Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick tried to claim credit for the president’s 90-day tariff pause after being one of the loudest cheerleaders for tariffs to begin with.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced that he was pausing his tariff rollout for 90 days, except for taxes levied on China. Shortly after the announcement, Lutnick made a post on X suggesting that he was right by the president’s side with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as he announce the pause.
“Bessent and I sat with the President while he wrote one of the most extraordinary Truth posts of his presidency,” tweeted Lutnick. “The world is ready to work with President Trump to fix global trade, while China has chosen a different path—indefinitely.”
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Lutnick’s flip-flopping attempt to position himself as someone calling for a pause on the tariff chaos contradicts his earlier position as one of the architects behind Trump’s trade policy.
Just one week ago, Lutnick proudly displayed the cardboard chart listing Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” on dozens of countries during the announcement in the White House Rose Garden.
In meetings with industry executives, he would boast that he alone was in charge of the tariff portfolio, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In countless TV appearances, Lutnick, a billionaire businessman, vigorously defended the now-paused tariffs, claiming they would “turbocharge” U.S. growth and “reset the power of the United States of America.”
“This is the moment that the United States of America takes hold of itself, and Donald Trump has been talking about this his whole life,” Lutnick said, even as the tariff announcement caused a stock market tumble and raised fears of a recession.
“This is Donald Trump’s agenda, and we’re all here to help him execute,” said Lutnick.
