The Wall Street billionaire executive will lead a study on reciprocal tariffs as one of his first duties.
Howard Lutnick, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Commerce, has been confirmed by the Senate in a 51–45 vote.
Prior to the upper chamber vote, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) touted Lutnick’s success on Wall Street and his work with Sept. 11 survivors.
“I am glad President Trump has chosen an outcome-driven leader,” Thune said in prepared remarks.
“Howard Lutnick’s greatest business achievement is not building his own success or building up a company; it was rebuilding Cantor Fitzgerald.” The headquarters of the financial services firm was in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, just above the impact site of one of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. All of its 658 employees in the office that day died.
Thune called Lutnick’s story inspiring as he gave surviving staff an option: either attend 20 funerals a day for the next month or work hard to rebuild the firm. Employees agreed to donate a quarter of their salaries to the 658 families of their colleagues with no limit and no expectations to be repaid.
“It’s a lesson in resilience, determination in the American spirit, and it demonstrates the type of person Howard Lutnick is, and the type of public servant that he’ll be,” Thune said.
Lutnick passed a crucial procedural vote in the upper chamber on Feb. 13 as senators advanced his nomination in a 52-45 vote.
A week earlier, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee voted 16-12 to send the billionaire CEO to the procedural vote. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) voted with all Republicans in support of Lutnick.
In his Jan. 29 appearance before the committee, Lutnick championed Trump’s trade agenda, stating that the United States needs to demand fairness and reciprocity in global trade.
“They treat us poorly,” Lutnick told lawmakers of U.S. trading partners. “We are treated horribly by the global trading environment. They all have higher tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers, and subsidies.”
Lutnick, chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, advocated for across-the-board tariffs instead of targeted levies. He believes a targeted approach would result in “picking on farmers.”
“I think when you pick one product in Mexico, they’ll pick one product [to retaliate],” he said. “We pick avocados, they pick white corn; we pick tomatoes, they pick yellow corn.”
This comes as Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on foreign nations, a strategy that could go into effect as early as April.
“I have decided, for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff being whatever countries charge the United States of America,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Feb. 13.
“We will charge them no more, no less. In other words, they charge us a tax or tariff, and we charge them the exact same tax or tariff. Very simple.”
A key component of the latest tariff plans will be focusing on the European Union’s value-added tax (VAT), which administration officials liken to a tariff.
VATs are consumption taxes levied on the value added to goods and services, and are collected at each stage of production and distribution. While the standard VAT rate must be at least 15 percent, the average EU rate is 21.8 percent.
Lutnick criticized the VAT because “when they sell to us, of course, they drop that 20 percent right away.”
“So, it’s sort of an export subsidy, if you will,” he said. “We are going to address each country one by one.”
Lutnick is expected to lead studies to determine the appropriate tariff rates for each nation. He told reporters he anticipates the studies will be finished by April 1.