WHEN: Today, Thursday, March 6, 2025
WHERE: CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”
Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” (M-F, 9AM-11AM ET) today, Thursday, March 6. Following is a link to video on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/03/06/commerce-secretary-howard-lutnick-usmca-goods-and-services-will-likely-be-excluded-from-tariffs-for-one-month.html.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
LUTNICK ON USMCA GOODS & TARIFFS
HOWARD LUTNICK: So it’s not likely to be just the automakers. I mean the president is going to decide this today, but he’s talking about it. But I think it’s likely that it will cover all USMCA compliant goods and services. So that which is part of President Trump’s deal with Canada and Mexico are likely to get an exemption from these tariffs.
LUTNICK: So if you think about it this way, if you lived under Donald Trump’s US, Mexico and Canada agreement, you will get a reprieve from the tariffs now. And if you chose to go outside of that, you did so at your own risk. And today is when that reckoning comes.
LUTNICK ON FENTANYL & PROTECTING AMERICAN LIVES
LUTNICK: The month now is about fentanyl and about the border. So they’ve been working hard to close the border. But we’re not seeing the reduced number of deaths of autopsy deaths from fentanyl. And the president is just right on that topic. He is going to protect American lives. And he’s being very, very tough on it. But let’s face it, if you’re not tough on protecting American lives, what’s the point of being the president of United States?
LUTNICK ON ARPIL 2 RECIPROCAL TARIFFS
LUTNICK: Now April 2nd is when we begin our reciprocal tariffs. So if you think about it, what he said was okay between now and April 2nd, I’m just going to give USMCA, I’m going to set that aside from these tariffs but just for this month. And then on April 2nd, it’s really it’s not that this reprieve starts, it’s that on April 2nd the reciprocal tariffs start. How you treat us is how we expect to treat you.
LUTNICK ON TARIFF TIMELINE
LUTNICK: This month, my expectation is the president will come to the agreement today and hopefully we will announce this today that USMCA compliant goods will not have a tariff for the next month until April 2nd. That includes the autos and the autos were the lead in getting this and getting this deal done. But also Canada and Mexico have done a good job offering us ever more work to prove to us they’re going to cut the fentanyl deaths. And then April 2nd, we’re going to move into the reciprocal tariffs and hopefully Mexico and Canada will have done a good enough job on fentanyl that this part of the conversation will be off the table and we’ll move just to the reciprocal tariff conversation. But if they haven’t, this will stay on. Black and white, this will stay on.
LUTNICK ON POSITIVE EXPLOSIVE BENEFITS TO AMERICAN FARMERS
LUTNICK: I think what’s going to happen is when you get to reciprocal tariffs, you’re going to see the most positive explosive benefit to American farmers in the history of America. I mean, that is what’s coming. We are going to use our tariffs to knock down the protectionist walls of the world. We have let everybody into our market and they have blocked us. All of these markets.
LUTNICK ON BETTING ON TRUMP
LUTNICK: The president is focused on rebuilding America. And you are going to see growth in America. You’re going to see an interest rate. When we balance the budget of the United States, you’re going to see interest rates drop 1% or more. You’re going to see the stock market explode. And if it doesn’t do it tomorrow, that’s because people just don’t understand that they should be betting on Donald Trump. If I were them and I were your viewers, I would understand the long-term trade of Donald Trump is you bet on him and he is a winner and he is going to win for America.
LUTNICK ON ROBOTICS AND APPLE
LUTNICK: You’re going to see robotic production of iPhones and the jobs that are going to be created. People who build those factories, the mechanics who work on those robots, these jobs are going to be millions and millions of those jobs. These are great high paying jobs, and you don’t need a college education to do it. This is the recreation of trade craft in the United States of America. And Donald Trump is on it. He’s bringing it back. And you are going to see Apple. Why did Apple say they were going to invest 500 billion in America? They, because they’re going to build the robots to build their iPhones in America.
For more information contact:
Jennifer Dauble
CNBC
t: 201.735.4721
m: 201.615.2787
Stephanie Hirlemann
CNBC
m: 201.397.2838
