Senate confirms Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary [View all]
Source: CBS News/AP
February 18, 2025 / 7:57 PM EST
The Senate confirmed wealthy financier Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary Tuesday, putting in place a staunch supporter of President Trump's hardline trade policies. At the Commerce Department, Lutnick, who was CEO at the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, will oversee 50,000 employees who do everything from collecting economic statistics to running the census to issuing weather reports.
But he's likely to spend a lot of time — along with Jamieson Greer, Mr. Trump's nominee to be the top U.S. trade negotiator — managing the president's aggressive plans to impose import taxes on U.S. trading partners, including allies and adversaries alike. The Senate vote to confirm Lutnick was 51-45.
Mr. Trump views the tariffs as a versatile economic tool. They can raise money to finance his tax cuts elsewhere, protect U.S. industries and pressure other countries into making concessions on such issues as their own trade barriers, immigration and drug trafficking. Mainstream economists mostly view tariffs as counterproductive: They are paid by import companies in the United States, which try to pass along the higher costs to consumers and can thereby add to inflationary pressures throughout the economy.
At his confirmation hearing last month, Lutnick dismissed as "nonsense'' the idea that tariffs contribute to inflation. He expressed support for deploying across-the-board tariffs "country by country'' to strong-arm other countries into lowering barriers to American exports.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-confirms-howard-lutnick-commerce-secretary/
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