Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick dished in an interview with The Post’s Miranda Devine that he “set the table” for President Trump to score the biggest trade deal of his administration so far with the European Union this past July.
“I do set the table, and the president calls me the best table-setter he’s ever had,” Lutnick said on the latest episode of “Pod Force One,” out now.
“I work for him, so my job is to set it up so he can close the deal and get as much as I possibly can. Don’t lay off at all. I’m not a lay off sort of guy, so I get the most that I can.”
That resulted in a deal being struck after just 75 minutes of talks at Trump’s Turnberry resort in Scotland.
“He’s everything. He’s soft and hard, at the same meeting,” Lutnick characterized the tenor of trade talks. “He’s very kind and very warm and then very sharp and very hard. And says, ‘Look,’ in the middle of the EU meeting, he said, ‘All right, I guess we’re not going to get it done. We’ll just come back in a month or two, and we’ll do it then.’”
The terms of the preliminary agreement called for the Europeans to purchase $750 billion in American energy products and invest $600 billion in US industries and military equipment.
“I think it’s the biggest deal ever made,” Trump crowed afterward. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also praised the US president as a “tough negotiator and dealmaker.”
Lutnick revealed later in the interview that he coached von der Leyen on the “superpower” the longtime German politician could use to reject unsatisfactory offers from the American president.
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“‘If you want to negotiate with him,’ I said, ‘Use your superpower. She says, ‘What’s that?’ I go, ‘You’re a woman of great authority. Just speak that way. When he says, “I’d like to do X,” if you disagree, say, “Oh no, no, no, that’s too much.
“‘Don’t say, ‘No!’” Lutnick says he told the EU leader.
“Don’t do that, because if you go at Donald Trump, he’s going to win. There’s a reason he was one of the great businessmen of the world, and he’s the president of the United States of America. He’s going to win,” he went on. “So, you have to do it with him, become his partner, do it together with him.”
The agreement also included 15% tariffs on most European goods being exported to the US — despite duties on American exports being slashed to zero.
When Trump suggested the US and EU sides try to reach an agreement at a later date, Lutnick recalled, “I said, ‘Well, we’re all here now. Why don’t we try again? Madam President, do you really want to get a deal, or do you want to wait till that time?’
“And then she jumps in, ‘No, let’s get a deal done.’”
A key dynamic, the commerce secretary said, was that the EU “knew that you had to change those numbers, that $235 billion trade surplus, that they’re selling more to us — it’s just not sustainable and it doesn’t make any sense.
“So, they knew that Donald Trump was going to fix it. So, could we fix it in the maximizing way … So, could they keep the jobs? Could they maintain their industries? Could they keep their pharmaceuticals there? These things mattered.” he added.
Ahead of the meeting in Scotland, Lutnick was working the phones to persuade EU leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron to give von der Leyen authority to negotiate on their behalf.
“She’s uncomfortable negotiating. So, we also talked about how she could negotiate with Donald Trump and be successful,” he also said.
“I told her that if you attack Donald Trump, it charges his batteries. He doesn’t back away. You know, Donald Trump, I’ve never seen him on his back foot. Like, if you come at him with energy, you just charged him up, he’s coming back at you at double.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the commerce secretary divulged that he gets around five hours of sleep per night — and the president gets even fewer.
“He’s like a centrifuge,” Lutnick said. “You go in and, zing, he goes back at you faster.”
“In every trade deal, he does it, not me. He does it,” he stressed. “I set the table, but he’ll get a better deal than I would be able to get because, shocking, he’s Donald Trump and the president of the United States of America. I mean, he’s a great negotiator and the resident, which makes him an incredible negotiator, which he was in the first place.”
