Lutnick: Tariffs Cover No Tax on Tips

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick declared that tariffs made "no tax on tips" possible.

On "The Ingraham Angle," Lutnick discussed the Trump administration's economic policies and wins. “If you want to talk about tariffs working, is there a better way to say it is [than Japan’s] $550 billion to invest in America, the way Donald Trump wants to do it. I mean, that is awesome,” Lutnick enthused.

Tariffs also help us undermine our enemies, too, Lutnick argued, stating that our tariffs on Communist China are bringing serious pressure to bear. Ingraham challenged Lutnick on Trump's negotiations with China, specifically regarding the tariffs. “Why do we need a deal with China?… They need to sell to us, right? They need to sell to us more than you know, really we need to sell to them. I don't trust that. They buy a lot of our products.” While Americans didn’t really notice the effect of China tariffs here, the Chinese were in serious jeopardy, Lutnick insisted.

“Remember when it was 145%, did you feel it? But I tell you what, their factories were closing all over the place. So Donald Trump understands he doesn't need to do a deal with China,” but he did try to negotiate one anyway. “The idea is we've got 30% tariff on them for this term, 25 from his last term. So they're paying 55%, you know what he's thinking, that's pretty good.”

Ingraham said, “I frankly don't want a deal. I think it's working really well now, but I understand there probably would be a deal. But would those costs at some point be passed on to the consumers?” Lutnick stated that the Trump administration's policies have already helped stabilize inflation.

“We put 30% on China. Why? When the experts, you know, these famous experts, who say we're going to get inflation, where is it? You know where it is. It's nowhere, because the Chinese need to employ their people so they eat it, because they need to keep selling,” Lutnick posited. “They need to keep selling. As you know, at some point we need to balance ourselves. Get our trade deficit down. Get rid of them. Selling to Vietnam, who sells to us. Transshipping is a disaster for American companies.”

That’s why Trump is also looking to force countries to open their markets to the U.S., too. “Every one of our deals we save it's got these other markets… so Donald Trump is on it, and that's why he knows he's going to make …800, maybe $900 billion because 40% on all of that stuff. So this is going to the bottom line of America. You know, tariffs pay for tax on tips and no tax on overtime.”

Ingraham clarified, “And this will be American workers, not a lot of foreign workers, not… H1b visas, [but] American workers and American companies.”

Lutnick agreed and returned to praising tariffs. “And the Japanese are saying, in order to buy our tariff down from 25[%] to 15,” they cut a deal. “And you know, they're just not as happy as they were when it was 25% tariffs.”

Much of what is rigged in the international trade system stems from the remnants of the post-World War II system, where we allowed other countries to impose tariffs on our goods without reciprocal tariffs. That has long since outlived its usefulness and should be totally replaced.

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