‘We talk most nights, often around 1 a.m.” That’s how Howard Lutnick has described his phone calls with President Donald Trump – conversations that range from Canadian steel tariffs to politics and television, and that have placed him at the center of trade talks with major partners including Canada and Japan.
A longtime Wall Street executive who co-chaired the Trump-Vance transition, Lutnick entered office as an outspoken advocate of the president’s tariff agenda. The New Yorker dubbed him Trump’s “tariff dealmaker-in-chief,” a cabinet secretary who has spent much of his tenure fielding demands from foreign governments and corporations seeking relief.
As commerce secretary, Lutnick has turned one of Washington’s lower-profile cabinet posts into a command center for Trump’s effort to reshape global trade, with a portfolio stretching from tariffs and foreign investment to semiconductors, export controls, and artificial intelligence.
The administration uses tariffs not only to protect American industry but as leverage to draw manufacturing and investment into the United States – an approach that has drawn criticism, including from some Republicans, who argue it has disrupted trade and risks raising costs for American consumers and businesses.
The controversy itself underscores Lutnick’s importance: Foreign governments and corporate leaders seeking to understand – or change – the administration’s trade policy frequently must deal with him.
Commerce Department’s reach extends well beyond tariffs
The Commerce Department’s reach extends well beyond tariffs. It oversees critical export controls and semiconductor policy and has become a key player in Washington’s technological competition with China. Under Lutnick, it has also taken a larger role in artificial intelligence, where economic competitiveness and national security overlap.
Lutnick’s tenure has brought personal controversy as well. Files released in 2026 showed that he had lunch on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in 2012, years after he had said he cut contact with the convicted sex offender. Lutnick denied wrongdoing, saying the lunch took place during a family vacation, as he faced bipartisan calls to resign.
His public life was shaped long before Washington by September 11. Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 of its 960 New York employees that day, including his brother Gary. The relief fund Lutnick created afterward distributed $180 million to the families of colleagues who were killed. He has explicitly linked that experience to his support for Israel after October 7.
Lutnick and his wife are longtime supporters of Birthright Israel and United Hatzalah, and the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund committed $7m. to aid those affected by the war. On the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks, he accompanied Trump to the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Queens, where they met relatives of an American hostage then still held in Gaza.