First on CNBC: Transcript: United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Speaks with CNBC's 'Money Movers' Today

CNBC

a day ago

WHEN: Today, Wednesday, June 11, 2025
WHERE: CNBC's "Money Movers"
Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on CNBC's "Money Movers" (M-F, 11AM-12PM ET) today, Wednesday, June 11. Following are links to video on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/06/11/sec-of-commerce-howard-lutnick-china-will-approve-all-applications-for-magnets-for-u-s-companies.html and https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/06/11/commerce-sec-howard-lutnick-china-tariff-levels-are-set-and-wont-change-from-here.html.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
SARA EISEN: And joining us now first on CNBC, just home from those trade negotiations in London, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Secretary Lutnick, thank you for the time. Good to see you.
HOWARD LUTNICK: Great to see you. So, you know, we're there all night long and then you have me here and you got Scott Bessent with ways and means. So, I mean, we're working. This cabinet's working round the clock.
EISEN: I was going to say, I hope you sleep on the plane. Give us the details, when the president says a U.S.-China trade deal is done, what does he mean?
LUTNICK: So, what happened is they set up the Geneva truce, if you will, right? Tariffs came down. But the Chinese had these rare earth magnets and they were slow rolling it. And so, we started putting on the United States when they weren't delivering the rare earth magnets, we started putting on our countermeasures, right? We cut planes, ethanol, Marco Rubio put out that students may not be able to come to America. Scott Bessent put out, look, we're going to go send subpoenas to all the banks. And we tried, we were at mutual assured annoyance, if you will. And then Donald Trump got on the phone with President Xi and he changed everything. He basically said, we're friends. Let's be positive. When America and China are working well together, it all works great for the world. Let's go get this done. And that was the quote over and over again. President Xi by their side, President Trump on our side. And it was very positive. And we just worked very positively into the night to get this deal done. They are going to approve all applications for magnets from United States companies right away. Think of that language right away, you know, very much like the same day. And we're taking them as they do that. We'll take off our measures. And we're in a great place with China. Really, really feels good. Now, President Trump's got to approve the final wording. President Xi's got to approve the final stuff. It's not really wording. It's really the deal. But both sides are really positive. I mean, I feel great about it.
EISEN: OK, that's good to hear. So, when you say so you're talking about the licensing -- licenses that they were holding back for rare earth minerals, right? Essentially that we need in production of manufacturing and defense. So, they're going to release that?
LUTNICK: Right, if you think about these things, these magnets are part of a starter of a motor. Remember, motors are electric. So, everything we've got that has a motor in it pretty much has one of these magnets because they're teeny, teeny, tiny. And by the way, they're not expensive at all. This -- and this is not new technology. This is like old. But what's happening is everybody uses it. Then and what happens is China got 90% market share. Now, the Biden administration had the ability to change this and they blew it. They put out press releases. They were going to fix it. And they just blew it. So Trump went in. President Trump went in. He fixed everything with President Xi. Got us on the right track. We're totally on the right track. And now we're going to, you know, just go forward with China. I think things feel really good. We left the room. Everybody was very positive. We left at midnight, 14 hours yesterday, 10 hours the day before. You know, it took a lot of detail. But, you know, with President Trump in the background and President Xi behind their guys with that positive view, you know, it worked out pretty well. So, I'm really excited about how this is going to work for America.
EISEN: What took so long? What was the 14 hours a day? What did, what was the back and forth? And what did the Chinese side want?
LUTNICK: Well, the Chinese side always wants to remove our export controls. You know, they always try to remove our export controls. And Scott Bessent gave one of my favorite lines of the whole negotiation. He said, he said, really? No. So you want no export controls? Fine. I'd like to take home a couple of your best hypersonic missiles, please. Can I have them? So, it was just disarming.
EISEN: So, that didn't happen? I'm taking it.
LUTNICK: No, obviously not. So, it was just disarming, you know, so the way to do it correctly was to we were deeply respectful. There was no yelling and screaming. None of that stuff. It was just deeply respectful. Let's get down to it. Our leaders want this to be positive. They want this to go well. Let's make sure we get it done. But there's lots of detail. Remember, they only approved U.S. companies doing it. They wouldn't let us. We tried to do it for the world. We tried to negotiate for the world. We tried to get it done. And they were saying, no, that's our responsibility. We are willing to do this for America and only for Donald Trump and only for America. So, that was the agreement. This is an American agreement. If you're an American company and you need magnets, they are going to approve it right away, which is what we needed. We tried for everybody else. But in the end, we did what we needed. And we will take off our countermeasures as they approve these magnets. We will approve their, we will remove our countermeasures and we'll be good. We have our tariffs. They are excellent. They are great for America. The trading deal is great for America. And they've agreed. We're going to examine how China can do more business with us. You know, we've got a giant trade deficit. How about China? You buy more of our agriculture. You buy more of our equipment. And I think they've agreed to that. We're going to go through that over the next couple of months. But this feels very, very positive. President Trump set the course in a very positive way. And I think this is really, really good for the foundation of our trade deals for America. This feels really good. I felt really good leaving last night.
CARL QUINTANILLA: Well, Mr. Secretary, it's potentially very good for the markets if they can be convinced that these numbers, these tariff levels are not going to change from here. Can we say that?
LUTNICK: You can definitely say that.
EISEN: Fifty five percent, I guess, is the total, including, what, the fentanyl tariffs, the higher tariffs on China, the 10% that we had previously—
LUTNICK: Well, you've got, remember, you've got all the tariffs, you got all the tariffs that President Trump set in his first term, right? And those never came up. We never discussed them at all. We have the fentanyl tariffs. And, you know, they said, look, it's very hard for us to stop fentanyl. We said, well, you stop the magnets in like an hour. You stop the magnets in an hour. How can you not stop fentanyl ingredients in an hour? Come on. You could do it if you wanted to do it. And they said, look, that's not on the table. So, we said, OK. So, we sent experts in the other room to discuss it. But the end result was they are on the 20% fentanyl tariffs are on and the 10% reciprocal tariffs are on. So, we have 30 for this, plus the 25 from his first term. You know, we're in a very good position. We like our position. We like the way things are working with China. We got to a very positive place because of the call. I mean, it really was the call that Donald Trump had with President Xi last Thursday. I mean, think about it. They agreed to get together right away and we got together on Monday. And I want to say that people from the U.K. couldn't have been kinder. They set up everything. They were fantastic for us. They created a great place. And I got to tell you, the room we were in was a perfect, I never felt more comfortable because every inch of the room was gold leafed. I mean, it was like Donald Trump, it was like the perfect place to negotiate a Donald Trump deal. President Trump would have loved that room. It was perfect for the Americans.
QUINTANILLA: Where does it leave? I think the street's curious, Mr. Secretary, how you're thinking about some of the export controls, especially on chips, as a negotiating tool versus a national security tool. We could say the same thing about college admissions and so forth. Where is that line right now?
LUTNICK: So, it's very clear. We are competing with China on, in the AI race, OK, for sure. So, we are just not going to give them our best chips. And of course they want them. Americans are the greatest inventors in the world. We are the greatest thinkers in the world, the greatest entrepreneurs in the world. All the greatest chips in the world are American, right? So, of course, they want them and of course they want to use them. And of course, we said absolutely not. Did they ask? Did they ask 20 times, 30 times? Of course they did. They do every time. And we always say no. But we needed to make sure that when they pulled out their card of these rare earth magnets, we put in ours that said, look, you just can't do that to America. America is too great, too strong. We have too many things like plane parts, right? You can't stockpile plane parts. If a part on a plane breaks, your plane's on the ground. So, plane parts, ethane. We didn't send them ethane. Ethane makes plastic. We supply 98% of their ethane. No ethane, no plastic. Imagine trying to run an economy with no plastic. So, if you want to annoy us, the United States of America under Donald Trump is strong enough to annoy you back equally. And then Donald Trump decided rather than going negative, let's go all positive. And he created really the right environment for us to do a very positive deal with the Chinese. The Chinese wanted to go in with a win-win attitude. It was very important to them that it come out win-win and respectful. And I think Donald Trump set the stage for us to have a win-win outcome. And that's why we feel so good. The president feels so good because it was very positive. We stayed very positive. None of this yelling and screaming and that kind of stuff. This was a positive amount of time. We had to get through every topic and every detail. But it was very, very positive for America. And I think it's positive for China as well.
EISEN: And you said that the President Xi and Trump just have to fully approve it. I mean, finally approve it. Don't trade deals have to be approved by Congress?
LUTNICK: No, no. This is -- this -- remember, this cleans up the -- the Geneva deal that we had set. So, this is --
EISEN: What is the Geneva deal? Can you tell us what's in that?
LUTNICK: OK. Sure. What it basically says is you will approve -- they set up this whole new process of licenses for rare earths, right? And so they set up this whole new process and it really wasn't working. They said, gee, we're trying to do it. But, you know, we have thousands of applications and they had approved the 98. You know, so like we have thousands of applications for little companies who want this for their motors. And they were just going way too slow. And so, what we did is we changed the model that if an American company applies, they will approve it right away, right away. And we send them the you know, we back the applications and they're approved right away. And that was that was the key change. We took down the tariffs as you remember, in Geneva, we took down the tariffs. They had kept this rare earth, you know, sort of approval process in place. But we showed them that we have equal approval processes on all sorts of things that they rely on in America. And that balance created the opportunity for Donald Trump to come over the top with President Xi, reset the model and let us go and negotiate right away on Monday and Tuesday after their Thursday call last week, Monday and Tuesday, and just get this off the table. And this it's off the table. I mean, we know they were talking to President Xi. We obviously were talking to President Trump all along the way. We're in a really good place. You know, this issue, we are confident is off the table because the two leaders made it so. And we're really excited about the prospects for the rest of our trade deals in America.
EISEN: Well --
LUTNICK: It feels really good here.
EISEN: I wanted to ask about that because now, you know, the clock is ticking. You guys have set the deadline for early July to have more trade deals. We're expecting more to come. What can you tell us about the progress of any of the ones you're working on? We thought Japan, India were close. We got this framework from the U.K. But what else is in -- what else is coming there?
LUTNICK: Oh, there are so many coming. But when you've got Scott, Jamieson and I spending, you know, 25 hours locked in a room with the Chinese, we're not really doing the other deals. Yes, our teams are moving them forward. But, you know, now we're going to be focused starting today. We're going to be focused on other deals. We're going to get them done. We're in good shape with lots of countries, but good shape isn't good enough for the United States of America. We want great deals that are fundamental for America. We can get them. We can get them done. We need to open these other countries markets, our farmers, our ranchers, our fishermen. They are going to have just a great time. You know, our machinists, you know, we sell lots of equipment overseas. Boeing always does amazingly well in these deals. So, this is the key to us. Can we open up our exports and end this nonsense of a 1.2 trillion-dollar trade deficit? And that's what we're working on. And you're going to see deal after deal. This is going to start coming next week and the week after and the week after. We've got lots of them in the hopper. We just want to make sure they're the best deal we possibly can make. We don't want to rush. And Donald Trump is never going to accept the rush. He only accepts the best from us. And we're going to give it to him.
QUINTANILLA: He did post this morning about the courts and the appeals courts allowing these tariffs to stay in place for now. But Mr. Secretary, if I'm another country, why wouldn't I want to slow run the discussions until the Supreme Court finally weighs in on that?
LUTNICK: Because ultimately, it's not going to matter. Donald Trump has so many authorities in America in which to execute this plan. If you don't do it this way, we'll do it another way. So, these countries -- I'll give you an example. It never ever came up in our 20 odd hours of discussion with the Chinese. Never once did the court case come up about, you know, why shouldn't they -- what's going to happen if you lose? None. In all these conversations, the conversations of all these other countries, they talked about it, but they understand Donald Trump's in charge. This tariff model is not going away. So, let's get the right deal with America.
EISEN: Which deal is proving toughest for your team?
LUTNICK: What's that? Say it again.
EISEN: Which negotiation is proving toughest? We heard that Europe, for instance, is a little bit thornier.
LUTNICK: Europe was more than thorny. They just weren't -- you know, they just weren't really engaging. And that's why you remember President Trump set out a truth saying, OK, if you're not going to talk to us, why don't you just pay us 50%? And that all of a sudden they got a little religion and made a proper offer. And once you make a proper offer, then the process begins. Remember, there are 15,000 lines of code of every product and every kind of tariff. And you just got to work through those, get those down, get America the proper opportunity to trade into these countries. Remember, we don't really sell cars there. Why don't we sell cars in Europe? Because they make the rules unfair for us. So, we need to fix those rules. So, they're fair. That takes a lot of work, but Europe has said they're on it now. They're going to do it. So, I'm optimistic that we can get there, but Europe and Europe will be probably the very, very end. They are -- they are -- I got to tell you, tough to deal with because there's 27 countries.
EISEN: Yeah.
LUTNICK: And a non-elected person in charge. So, they have like the opposite of Donald Trump, can have the opposite of Donald Trump.
QUINTANILLA: Finally, Mr. Secretary, I know you managed risk your whole career. So, how are you managing the risk that once again, China maybe doesn't comply with these critical minerals licenses? What happens then? Do we go back to London for another agreement about the agreement?
LUTNICK: Well, you got to remember that what they've agreed to approve our licenses and deliver the magnets in exchange for their students coming to our universities, us not -- us not subpoenaing all their banks and going through all their banks records to find every single thing all their banks did wrong that they want ethane that they want, you know, airplane parts. So, we can do to them what they'll do to us. So, why bother? So, I don't -- I think that's off the table. I think President Trump played it just right. He set up that we can do to them at least as much. And of course, we didn't take out a third or a half of what we did. All the stuff higher than that. Oh, my God. You got to remember every chip in the world is made with American technology. Cars have 300 chips in them. You don't get our chips. You're not making cars. So, we had a long way to go. We didn't need to take it out. President Trump took the positive route. And so I don't think that's going to happen because they know that President Trump holds just as many cards. And they actually know, of course, because he's got the biggest economy in the world. He's got more cards.
EISEN: Well, we know you're very busy and have a lot more deals to get through. So, thank you for the time and for the readout.
LUTNICK: That was -- my pleasure to be here. And you can tell the administration feels so good. And working together with Scott and Jamieson was really so much fun. It was one of the -- one of the best times I've had in a tough negotiation. Having those two as my partners couldn't have been better.
EISEN: All right. Good to hear it. Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary of the U.S.