Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick offered a forceful defense of the Donald Trump administration's tariff policies, emphasizing the United States' role as a key consumer of global goods.

What Happened: "We are the world's customer. The customer is always right," Lutnick said during a recent appearance on the All-In podcast. "When we say we're going to charge a tariff, and other countries who lean on us, who rely on us, who can't live without the oxygen that is our economy… we buy everybody's stuff."

Lutnick cited a U.S. gross domestic product of $29 trillion, with Americans purportedly spending $20 trillion. "So who is more important? Let's say they have an economy that produces stuff. And we have an economy that buys stuff. The customer is always right," he asserted.

He singled out China, contending it "consumes less than $10T and primarily tries to figure out how to sell it to itself," meaning it "doesn't buy anybody else's stuff." From Lutnick's perspective, this reliance on selling goods to the United States grants Washington leverage in trade negotiations: "We want them to come here. And if they can't come here, what if you pay us?"

See also: Trump's Reciprocal Tariffs Threaten To Derail Big Tech's Billion-Dollar AI Infrastructure Plans, Analyst Singles Out This OpenAI-Linked Project As Likely To Get Hit

The Counter-Argument: Critics argue that Trump’s aggressive tariffs on imported goods expose America's vulnerability to retaliation targeting its thriving services exports. While the U.S. maintains a significant $295 billion surplus in services — selling $1.1 trillion worth of financial products, cloud computing, and digital platforms abroad — other nations could respond by imposing hefty reciprocal tariffs or regulatory hurdles to counteract Trump’s tariffs on goods.

Foreign governments have multiple non-tariff tools, including antitrust probes, restrictive licensing, and digital-service taxes, that can seriously impede American tech giants. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, in fact, said on Thursday that the EU is preparing a slate of retaliatory measures that could include levies on digital advertising revenues from U.S. tech companies like Facebook-parent Meta and Alphabet’s Google.

Meanwhile, Economist and Obama-era Treasury Secretary Larry Summers strongly rejected claims that China has been “cheating” on trade since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, arguing instead that the U.S. has benefited from a “good deal.”

Featured image via Shutterstock

Read next: Trump's Tariff Worries? Ross Gerber Points Out Ordering EU Goods Under $800 Still Keeps You Tax-Free