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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is convinced that the tariffs put in place by President Donald Trump won’t raise prices even as several retailers have said they will.
Speaking to Axios at an event in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday night, the former Wall Street CEO and billionaire said he believed the U.S. would make a number of trade deals by the middle of the summer.
Lutnick was asked how many of the U.S.’s top 18 trading partners would have a deal by the time the pause in the widespread tariffs ends on July 8.
"I think most countries, we'll have an idea of what we want to do with them,” he said.
Lutnick has taken a leading role in the Trump White House’s attempt to redraw the rules of international trade, which has disrupted both global and U.S. economies. The back-and-forth tariff policy has led to significant uncertainty for businesses and consumers.
Trump has argued that the U.S. hasn’t had a fair trading relationship with the rest of the world for decades, costing the U.S. jobs at home. However, the question surrounding the tariffs has recently been how they’ll affect consumers.
After Lutnick rejected “silly arguments” that tariffs raise prices, Walmart announced that it would increase its prices because of the tariffs, with several other companies suggesting that they may follow suit.
"The president has to stand strong, and you can't fix things in a day, and that's still going, but I would expect that prices in America will be unaffected,” a defiant Lutnick told Axios.
Meanwhile, retail executives expect cost pressures to increase and consumers will feel more price rises by the end of June or early July.
After Walmart announced that it would raise prices, Trump lashed out at the company, telling them to “eat” the rising costs of tariffs without passing them on to consumers.
Walmart responded to the president earlier this week by saying, “We have always worked to keep our prices as low as possible, and we won’t stop. We’ll keep prices as low as we can for as long as we can, given the reality of small retail margins.”
Trump revealed his tariff plan last month, which includes a 10 percent baseline tariff for most countries and further tariffs on a number of major trading partners. The president believes the tariffs will boost American manufacturing and bring in billions of dollars.
However, since his April announcement, the Trump administration has dropped its tariffs on China from 145 percent to 30 percent and has paused other tariffs for 90 days as the U.S. goes into deal-making mode.
Nike has also revealed that it’s set to raise prices on some of its shoes and apparel by between $2 and $10 in response to the tariffs. The increase in prices will impact products made overseas, specifically in Vietnam and China, a person with knowledge of the matter told The Hill.
“We regularly evaluate our business and make pricing adjustments as part of our seasonal planning,” a spokesperson for the company told the outlet.
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