Howard Lutnick

With Elon Musk no longer sleeping in a cot in Washington, only one member of the White House inner circle comes close to matching Donald Trump’s net worth: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Commerce is usually a mid-tier cabinet post; even fervent political observers would be hard-pressed to name previous officeholders. But Lutnick has been one of Trump’s most impactful advisors in this second term. His ideas about tariffs have greatly affected the world’s economy, and have influenced Trump’s mercurial tariff pronouncements. Plus, he’s worth about $3 billion himself. Even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, himself a billionaire, is only worth about half as much. Lutnick made his name as CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a major New York financial services company.

Can tariffs replace income taxes paid by Americans earning an income under $200,000 annually, as President Trump has suggested? We seem to have entered a new world in 2025, or rather, reincarnated an older America whose tax receipts were heavily built on tariff payments. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick recently stated that tariffs could replace income taxes paid by Americans making up to $150,000 per year. And certain economic nationalists have urged that there is a vital causal connection here worth recalling in an “American system” of tariffs and protectionism, and the growth of American industry. They argue that America’s Gilded Age wasn’t regressive economically; in fact, the country exploded in growth, commerce and inventions.

“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social account yesterday morning. With trillions of dollars wiped off stock market value since his tariff announcements last week, this appeared to be an attempt to manufacture a silver lining. It also happened to be a literal statement. Within a few hours, the stock market was surging as Trump announced a 90-day pause on the higher “reciprocal” tariffs for most countries, while hiking the tariff on Chinese goods to 125 percent. Was this careless? Intentional? Insider trading? According to the White House, it had been the strategy all along. The President told reporters it had been “the biggest day in financial history.” Speaking to his aides beforehand, Trump noted the market was rallying.

If there is anything that all governments watch carefully, it is GDP growth. Without substantive and ongoing increases in what GDP measures — the total monetary value of all final goods and services produced in the economy over a specific time period — societies are in big trouble. That’s one reason why recessions usually result in electoral death for whoever holds office at the time. To accurately estimate total growth in an economy, everything that contributes to GDP must be measured. That presently includes consumer spending, private domestic investment, net exports, and, lastly, government consumption and spending. Now, however, Trump officials ranging from Elon Musk to Howard Lutnick are stating that we should consider excluding the latter category.