Trump Allies Are Blaming Lutnick For Trump's Tariff Turmoil

President Donald Trump is struggling to message a scattered economic agenda, but his Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, is taking the blame.

White House and administration officials, as well as Trump’s outside allies, are growing increasingly frustrated with Lutnick, privately complaining about the close proximity he has to the president and the counsel he is giving him on economic issues. It’s an exasperation compounded by recent television appearances, they say, that suggest a lack of understanding of even the basics about how tariffs and the economy work. He has also at multiple points over the last week gotten out in front of the president on announcements and contradicted his messaging.

Those factors, coupled with an abrasive personality, have left Lutnick with few friends in the administration — and a growing consensus within it that he could be forced to take the fall for the economic turmoil generated by the president’s unsteady tariff policies, according to five people close to the administration. The Dow slid nearly 500 points Tuesday after Trump announced and then walked back new tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, amid ongoing economic uncertainty — after closing 890 points down Monday.

Lutnick, one of the people close to the administration said, is “constantly auditioning for Trump's approval.”

“He’s trying to be a mini-Trump. I don't think he got the memo that only Trump gets to be Trump,” the person said. “It just reinforces that he doesn't really know how to do the job.”

In total, POLITICO interviewed 11 Trump allies, administration officials, Republican lawmakers and others, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the perception of Lutnick inside the administration, for this article.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement that Lutnick’s “long and immensely successful private sector career makes him an integral addition to the Trump administration’s trade and economic team.” He added that Lutnick is aligned with the rest of the administration on “delivering economic prosperity for the American people,” pointing to the February jobs report that showed the addition of 151,000 jobs and nearly $2 trillion in investments secured from businesses since Trump took office.

“Every member of the Trump administration is playing from the same playbook — President Trump’s playbook — to enact an America First agenda of tariffs, tax cuts, deregulation, and the unleashing of American energy,” Desai said.

Lutnick did not respond to a request for comment.

Lutnick, the former CEO of the well-regarded financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, hails from Wall Street, which is traditionally skeptical of tariffs, but shares the views of many in the pro-tariff community. But he has struggled to earn the trust of either camp, four people close to the administration said. Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer are seen by the pro-tariff community as more ideologically pure than Lutnick, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is viewed by Wall Street as more credible on the economy, despite the fact that Lutnick once managed Cantor’s more than 10,000 employees.

Still, because of his proximity to the president, Lutnick has become the go-to person for Hill Republicans and foreign officials seeking to sway the president’s tariff policy. He played a key role Tuesday, for instance, in negotiating a deal with Ontario Premier Doug Ford that led to the province suspending a threatened 25 percent tariff on energy exports, and Trump to back off plans for a 50 percent tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum.

Lutnick has also had regular conversations with Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc, mostly over text, and the Canadian government views Lutnick as “really having the levers when it comes to the imposition of tariffs,” according to a senior Canadian government official.

Lutnick first connected with LeBlanc at the Mar-a-Lago dinner attended by outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in November, the person said, adding that Canadian officials feel like they have “a solid and reliable interlocutor” in Lutnick because he and the president are so close.

And the president himself appears to continue to be pleased with Lutnick’s performance. Lutnick joined Trump on Air Force One on Friday as he headed to West Palm Beach for the weekend and has remained a constant presence in the Oval Office.

Still, Trump allies fear Lutnick is telling the president what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear, on tariffs and their overall economic impact.

And even as he has become Trump’s “yes man” on tariffs, Lutnick has found himself repeatedly out of step — and even out in front of — the president on his economic messaging, taking to the airwaves to share messages that have not been approved by the White House.

A second person close to the White House said there have been multiple occasions when Lutnick would float an idea in the Oval Office, then go on air and talk about it as though it were White House policy — even when it’s not.

Shortly before Trump’s pre-taped interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo aired Sunday morning, in which he would not rule out the possibility of a recession, Lutnick was on NBC’s “Meet the Press” saying Americans should “absolutely not” brace for a recession.

It undermined the message that the president and the administration have spent much of the last week arguing — that tariffs will produce positive effects in the long-term for the country, even if they cause some short-term price increases and economic pain. Trump, during his joint address to Congress, acknowledged his tariffs were likely to cause some “disturbance,” a point White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt underscored during her Tuesday briefing, calling the current moment “a period of transition.”

“The president and Bessent are being more direct and honest because they believe the people are on their side. You don’t have to lie to people because you know what you’re doing is for their betterment,” the first person close to the administration said. “Lutnick is out there saying, ‘No, it’s all gonna be amazing.’”

Bessent has vigorously defended the administration’s trade policies while also echoing Trump’s warnings that the U.S. could experience some economic turbulence. He last week said tariffs would be a “one-time price adjustment” and acknowledged that the economy could be “starting to roll a bit” amid the administration’s cutbacks to federal spending.

Lutnick last week jumped the gun and said tariffs could be paused on Mexico and Canada for a month before Trump had made the announcement, spilling the beans in a TV interview on CNBC while the president was still wrapping up negotiations with Mexico and trying to eke greater concessions out of Canada, two people close to the president said. The result was greater confusion to a timeline the White House has been struggling to keep straight.

Lutnick earned significant goodwill with the president for being one of his top 2020 and 2024 fundraisers, helping him secure the position of co-chair of Trump’s transition. Yet Trump allies have long speculated that Lutnick would be among the first — if not the first — to leave the administration, owing to his polarizing personality and his penchant for overstepping. During the transition, he overstayed his welcome in Trump’s orbit, frustrating others in the inner circle by controlling the flow of information to the president. The move was likely a factor in why Lutnick was passed over for the Cabinet position he really wanted — Treasury secretary.

Asked whom Lutnick had angered so far in the administration, the second person close to the president said “everyone.” The person added that Trump is still listening to Lutnick for now, but it’s starting to trend toward what happened in the transition before he was sidelined.

“It’s getting to the point it did during the transition where it was like, ‘Why does this guy feel like my de facto roommate?’ Every time I turn around he’s there,” the person said.

On the Hill, Lutnick has become members’ go-to contact person on tariffs because he’s been particularly accessible and has the ear of Trump, rather than Navarro, who they don’t know well, and Greer, whom they only know from his confirmation process, a Trump ally in Congress said. Congressional Republicans — even those who disagree with the president’s trade policy — want stability. And many of them are signaling their willingness to wait it out, seeing tariffs as one part of a broader plan that includes tax incentives to reshore businesses, greater energy production and tax cuts.

“I’m not a fan of tariffs. It needs to be a tool in the toolbox, I understand that,” said Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), who chairs the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade. “But what was successful about the previous term was that parallel engagement that I think brought people to the table and ultimately things got done.”

Some lawmakers are hoping that Greer will take a more prominent role in crafting the administration’s tariff policies, now that he has been confirmed as trade representative. But while Greer has the policy chops — he served as chief of staff to former Trump Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer during the first administration — it’s unclear whether he has the relationship or personality to steer Trump in Oval Office conversations, two of the people close to the administration said.

In the meantime, Republicans from farm states are going around Lutnick and Greer and appealing directly to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Some on Wall Street say there’s been outreach from the administration to get a sense of whether the coming tariffs and further trade uncertainty are the driving force behind turmoil in markets, although it’s unclear whether the response — yes, of course — is affecting the policy thinking at all. Complicating matters is the sense that Lutnick lacks the relationships on Wall Street needed to understand the seriousness with which the market is reacting to the tariff announcements.

“Howard Lutnick has no respect from the CEO community. He was a broker’s broker. He was an institutional broker that not any CEO knew his name,” a third person close to the administration said. “They’re really missing connectivity to the business world.”

Mickey Djuric, Victoria Guida and Michael Stratford contributed to this report.