Howard Lutnick Doesn't Get To Decide What You Buy
There is no "royal we" in the marketplace.

Every day, thousands of transactions take place in which Americans and Canadians consent to exchange currency for goods.
Commerce* Secretary Howard Lutnick thinks there is someone they forgot to ask.
"We don't want to buy 60 percent of our aluminum from Canada," Lutnick explained during an interview with Fox News on Thursday. "We want to bring [aluminum production] to America."
Lutnick's phrasing there is pretty telling. There is no "royal we" in the marketplace—that Canadian aluminum is not being bought by the federal government, but by private American businesses, which are making deals with private companies on the other side of the border.
There is, indeed, no reason to think about those transactions in a nationalist way at all. The economy is not a World Cup match. When Canadian companies exchange their aluminum for American companies' money, both sides win.
About 60 percent of the aluminum used by American companies to make all manner of products comes from Canada. That should be none of Lutnick's business. In fact, no one should have to give a flying fuck what the commerce secretary—a position that really shouldn't even exist—thinks about where American businesses source their aluminum (or any other product). What happened to the days when Republicans believed businesses should be free from interference from Washington?
What Lutnick is talking about is central planning, plain and simple. It's also just silly. How much of America's aluminum supply should come from Canada if not 60 percent? Is 50 percent the right amount? Is it 17.54 percent? Lutnick doesn't know—because no one does—because that's a question without an answer.
Clearly, however, the Trump administration wants the figure to be lower. New 25 percent tariffs on aluminum imports might accomplish that, but at significant cost to American consumers and businesses, whose only offense is buying aluminum from sources located within a country that is a close American ally and the signatory of a trade deal that the current president negotiated just five years ago.
Lutnick's message, in essence, is that none of that matters if the current set of elected and appointed officials in Washington suddenly decide otherwise. That's a deeply flawed way to run both an economy and a government.
Later, in that same Fox News interview, Lutnick asked whether Americans should be doing business in Canada at all. "Why are we doing all this business in Canada if they're not respectful and thankful?"
There's that "we" again.
As for the answer to his question, I'd suggest he read up on Adam Smith, who famously wrote that "it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." That's true even when the butcher is an aluminum smelter located in another country.
America doesn't need Canada to thank us for doing business with them. (How would that even work? Does the whole country have to sign a giant card? And how often must one be sent?)
And the country certainly doesn't need Lutnick deciding what can be bought and sold, and in what amounts. "We" will always be better off when businesses and consumers can buy and sell across borders freely.
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correct Lutnick's title
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What Lutnick is talking about is central planning, plain and simple.
Lutnick is a statist bastard. Think Wesley Mouch. That's him.
“Wesley Mouch came next. He spoke about social planning and the necessity of unanimous rallying in support of the planners. He spoke about discipline, unity, austerity and the patriotic duty of bearing temporary hardships. “We have mobilized the best brains of the country to work for your welfare. This great invention was the product of the genius of a man whose devotion to the cause of humanity is not to be questioned, a man acknowledged by all as the greatest mind of the century ----DONNIE!
(Ayn Rand)
Mouch/Lutnick right out of the MAGA playbook.
Lol. I knew you'd be horrified by someone praising self-control.
Good thing Pete Bootyjudge didn't do the exact same thing except worse over the last four years, right Pluggly?
Why do you hate free markets?
ALL Superior Marxist PervFected Necrophiliac Government-Almighty-Worshitters hate free markets!!! ESPECIALLY the Moose-Mammary Marxists among them!!! Someone MIGHT engage in cunt-sensually agreed-upon economic exchanges, WITHOUT spermission, after all!!!!
Why do you hate free markets, Shrike?
Why do you hate free markets, Sqrlsy?
Why do you fuck children? Why do you jack it to videos of small children being raped? And further, what would possess you to share your vile pastime here?
Also, why haven’t you committed suicide yet?
He doesn't fuck children.
He WANTS to.
Even children won't touch him.
And he's too much of a pussy to physically beat a child without the child whipping his ass.
No Taxation without Representation!
On the other hand, taxation WITH representation hasn't been all that great.
Since the unhinging of revenue with what it is spent on (Obama, Biden, Pelosi) you are not represented. Congress spends money it does not have and then assesses you for it.
"Why are we doing all this business in Canada if they're not respectful and thankful?"
We've achieved a new level of stupid.
Can't tell what point you are making. But Quickstown is right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XyPKofRP00
Best video response I've ever seen
Trump violating his own trade deal is horrifying, stupid, funny, and embossing (as a nation).
Well Tony, you’re also horrifying, and stupid. As well as ignorant, dull witted, boorish, annoying, debauched, and profoundly faggoty.
But I am not a cult figure followed by millions and trying to destroy our country.
Yet again, having cheap shit when you do not have a job is not a win.
Getting a job is a you problem. We don’t have to subsidize your lack of employability by paying thousands more for our cars or our houses or our vegetables. The free market works. Command economies don’t.
"Sure, this industry no longer exists. But, hey, I can get cheap shit now. Yay!!"
Yup, that is a good policy. Really, it is.
There is no free market here. Tariffs end that myth immediately.
But you miss the 2 economic connections. THe dollar you spend on say Chinese solar (they have 89% of the entire supply chain) is money you can't spend American
AND
You don't have a job because school made you stupid. If an employer got more out of you than you cost him, you would have a job
So the states should not ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars?
Correct.
CORRECT
"Treasury Secretary Howard Lutnick" -- isn't he Commerce Secretary?
Yes, he is.
When Canadian companies exchange their aluminum for American companies' money, both sides win.
Yea, but who cares about their side. Wouldn't it be better if American companies exchanged their aluminum for American aluminum buyers American money?
Comparative advantage does not mean you commit suicide if it is cheaper.
The COVID nonsense showed the massive problems with having a lack of self-sufficiency. Libertarians do not want to rectify that problem. C'est la vie.
He is so right --- and wasn't REASON screaming when the opposite happened and steel and auto and all the basic industries were leaving the US. This is cut-and-dried : You are hypocrites. What Lutwick is doing should be done with great vigor. I know, I know just make sure there's enough roofing and lawn mowing jobs for 10 million illegal immigrants. Got it.
"There is no "royal we" in the marketplace."
Tell that to the democrats.
I want to buy a high flow shower head.
I want to buy a large volume flush toilet.
I want to buy a weapon without a background check.
I want to buy medicines with a top an arthritic old man can open.
But 'somebody' said I can't do any of that.
Too bad that no one seems to want to talk about why so much aluminum is imported from Canada: it's cheaper. And why is is cheaper? Because making aluminum is hideously electricity intensive (not just power for heat, but electricity to create the ingots). And Canada has electric power that is, on average about 1/3 the cost of US electricity. So, until the US gets it together and either (re)builds a bunch of hydro dams, or cuts to the chase and gets back into the nuclear business, aluminum is going to be best purchased from our northern neighbors.