At today's House Appropriations Committee hearing, Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) questioned Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
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00:00Mr. Morelli. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling us together, and thank you, Mr. Secretary. Also, as a fellow New Yorker, I congratulate you on your appointment. You mentioned earlier the mission of the U.S. Commerce Department. You said nothing will take away from our mission. How would you, in a sentence, describe the mission of the Commerce Department?
00:20To protect, to defend, and to enhance business in the United States for America.
00:27And the mission, according to the Commerce Department, is to create the conditions for economic growth and opportunities for all communities. Would you agree with that definition as well?
00:38Sounds excellent.
00:39Okay, great. And I apologize. You know, five minutes is so little time. We could have a much longer conversation. I hope we will have the opportunity to do that.
00:48I want to also just reiterate what people said. This is not your choice, but I would pass along to the President that doing budget hearings when we don't have a budget is really hard to do.
01:00It's hard to drill down numbers we don't have, priorities that you have. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate you defending the administration's approach, but it is really hard to do.
01:10So I just, you don't need to respond to that. But I would love if you would provide, to whatever detail you can, the trillions of dollars of investment that have been made during the last couple of months and how we were able to achieve the commitments of those trillions.
01:26I will do note, because this subcommittee had a fair amount to do with the Chips and Science Act that I suspect much of the chip investment being made, whether it's in Texas or whether it's in Arizona or made in upstate New York in Syracuse, is partly by the bipartisan Chips and Science Act.
01:43I hope you'll continue to continue those efforts.
01:47I have to say that in talking to folks, both in my region and upstate New York, but throughout the state and other folks in the business world, what I hear about most is the need for predictability.
02:01And I have to say that most of the commentary that I hear from CEOs is the lack of predictability caused largely by the tariff situation has made it nearly impossible, whether you're a business large or small, to make judgments about where you'll deploy capital and where you'll deploy workforce.
02:19As decisions are made to advance tariffs, sometimes reciprocal, sometimes, and then retrench, and then put them back in place, retrench again, that what I'm hearing, and this is different clearly than what you're hearing, because I feel like we live in maybe an alternative reality, that many people are not making decisions at all on investment because they don't know whether the president intends to follow through.
02:44Even the most recent announcements that there's another 90-day pause, during that 90-day period, people are saying, I don't know what this means.
02:53Should I move ahead?
02:53Should I not move ahead?
02:55Are we going to pull back?
02:56Are we going to advance?
02:57What should I be telling them about predictability, which is so important?
03:02I mean, you're a former CEO.
03:04You know this in your business world.
03:05Predictability and what you can expect both from your government and from the markets is so critical in making decisions about investment policy.
03:14We had a bad deal in America that produced a $1.2 trillion trade deficit.
03:24So fixing that will take some time.
03:28It will not take a lot of time, but it will take time.
03:31I view letting the greatest dealmaker that the United States has, who's in the Oval Office, let him make the deals.
03:39He is making the deals.
03:41I'm working on them all the time.
03:42The deal for America will be opening access to markets that have been closed for hundreds of billions of dollars and then charging and protecting industries, which have been attacked by foreigners like steel and aluminum, where the foreign governments, they give, you imagine, a steel blast furnace.
04:05You think how that melts?
04:07They give free or very cheap energy, and they make it unfair.
04:12So we're just going to get to a better deal for America, and it won't take that long, but it's a better deal for America.
04:18Well, look, I appreciate it.
04:19I think many people would not agree with your assessment that the occupant of the White House is the greatest dealmaker ever.
04:25I'm certainly not the greatest dealmaker ever.
04:27I've never gone bankrupt in businesses that I've been involved in, so I'm not sure I rely on that, but I also don't want to rely on a single individual.
04:36But to my point, the advancing of tariffs and then bringing them back and causing – that goes to the predictability issue.
04:44I don't know how people can rely on what the tariff situation could be, even when the courts in the United States have said emergency powers expressed by the president are well beyond what was envisioned by the Congress.
04:57So on predictability, I would just say, because I think we'll probably agree to disagree, I would just leave you with what I'm hearing from people is not making investments, not being willing to make decisions, because they don't know what to rely on.
05:10And frankly, I don't want to get into name-calling. I know what people have said about the president and the whole thing.
05:15That's not important to me. What's important to me is advancing American interests.
05:19And look, that's what we were trying to do in the past for all the criticisms of the previous administration.
05:24Both Congress and the administration were interested in investing in core industries that were so vital to our national and economic security.
05:32I'd love to talk to you further, whether in settings like this or offline, because I really do think we all want to advance American interests.
05:41So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.