This is a reordering of global trade for the benefit of America,” Lutnick continued.
He further urged, “these people have all been living in our house. They have been driving our car. They come by and visit, open our fridge and eat our food whenever they want.”
“They have taken advantage of us,” he emphasised.
“You have to pay,” Lutnick reiterated, adding “And what’s going to happen is, the United States of America will get stronger. Our economy will grow much, much faster than the rest of the world, right?”
Watch:
🚨 COMMERCE SEC. HOWARD LUTNICK with an absolute masterclass against a combative CNN host. pic.twitter.com/QdCD8ElMbb
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 3, 2025
LUTNICK: "Let Donald Trump fix the American economy."
HOST: "The first time he did tariffs, we did see prices rise on products that were tariffed."
LUTNICK: "We…
President Trump declared Friday that the tariff policy is already working and that every country has already contacted him looking to make a better trade deal.
“Every country has called us, that’s the beauty of what we do, we’ve put ourselves in the driving seat,” Trump declared.
He added, “If we’d asked most of these countries to do us a favour, they’d have said no, now they’ll do almost anything for us… the tariffs give us great power to negotiate”.
Trump rejected the assertion that the tariffs will be damaging, saying ” We inherited a terrible economy, as you know, with a lot of problems, including the loss of manufacturing and plants closed up and down the country.”
“We’ve lost 90,000 plants since NAFTA… and about six million jobs, it’s a sick patient that went through an operation on liberation day, it’s going to be a booming country,” he further proclaimed.
Watch:
🚨 PRESIDENT TRUMP announces his tariffs have brought pretty much EVERY COUNTRY to the negotiating table already
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) April 3, 2025
“Every country's called us. That's the beauty of what we do. We put ourselves in the driver's seat.”
THAT’s how it’s done 🔥 pic.twitter.com/Zx6j8F73SY
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