Howard Lutnick said U.S. economic growth and domestic manufacturing are rebounding under President Donald Trump after decades of globalization hollowed out American industry and harmed workers across the country.
In remarks focused on trade, manufacturing, and economic policy, Lutnick criticized the long-standing approach of offshoring production to cheaper labor markets, arguing it weakened the U.S. industrial base and delivered little benefit to American workers or long-term growth.
“Think about what globalization is. Let’s find the cheapest labor in the world and do it,” Lutnick said.
“And what that means is that the workers in Ohio who make cars, in Michigan, who make cars, everybody remember once upon a time, Intel made semiconductors, and now they’re all made in Taiwan.”
Lutnick said the shift away from domestic manufacturing was not limited to the United States, but extended across Western economies.
“Why have we allowed our industrial base in America and really in Europe and in the UK to be just completely hollowed out beneath us,” he said.
“It didn’t work for the workers. It didn’t work for our economy.”
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According to Lutnick, globalization ultimately exported economic strength overseas rather than strengthening growth at home.
“What it did is exported our economy to the rest of the world,” he said.
“And so how did the us grow? Kind of about the same as the rest of the world, right? We were in the twos, they were in the high ones.”
Lutnick said that trend has reversed under President Trump’s economic agenda, pointing to recent GDP figures and projected growth.
“Now what’s happened? Think about it,” Lutnick said.
“We’re at the one year anniversary of Donald Trump. In the third quarter, we grew 4.3% and I’m telling you, in the first quarter we’re in right now, I think we’re going to grow over 5%.”
He said that growth rate represents a significant shift for the U.S. economy.
“The $30 trillion US economy is now going to be growing at 5% or more,” Lutnick said, attributing the increase to policy changes that prioritize domestic production.
“Because we are taking care of ourselves, we finally have an industrial policy that is sensible for America, right?” he said.
“It’s going to grow manufacturing in America.”
Lutnick pointed to specific investments as evidence of what he described as a re-industrialization strategy taking shape across the country. He cited a recent announcement in New York as an example.
“I was in Syracuse, we announced the opening of a $1 billion $100 billion mega fab building high bandwidth memory, right in upstate New York,” he said.
“When was last time upstate New York had any investment, let alone one that’s going to bring in 25,000 jobs?”
He also referenced a major commitment from Micron Technology to expand manufacturing in the United States.
“The microns investment in America of $200 billion it’s going to bring in 90,000 jobs to America,” Lutnick said.
According to Lutnick, these investments represent only part of a broader shift in capital flows back to the United States.
“And we have over 750 billion of that coming to America,” he said.
Lutnick said the scale and scope of the investments reflect a deliberate effort to rebuild domestic manufacturing capacity after decades of decline.
“This is how you re industrialize America,” he said.
“This is how you do it under Donald Trump.”
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