Howard Lutnick at the World Economic Forum

Did you know that reading allows for faster information consumption, with an average reading speed of 250–300 words per minute compared to 150–160 words per minute for listening? So, if you don’t have 40+ minutes to enjoy Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick's conversation about America-first and related topics, you can glean some of its most interesting insights in this transcript. The moderator is Adam Tooze, a professor at Columbia University; Howard Lutnick is President Trump's Secretary of Commerce.
Most discussion and comments of panelists except for Lutnick's, and some conversational words that are not pertinent to the discussion, have been removed.

American goals in 2026

Howard Lutnick: We are in Davos at the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the Trump administration and myself, we are here to make a very clear point: Globalization has failed the West and the United States of America. It's a failed policy. It is what the WEF has stood for --which is export offshore -- find the cheapest labor in the world-- and the world is a better place for it.

The fact is, it has left America behind. It has left the American workers behind, and what we are here to say is that America-first is a different model. One that we encourage other countries to consider, which is that our workers come first. We can have policies that impact our workers. Sovereignty is your borders. You're entitled to have borders. You shouldn't offshore your medicine. You shouldn't offshore your semiconductors. You shouldn't offshore your entire industrial base and have it be hollowed out beneath you. You should not be dependent for that which is fundamental to your sovereignty on any other nation.

And if you're going to be dependent on someone, it darn well better be your best allies. Okay? And so, that is a different way of thinking. It is completely different than the WEF. I viewed the WEF as not a flag pole in the middle, but in fact, they are the flag, whichever way the wind blew.— You should have solar. You should have wind.

Why are you going to do solar and wind? Why would Europe agree to be NetZero in 2030 when they don't make a battery? They don't make a battery. So, if they go by 2030, they are deciding to be subservient to China who makes the batteries. Why would you do that?

Why would the United States of America which has oil and natural gas, try to convert to all electricity? China does not have oil and natural gas. Electricity and electric cars make perfect sense to them. That is practical and logical. So the point I want to make and I want people to think about, is, that America-first is the job of our government-- to take care of our workers, to make sure their lives are better for it, and then, don't be America alone, right? But be America-first.

And I would suggest that policy is something for other countries to deeply consider to take care of their own, and then we will work out wonderful relationships between us. But I want to point out when America shines, the world shines. Close your eyes and think of a world without America in it. It becomes pretty dark pretty darn quickly without America, right?

And everyone said, "Oh, you're going to do all these tariffs. They are going to destroy the world." The world's stock markets are up. Which ones of them? All of them.

Can I bring you back to Greenland? No. It's unnecessary. --The Western Hemisphere is vital for the United States of America. Our national security people are on it and they care about it. And I'm going to leave it to them to address with our allies, with our friends, and with everyone, how they work it out. But the Western Hemisphere matters to the United States of America. And the United States of America, as I've just articulated, really, really matters to the world.

When America shines, the world shines, because they all need to make sure America is strong and powerful to take care of them, God forbid. And so, I think America and the Western Hemisphere are vital to America. And I'm going to leave that to my national security people to address.

Moderator: Right. The rest of us, I think, are finding it harder to make that kind of separation clearly. And I would be curious to know how, um, the representatives of the UK and Canada might want to think about these issues. Do you see them as starkly divided as Secretary Lutnick would like us to have them? Does this logic of what's good for America is good for the world convince in this extraordinarily strong, extremely eloquent expression that we've just heard? You go first. Thank you. Thanks France. Lovely...

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Lutnick: Clearly, I'd like the UK— who was our great friend and ally, to be aligned with us. Right? That's clear. Uh, with respect to interest rates in America, there's been a classic policy that when the US economy does well, raise rates and put breaks on it. When the US economy is doing poorly, cut rates and add gas to it. Both basically define mediocrity, one way or the other. And President Trump thinks quite differently. We have the best credit in the world. Why are we paying a higher rate than all the other credits of the world? It makes no sense. Our rates are too high. It's just binary.

Our rate should be much lower so that our economy can finally flourish. I think we're going to grow more than five percent GDP this quarter. And that's for the $30 trillion US economy. And if rates were lower, you would see us hit six percent. What is holding us back is ourselves. Okay? We are going to align our economy and our industrial policy with growth and success, and we hope to export that. I hope the UK follows our energy policy, follows our digital policy, so that our great tech companies can invest in the UK, can invest in Canada, can invest in Europe.

But they can't if they have the digital services act, the digital markets act, the digital this, the digital that. Europe has taxed our companies with fines and regulatory attacks more than they've earned in taxes on their own technology companies.

Instead of saying, Come and build and grow and build data centers here, they tax the heck out of them with fines and regulations that harm them. It's illogical. There's a reason the United States has $18 trillion dollars of economic power coming in. You just watch. I couldn't say five percent and I couldn't say I think six percent if we cut interest rates is in the cards unless that $18 trillion comes to America to build. And let me give you a hint. It's coming and it's coming fast.

But I ask you about the principle of independence: Who gets to decide whether they should be higher or lower? Whether your right should be independent or should you and the president get to decide that? Well, thank you for putting me in it. It has nothing to do with me, but thank you. Uh, the president of the United States gets to pick the members of the board of governors. He will pick the governors that he thinks are the best and therefore the outcome will be set by the governors. That is set. The president has clearly set what he thinks the right answer is, which is lower rates based on our credit, not based on some other nonsense. But he will pick the governors and the outcomes will be set by the Fed governors.

Moderator: That I find illuminating in the sense that it's the sheer drama of your vision of potential American growth that helps us better understand the stakes in the struggle over the Fed. I think that is actually for me quite an illuminating answer. It segues very well with the AI discourse as well about the urgency of the current moment and the coincidence of the AI boom with the first year of the Trump presidency. As a historian, I think we'll look back on as a hugely powerful moment. We had a bunch of really other interesting questions...

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Question from Press: ... What about the sovereignty of other nations, and this is linked to your role, because the threats on Greenland are no longer hypothetical. You're already proposing economic warfare against uh eight European countries. So how does this add up? Does sovereignty matter or not?

Lutnick: So, I'll try to start on this side which is when we launched our tariff regime. On April 2nd the world was a flutter with all of these kind of comments. But since then if you check at the end of 2025 you will see all of the key indicators are up. The UK stock market's up. Europe's stock market is up. Japan is up. Korea is up. They are all up because, as it turns out, there is much more stability in a strong America and a natural and long-term relationship between two countries.

I think with respect to the tariff policy, the president uses tariff policy to make sure people are talking and paying attention and not just acting. You have seen him use tariff policy again and again to have outcomes that are reasonable and appropriate. So the fact that he doesn't want things to be done without discussion and without consideration, is a way for him to say, "Hey, you know, you need to talk to us. If you're our great ally, you need to talk to us."

Do I think the trade deals that we've set with Europe, with the UK, are they durable? I absolutely do. I do not see a model where Europe would decide -- I want to blow up the tariff I have on automobiles or on pharmaceuticals or on semiconductors. I'd like to just go back to the way it was in April-- I just don't see that happening. What I see happening is diplomacy and talking and at the table rather than action, which is something I think the president cares about and is important to the president.

And I said I will leave that to my national security people. But the president is clear minded and clear of thought. He feels and he's talked about this for 30 years. He has felt that the industrial policy of the United States allowed it to be hollowed out. And that that would be true of Britain and that would be true of Europe. That all of this has moved to Asia, right? Where they make everything and we just buy it and that has got to end. We need to produce things in America. We need to produce things and we encourage the UK to do the same. Right? And you agree.

It's not as if we disagree. So that's the history. And sovereignty for America says we need to have our own steel. We need to have aluminum. We can have it with great allies. But we cannot have it where we rely on other people -that -maybe like we've seen- in critical minerals. And make no mistake about it, the critical mineral issue was with us a year ago.

Everybody was sleeping through it. Donald Trump ripped the band-aid off and the whole world said, "Oh my god." And that is the intuition and power of Donald Trump's presidency is that he's teaching the world what is wrong. And now the world is working together with respect to critical minerals to fix it. Right? But there are all sorts of things that need to be fixed. One of which is a modification of industrial policy,that the United States of America should be a place where you build things. And I would encourage the UK to do the same.

Granted, it can't be everything to everyone, but there are a lot of things. Same for Canada, same for all our allies. And what happens if Europe retaliates with tariffs of its own? Well, then we'll be back to a 'tit for tat,' which is how we began, and it will end in a very positive conversation between Donald Trump and Ursula von der Leyen, which is what happened last time. So, you can start with a kerfuffle, but in the end, right, the United States and Europe are great allies. The United States and the UK are great allies. These are great allies, right?

We are great allies with Canada. We are great allies. It doesn't mean you don't have an argument. It doesn't mean you don't disagree, but it doesn't change the fundamentals of the United States knows who our allies are. And if we're going to have a kerfuffle, so be it. But we know where it's going to end. It's going to end in a reasonable manner. That— In our view, prior to Donald Trump taking the helm of the United States of America, the world was taking the piss on us, right? And we were exporting the power of our economy to the rest of the world.

In one year of change, I just said my expectation is GDP of the United States of America is over five percent in the first quarter of 2026. That's just my opinion. But so far in the first quarter, if you saw what I said, I said I thought the United States would grow four percent. And the whole world said, "You got to be kidding me." Four-point-three percent in the third quarter. You're going to see plus five percent from the United States of America, the $30 trillion economy winning, and that's good for the world.