Fox News TV - Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick celebrates the Trump administration's trade deal with the U.K. and previews negotiations with China on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’ #foxnews #usa #news #trump #politics #trade #us #china #world #ingrahamangle #uk
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00:00Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, you saw him in the Oval yesterday.
00:04He's been embedded in these trade talks, instrumental in them, over the last month,
00:08especially with the first deal announced with the UK.
00:11Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for joining us on a busy Friday night.
00:16You heard what the New York Times reporter, commentator, said that,
00:23oh, well, the UK deal, that was just low-hanging fruit, really.
00:27Wow. I mean, can you imagine making up something more silly than that?
00:34I mean, the Biden administration didn't even talk to them.
00:37I mean, imagine they opened their market for the first time in 30 years for $5 billion in exports
00:44while paying us $6 billion a year in tariffs.
00:48Yeah, sure, Biden could have done that.
00:50One person and one person in the whole world could have done that,
00:54and that's our president, Donald Trump, and his economic team.
00:59Now, the talks this weekend with China are preliminary,
01:03but the president has already floated the idea of lowering that 145% level,
01:09which he had already conceded was high and it wasn't sustainable,
01:13but down to perhaps 80.
01:15Some people were talking 50, and I know you guys have been going back and forth.
01:19Talk about that a little bit, because, of course, the Democrats are painting that as a walk back,
01:26or Trump, you know, clearly was bitten by this whole process, so he's scaling back his ambitions.
01:34You've got to be kidding me.
01:35I mean, look, I agree, 145%, as the president said.
01:40Come on, you know what that is?
01:41That's decoupling.
01:42You don't do business that way, and as you hear, of course, as the president said,
01:46the boats are just turning back around and going back.
01:49So I think the president would like to work it out with China.
01:53As he said, he'd like to de-escalate it, but look, he's not going to live with a trillion-dollar deficit.
01:59He's just not going to do it.
02:01So the idea is de-escalate, but let's get China trade right,
02:06and let's get trade deals with the rest of the world.
02:08Let's cut our trade deficit down.
02:10Let's grow our GDP.
02:11I think the president can grow our GDP 3%.
02:15I mean, I think this president's got it right.
02:18He's got it dead right, and he's doing everything he's supposed to be doing,
02:22and I can't be more excited.
02:23Talk about the process here, because I know you can't give us all the specifics,
02:28but President Trump is one of these guys who, like, you bring him a deal.
02:31You say, I think we got a deal with the U.K., Mr. President.
02:35And he listens, right?
02:36And then he says, get me a better deal.
02:38And you actually have to go back, and then you have to negotiate the better deal than the good deal that you just got.
02:44But that's kind of always working, I think, for the American people.
02:48I like that.
02:48Oh, totally.
02:51So, look, we worked on this for 45 days.
02:54We went every line item.
02:56This is a detailed, detailed line.
02:58Ethanol, beef, cereal, machinery.
03:01I mean, line by line, we get it all done, right?
03:04We get it all done.
03:05We get it all packaged up.
03:06I'm working morning, noon, and night on the deal.
03:09I sit down with Donald Trump.
03:10I said, okay, here's the deal.
03:12It's beautiful.
03:12It's in a bow.
03:14You know, $4 billion worth of opening market, $6 billion of revenues.
03:19He goes, let's go over it.
03:20I can make it better.
03:22I'm like, I've done everything I can.
03:23He goes, I'm going to make it better.
03:24He picks up the phone.
03:25He calls Stermer, and he makes the deal, and he adds a billion dollars of new exports to the deal.
03:32And he says to him, come on, just wrap it up right now on the phone, and you'll be on the press conference tomorrow, and we'll see how great it is.
03:38And he just pushes the guy.
03:40I love letting the best dealmaker in the world make the deal.
03:43It's the most fun for me.
03:45He added an extra billion dollars by that phone call.
03:48The man is the best dealmaker I've ever seen.
03:51Well, I had a chance to see him today and had an off-the-record conversation.
03:54But it's clear that he believes that the half-empty barges that are being reported as the worst thing ever, that's a sign this is working.
04:05That's exactly what he wanted to happen, to put the squeeze on China before these talks.
04:10Am I missing something?
04:12No, absolutely not.
04:14Look, we know that they rely on our consumer and our markets.
04:18And he wants to just make sure everybody knows, they know, and we know, that it's time to make the right deal.
04:26It's time to start making the right deal.
04:28And you've got to put cards on the table.
04:30And you know the president, he loves to do that.
04:32He loves to let everybody know how it's going.
04:35He speaks respectfully about Xi, but he knows that they need our markets.
04:40And then he sends his team in and says, let's de-escalate.
04:42Let's de-escalate with a view that we're going to make a good deal for America.
04:46Is there a strong chance that the current tariffs will be completely paused after this weekend's talks?
04:58No chance.
05:01No chance.
05:02No way.
05:03No way.
05:05Well, okay, so let's say they have a great meeting and maybe a general understanding that we're going to talk again.
05:13We want to make progress, but the 145 stay in place or is it moved down to what we've heard today?
05:21No, no, no, no, no.
05:21They all, they come down to a human level, right?
05:24To a level where we do business.
05:26There are significant tariffs.
05:28The president is going to keep significant tariffs on trade with China.
05:33That is his objective.
05:35That's his expectation.
05:36That should be everybody's expectation.
05:38But 145% is decoupling.
05:41Let's not do business with each other.
05:43Let's bring it down to a level that he studied and he knows, right?
05:47Where did we come out with on Liberation Day?
05:5034% is where it came out on Liberation Day.
05:53That's the studied number that Donald Trump did then.
05:56He may put it up higher, but that's kind of the idea.
05:5934% Liberation Day, 20% for the fentanyl.
06:03If they stop doing the fentanyl, that'll come off, but we can't live with fentanyl ingredients coming to America.
06:10So I think that's the number that he published on Liberation Day.
06:14And that's the number you should look at.
06:15And somewhere around there, maybe a little higher, maybe a little lower, Donald Trump will make the deal with the Chinese to de-escalate.
06:24And then we'll go forward from there making deals with everyone in the world.
06:27Then we'll sit down with China and try to work out the right deal for America with China.
06:31Any sense of where the final talks would take place, Howard?
06:38No.
06:39I mean, I think there's going to be dozens of talks with China, but de-escalation first,
06:45and then huge amounts of talks and huge amounts of details of what's the right thing for America,
06:51and Donald Trump owns it.
06:52Mr. Secretary, thank you so much.
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