Yes, We Have No Banana 🍌 Factories. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Is a Fucking Idiot. Bless His Heart

Jun 6, 2025 10:38 PM EDT, Fri

Lutnick and congresswoman clash over tariffs, banana prices at House hearing

Jun 5, 2025 Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania pressed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick at a House hearing about trade deficits and the uncertainty Presiden Trump’s tariff plan has caused since its rollout in April. Dean brought up Walmart increasing the price of bananas amid the administration’s tariffs.

Commerce’s Lutnick receives a timely reminder: ‘We cannot build bananas in America’

While trying to defend tariffs, the commerce secretary was asked about the rising price of bananas. His response didn’t do him any favors.

June 6, 2025, 2:47 PM EDT By Steve Benen

Ahead of Donald Trump’s second inaugural, there were plenty of rumors that billionaire Howard Lutnick was well positioned to lead the Treasury Department — one of the most sought-after positions in any White House Cabinet. The Associated Press reported that some prominent supporters had lobbied on his behalf.

Those efforts ultimately fell short, and Trump tapped Lutnick to serve as commerce secretary. As for why, exactly, he didn’t get a more prominent position, The Bulwark reported two weeks after Election Day that Lutnick kept “shooting himself in the foot” with foolish rhetoric. The report quoted a Trump adviser who said Lutnick needed to learn how to “shut the fuck up.”

And yet, he keeps finding microphones and making things worse for himself.

This week, for example, Lutnick appeared on Capitol Hill, where he seemed eager to defend the president’s policies on trade tariffs.

As part of one especially memorable exchange, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA4) asked the Cabinet secretary, “What’s the tariff on bananas?” He responded, “The tariff on bananas would be representative of the countries that produce them,” before ultimately acknowledging that the rate would be 10%.

The congresswoman reminded the witness that Walmart has already increased the cost of bananas by 8%. After pointing to the possibility of increasingly unlikely trade deals, Lutnick eventually declared: “If you build in America, and you produce your product in America, there will be no tariff.”

It was at that point that Dean lowered the boom. “We cannot build bananas in America,” she explained.

Lutnick didn’t respond, which was just as well given the circumstances.

Complicating matters for the commerce secretary, embarrassing moments like these have become a staple of his tenure. Lutnick announced that the president was preparing to waive taxes on Americans earning under $150,000 per year, only to walk that back soon after. He urged a national television audience to buy stock in Tesla, sparking an ethics controversy the White House struggled to defend.

In one especially glaring incident, Lutnick suggested that only criminals would complain about missing a Social Security check. A month later, the secretary pitched a “new model” of American employment that sounded an awful lot like the factory jobs that existed in the 19th century.

And don’t even get me started on his ““little screws to make iPhones”” comments.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Lutnick’s rhetorical record was proving to be so “challenging” to the White House that officials asked him to start saying less. He might need a reminder.

Steve Benen Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

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