Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Newsmax on Tuesday that President Donald Trump is setting fair tariff rates for the top-40 countries ahead of the Aug. 1 deadline, moves designed to balance the U.S. with its global trading partners.
Lutnick joined “Rob Schmitt Tonight” to break down the administration’s ongoing efforts to rectify a $1.2 trillion trade deficit with the rest of the world.
“So the president is setting the rates of tariffs for the top 30 or 40 countries individually and he’s sending out letters. Now those tariff rates are dependent on how open that country has been about opening their markets,” Lutnick said.
“And the president knows if we fix that, that means our farmers, our ranchers, our fishermen, our entrepreneurs can sell more to those economies,” Lutnick said of the trade deficit. “And so he’s trying to open those markets, or they pay here. So what you’re seeing is, it’s a balancing between how much have they offered us and what the president thinks is the fair rate given their deficit with us.
“And he’s balancing those. And we’re doing that between now and Aug. 1. Those rates will be set, and then we start collecting more money. Right now, we’re collecting $30 billion a month. But that number is going up on Aug. 1,” Lutnick said.
Further, Lutnick said the president so far has $10 trillion in committed factories in the U.S.
“That’s going to be millions of construction workers, millions of workers operating these factories. I mean, really, really good growth is coming right now,” he added.
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