All In Interview - Howard Lutnick - Recap and Notes - January 8 2026

Jan 8 2026

• AirForce One stories
• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick
• Last year look back on experience coming in
  • Outcome driven - working hard and failing is failure, not working and succeeding is success
  • In department - cut 52000 → 40000 people
  • Government has typically many specialists, not generalists - Secretary’s job is to put those together
• Scope
  • BIS - Bureau of Industry and Security
    • Tariffs
  • Import/Export assist model (Boeing closely follows them for example)
  • NTIA - Telecom, Spectrum, 6G?, AI
  • GDP published - use the census, business census
    • Publish on the blockchain
  • Patent office
  • NOAA - Oceans and Atmosphere
    • Now there is Office of space commerce
• Tariffs
  • Trade deficit is not buying stuff from a supermarket
    • Its actually them owning you
    • 1985 US owned more of the world - $148B
    • 2026 they own more of us - $26T
• Trade deals
  • Japan
    • Hard to open them up culturally, economically, socially, technically (all of them)
    • So slapped 25% tariffs
    • Japan auto industry is subsidized quite heavily
    • $550B investment in America - helping US build nuclear power plants - and proceeds will be split 50-50 and 30 year bond in Japan finances this
      • 90-10 after money is paid back to them
  • China strategy
    • Chinese government support and mercantilism is almost necessary for them in some ways
    • They have no oil and natural gas of their own
    • They have 50 provinces that compete amazingly with each other
    • The economy is built on over production
    • The over capacity is an asset - they can dump it where anyone who will take it, lead to local industry shut down - and get leverage
    • They sell below cost and drive growth
  • Tariffs
    • No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, etc all paid for by tariffs
      • This is 85% of America - not deeply focused
  • India deal
    • Does staircase deal model - the sooner you get in the better it is for you
    • Other countries’ deals are already done
• Pharmaceuticals deals
  • Drug companies make 75% of their revenues in America - 100% of their profit
  • The whole world’s drug model works on America’s largesse
    • Ex: US pays $1000 for a drug, Europe has socialized medicine - they pay $175
  • So Trump asked for MFN status from drug companies
• Immigration
  • Open immigration makes sense if you give people nothing
  • Once you open a welfare state, then you have to close the border
    • Food stamps, housing, etc - then people will leech off of you
  • Last 5 years - average green card holder makes $40K vs average american makes $60K
  • So they are all coming to get stuff from the government
• Fraud
  • Federal government gives money - the states administer welfare
  • Claims fixing it can save $1T
• GDP
  • He called 4% GDP growth almost a year ago - it hit 4.3%
  • Expecting 2.5% GDP for Q4 - blames it on shutdown related furloughs
  • Calling 5% GDP growth - 6% if we cut rates
  • Such high GDP means jobs are abundant
  • Ex: Electricians getting paid $500K-$750K - more than LLM engineers
  • Obama ruined the economy
    • Removed shop class
    • Have to go to liberal arts college, get into $200K debt
  • Biden jammed inflation leading to high housing costs
  • American dream slipping away
  • Claims Trump is fixing it with having people work with their hands
• Semiconductors
  • Chips Act - revamped it
  • TSMC contract had 20 pages of DEI stuff in it
    • So he held them in breach - got the deal sweetened - increased investment - soon it will increase more
  • Nvidia deal
    • 25% revenue share
  • 10% stake in Intel