Lutnick: Trade deals are coming, higher prices aren't

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says he's convinced of two things: The U.S. will make a long list of trade deals by mid-summer, and the tariffs forcing those deals won't raise retail prices.Why it matters: Investors, business leaders and consumers are praying he's right.Driving the news: Lutnick, a billionaire Wall Street CEO before entering government, was nothing but optimistic in an interview with Axios' Mike Allen at the Building the Future event in Washington.Asked how many of the U.S.'s 18 key trading partners would have a deal by the time a tariff pause ends July 8, he said, "I think most countries, we'll have an idea of what we want to do with them."The big picture: Lutnick is at the forefront of the Trump administration's sweeping efforts to rewrite the rules of global trade, a campaign that has disrupted the U.S. and international economies and created deep uncertainty for businesses and consumers.The president's argument: The U.S. has been treated unfairly by the world for decades, at the cost of valuable American jobs — a situation that can only be fixed by a more aggressive approach.Between the lines: Over the last few days, the single most important question about the tariffs has been what they'll do to the American consumer.Lutnick recently decried "silly arguments" that tariffs raise prices. A few days later, Walmart said they'd do exactly that, and a number of other companies have hinted at the same since. The commerce secretary didn't flinch, though. "The president has to stand strong, and you can't fix things in a day, and that's still going, but I would expect that prices in America will be unaffected."Reality check: Notwithstanding Lutnick's certainty, retail executives expect cost pressures to build week by week, with price increases getting much more noticeable by late June or early July. The intrigue: While U.S. trade relations work through their biggest disruption in nearly a century, Lutnick and Trump are pushing a different incentive for foreign business leaders: a $5 million "gold card" that would confer permanent U.S. residency.The website, trumpcard.gov, will launch within a week"Everyone I meet who's not an American is going to want to buy the card if they have the fiscal capacity," he said."This is for people who can help America pay off its debt. Why wouldn't you want a Plan B that says, God forbid something bad happens, you come to the airport in America and the person in immigration says, 'Welcome home.'"

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