Tag Archives: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick

Policies Make A Difference

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On June 28th, Yahoo Finance posted an article about the impact of President Trump’s tariffs. If nothing else, the numbers prove that taxes are not the only way to get funds into the United States Treasury.

The article reports:

President Trump’s tariffs are pouring billions more into US coffers in June, putting the revenue supplied by importers on pace for another monthly record.

The latest measure of government receipts for “Customs and Certain Excise Taxes” stood at almost $27 billion for the month of June, according to the Treasury Department’s latest daily statement dated June 25.

The monthly total is likely to rise only slightly in the coming days, with importers often depositing their tariff duties in a single day and the June 24 statement showing a massive daily deposit of more than $19.9 billion.

June’s total so far has already topped May’s total haul of about $22 billion — not to mention April and March totals of $17.4 billion and $9.6 billion, respectively.

It was a continuation of revenue spikes seen during Trump’s second term in office that are dwarfing counts from recent history as well as the amounts collected during Trump’s first term.

All told, more than $121 billion has flowed into government coffers since the start of this fiscal year.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick touted the pace of deposits earlier this week in a social media post that criticized Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

“What he avoids discussing is the incredible revenue increase the US has received from these tariffs,” Lutnick said in his post, suggesting the US’s “current run rate” is for more than $30 billion per month.

The article concludes:

The June uptick in revenues, in any case, is on a pace of roughly $1 billion a day in revenue and that remains a tiny fraction of all monthly government spending.

In May — the most recent full month of data available — total government receipts totaled $371 billion.

In recent decades, tariff revenue has tended to constitute about 2% of federal revenue. The surge in recent months has changed that, with revenues now accounting for closer to 4%-5% of that revenue.

Now if Congress would finally cut spending, we might be able to get rid of our massive interest payments.

Winning

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On Wednesday, The New York Post reported that America had reached a trade agreement with China.

The article reports:

President Trump announced early Wednesday that the US had reached a trade agreement with China following two days of negotiations in London.

“Our deal with China is done, subject to final approval with President Xi and me,” Trump revealed in an all-caps post on Truth Social. “Full magnets, and any necessary rare earths, will be supplied, up front, by China.”

“Likewise, we will provide to China what was agreed to, including Chinese students using our colleges and universities (which has always been good with me!). We are getting a total of 55% tariffs, China is getting 10%. The relationship is excellent! Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The article concludes:

The commerce secretary said the new arrangement would see China ease barriers on rare earth minerals “in a balanced way,” without elaborating on specifics.

Lutnick (Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick) claimed that the framework brokered in London put “meat on the bones” on the Geneva consensus and would allow China to ease barriers on rare earth minerals “in a balanced way,” without elaborating on specifics.

China’s Vice Commerce Minister Li Chenggang had similarly confirmed late Tuesday that an agreement in London had been reached, subject to Trump’s and Xi’s approval.

I really would like to see a limit on the number of Chinese students allowed in our universities, but overall I think this will turn out to be a good deal.