Howard Lutnick, a wealthy donor to President Trump who has been picked to lead the Commerce Department, defended Mr. Trump’s plans to impose broad tariffs and said he would take a tough stance on technology sales to China during his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
If confirmed, Mr. Lutnick would lead on trade policy and oversee a broad portfolio of government programs touching on business promotion, technology and science. He told lawmakers that he favored “across the board” tariffs to equal out America’s trading relationships. He insisted that tariffs would not be inflationary, in contrast to forecasts by many economists.
Mr. Lutnick said that American farmers, ranchers and fishers were being “treated with disrespect around the world.”
“We need that disrespect to end. And I think tariffs are a way to create reciprocity, to be treated fairly, to be treated appropriately, and I think it will help our farmers, our ranchers and our fishermen to flourish,” he said.
Asked about China’s recent advances in artificial intelligence, Mr. Lutnick said he would take a tough stance on the department’s oversight of technology sales to China. He said that the recent A.I. technology released by Chinese firm DeepSeek had been underpinned by Meta’s open platform and chips sold by the U.S. firm Nvidia.
“We need to stop helping them,” he said. “I’m going to be very strong on that.”
Mr. Lutnick also told lawmakers that he planned to “study” a $50 billion program created by Congress to bolster U.S. semiconductor manufacturing, but that he would get the money out the door “appropriately” and “correctly.” Mr. Trump has recently described the program, known as the CHIPS Act, as a waste of money.
“We need domestic manufacturing,” Mr. Lutnick said. “The CHIPS Act was an excellent down payment to begin that process.”
Mr. Lutnick will play a key role in overseeing the CHIPS office, which was created in 2022 to help bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States from Asia.
Mr. Trump has recently been critical of the program — even though the program had its origins with the Trump administration, when Trump officials held out the promise of subsidies to bring Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to the United States. T.S.M.C. has located its first U.S. hub in Phoenix and was promised $6.6 billion in grants by the Biden administration.
Speaking to Republican lawmakers on Monday evening, Mr. Trump criticized the Biden administration’s investments in the chip industry, saying that semiconductor manufacturers had “left us and went to Taiwan.”
“We want them come back, and we don’t want to give them billions of dollars like this ridiculous program Biden has. They already have billions. They have nothing but money,” the president said.
As the head of the Commerce Department, Mr. Lutnick would be in charge of many other government functions that have enormous sway over the business and technology sectors. The Commerce Department is in charge of promoting business interests abroad, restricting exports by tech companies to protect national security and delivering government subsidies to the semiconductor and broadband industries, among other functions.
The agency has 51,000 workers and an $11 billion budget. It also oversees the counting of the U.S. population during the census, the regulation of America’s fisheries, patents, weather forecasting and the development of global technological standards.
Mr. Trump has also said that Mr. Lutnick would lead the administration’s trade policy more broadly, including overseeing the United States Trade Representative, a small agency that negotiates trade deals and levies certain tariffs. U.S.T.R. technically reports directly to the president, as well as to Congress.
Mr. Lutnick is the chief executive and chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, a Wall Street brokerage, and holds leadership positions at BGC, another brokerage; and Newmark Group, a commercial real estate firm. Mr. Lutnick has promised to resign the positions if nominated.
Through Cantor and his other firms, Mr. Lutnick has acquired holdings and executive positions in a stunning array of companies. Financial disclosures filed by Mr. Lutnick last week showed that he has or previously had executive positions in more than 800 companies, and had at least $800 million in assets.
Democratic lawmakers questioned Mr. Lutnick about these financial ties, including Cantor Fitzgerald’s investments in a cryptocurrency company called Tether. And in a letter addressed to Mr. Lutnick on Monday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, called Tether “a known facilitator of criminal activity that has been described as ‘outlaws’ favorite cryptocurrency,’” saying that the tool had financed Mexican drug cartels, terrorist groups and the North Korean nuclear weapons program.
The connections with Tether “raise significant questions about your own personal judgment and the conflicts of interest that you will have if you are confirmed as Commerce secretary,” Ms. Warren wrote to Mr. Lutnick.
At his hearing, Mr. Lutnick denied any wrongdoing on the part of Cantor or Tether, saying it was like “blaming Apple because criminals use Apple phones.”
“It’s just a product,” he said. “We don’t pick on the U.S. Treasury because criminals use dollars.”
For President Trump and his supporters, Mr. Lutnick’s wealth and business success are a strong qualification for the role of Commerce secretary. But Democrats view Mr. Lutnick’s financial ties with more skepticism, saying they could raise questions about his ability to put the interests of the American people ahead of those of himself and former business partners.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Mr. Lutnick also has financial interests in the mining industry in Greenland, through Cantor Fitzgerald. Cantor has invested in a company called Critical Metals Corp, which has proposed mining metals and minerals in Greenland as soon as 2026.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly proposed purchasing Greenland, which is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Demark. The governments of both Denmark and Greenland say the territory is not for sale.
Lawmakers and with Vice President JD Vance — who made a brief appearance at the hearing — touted Mr. Lutnick’s personal story, describing him as someone who had achieved great success despite facing adversity.
Mr. Lutnick, a Long Island native, lost both his parents by the time he was 18, and became chairman of Cantor at just 35. He lost his brother and most of Cantor Fitzgerald’s employees in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. A longtime donor to Mr. Trump, Mr. Lutnick more recently became a key economic adviser and helped to lead his transition team.
Mr. Lutnick has argued in favor of Mr. Trump’s economic vision, saying that lower corporate taxes, more oil production and tariffs will help to supercharge the U.S. economy. Mr. Lutnick is also a part of Mr. Trump’s efforts to eliminate parts of the federal government, and has described himself as the founding force behind the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
