‘Insane!’ Business World Freaks Out After Howard Lutnick Tells ABC Trump’s Tariff Exemptions Are Only Temporary
The business world did not react well to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s interview on ABC’s This Week.
Speaking with Jon Karl on Sunday, Lutnick revealed that the newly-announced tariff exemptions — which include a host of electronic devices including smartphones — are only temporary.
“This is not like a permanent sort of exemption,” Lutnick said. [President Donald Trump is] just clarifying that these are not available to be negotiated away by countries. These are things that are national security, that we need to be made in America.”
Lutnick added that the exemptions were only likely to last “a month or two” as the exempted items will soon be subject to “semiconductor tariffs.”
“All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they’re going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored,” Lutnick said. “We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips, and we need to have flat panels — we need to have these things made in America.”
Lutnick added, “So what [Trump is] doing is he’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two. So these are coming soon.”
The business community was perplexed by Lutnick’s comments — with many financial heavy-hitters lashing out on social media.
“So Lutnick says we are zigging and zagging on the electronic and technology tariffs,” Anthony Scaramucci wrote on X. “It’s ok to admit at this point that they have no idea what they are doing.”
Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino added, “If you talk to CEO and investors as I do, they will tell you this is a sad, scary and at times, silly spectacle. Plus they will say, Howard Lutnick is a horrible spokesman for whatever trade regime the White House comes up with.”
Here is a sampling of some of the other reaction to the Lutnick interview:
Watch above, via ABC.
