According to the editor-in-chief of the conservative National Review, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has done nothing but sow chaos of his own as he struggles to calm the public and the markets in the midst of the tariff firestorm.
With the Donald Trump administration zigging and zagging on tariff amounts and when they will go into effect, the stock and bond market is reeling and, according to the National Review's Rich Lowry, the Wall Street billionaire turned Cabinet member is only pouring more fuel on the fire.
Under a blunt headline stating, "Howard Lutnick Makes No Sense," the longtime conservative pundit wrote, "Howard Lutnick hasn’t been insulted in public yet by Elon Musk, but who can say he doesn’t deserve it?"
With that, he suggested the "dazed and confused" Lutnick's "... level of incoherence in the Commerce secretary’s case for Trump’s tariffs has been off the charts."
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Case in point, he noted Lutnick's cable TV appearances have created more questions than answered questions dogging consumers and Wall Street executives.
"His substantive case for the tariffs has been scattershot and unmoored from reality or any rational economic theory," Lowry wrote before adding, that Lutnick's answer about lowering the cost of food is baffling in the extreme.
"It’d be better if we could sell more agricultural products abroad, but that’s not going to reduce prices here in the U.S," Lowry wrote and then added, "Besides, a trade war with China will reduce our access to the Chinese agricultural market, which hurt farmers the first time around — so Lutnick’s premise is flawed in that respect, too."
"There have been lots of complaints from within the administration about Lutnick’s abrasive personality. But sharp elbows aren’t unusual in high politics," the National Review editor observed. "The more consequential matter is that one of the foremost defenders of the policy shaking the American economy is confused and confusing."
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