Manufacturing Momentum Or Market Mirage? Commerce Secretary Talks Revival, Dismisses Recession Warnings

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is standing firm behind the Trump administration’s plans to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. despite surveys showing pessimistic consumers and recession fears.

What To Know: Tuesday on CNBC’s “The Exchange,” Lutnick touted that President Donald Trump‘s tariff chess game is working.

Foreign countries are on the verge of announcing large investments in America, Lutnick added, without providing specifics.

Trump announced sweeping tariffs on countries across the globe on April 2, which he called "Liberation Day" for America. However, Trump ended up putting a 90-day pause on most tariffs to allow other nations time to negotiate. Despite the pause, which excludes Chinese, markets have been volatile.

Lutnick indicated on Tuesday that the U.S. has reached one definite trade deal with an unnamed country. He said he can’t announce the deal until the other country approves the announcement. He said it would come from Trump when it was ready to be announced.

The S&P 500, tracked by the SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY), moved to the upside following the commerce secretary’s comments. Beyond trade deals, other countries have announced massive investments in the U.S., he said.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (NYSE:TSM), for example, announced plans to invest $100 billion to build semiconductor plants in the U.S. in March. Lutnick said the company would have never done so without the threat of tariffs.

However, Taiwan Semiconductor already had a $65 billion commitment under the Biden administration and a $6.6 billion grant courtesy of the CHIPS Act, which Joe Biden signed in 2022.

It’s a national security push, Lutnick explained, adding that the U.S. is not able to produce anything from phones and drones to medicines without semiconductor manufacturing on home turf.

“It’s the key … We can’t do anything unless we’ve got sufficient chips … it’s time for America to take care of itself and that’s what we’re here to do,” Lutnick stressed.

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Trade uncertainties have threatened global supply chains and raised fears about a recession.

It’s not just semiconductor manufacturing, either. Lutnick told CNBC that the U.S. is accelerating permits to build U.S. factories faster and bring advanced construction to America. We need to make steel and aluminum and manufacture cars here in America, he said.

“You’re going to see the greatest resurgence of domestic car manufacturing ever over the next two years,” Lutnick said.

One of the biggest criticisms of the manufacturing resurgence plans is that the U.S. doesn’t seem to have enough people willing to work in those jobs. Lutnick explained that the Trump administration is pushing for community college training to attract young Americans to jobs that require technical knowledge of robotics manufacturing.

“This is the future of American manufacturing … We are going to drive the high-value, high-performance jobs to America, and of course the rest of the world is going to make the low-value things and sell it to us inexpensively. Of course that’s the model. People just don’t want to listen to the truth no matter how many times we say it,” he said.

“Donald Trump is going to produce the greatest growth of the domestic economy ever seen.”

So far, it’s a tough sell. Surveys show that most Americans are unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy throughout his first 100 days in office, and economists forecast a recession. Lutnick told CNBC that they are getting it wrong.

What they are missing is that the purpose of trade deals is to drive America’s ability to export, which in turn will help boost GDP, he argues.

“We want to sell there, and we want to have more production here,” he said.

The SPY was last up 0.71%, trading at $554.75 at the time of publication Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro.

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