Trump’s ultimate ‘goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service’ and use tariffs, Howard Lutnick says.
One of President Donald Trump’s newest Cabinet picks said that the administration is aiming to abolish the IRS and rely on tariffs and other revenues.
“His goal is to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” Commerce Department Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox News on Wednesday night.
“As the president said, reciprocal tariffs, either you bring yours down or we’re going to bring ours up. If we go to their level, it will earn us $700 billion a year to be equal to everybody else.”
With those tariffs, Lutnick said, the Trump administration believes it could reduce deficit spending.
“There goes our deficit. And interest rates come smashing down, and the whole economy explodes higher,” said Lutnick, the former chief executive of Wall Street company Cantor Fitzgerald
“We’ve got the power. We’ve got to use tariffs. We’ve got to use the External Revenue Service to take care of America and cut the scams and the abuse, the waste. And let’s make America great.”
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That means “no deficit and, basically, try to eliminate the Internal Revenue Service and our taxes,” he said. “Cut taxes, try, try to get them down because we’re great, and we collect the money.”
Early in his presidency, Trump signed an order to create an External Revenue Service to collect duties, tariffs, and other foreign trade-related revenues for the U.S. government. Meanwhile, he has issued tariffs on aluminum, steel, and other products, while warning that he could impose broad tariffs on countries.
In early February, Trump said he would impose 25 percent tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and Canada before postponing those duties to March. The president, however, did impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods, coming years after he placed duties on China under his first administration.
Trump told a business conference in Miami this week that lumber, drugs, and computer chips will also be subject to U.S. tariffs in the near future.
“I’m going to be announcing tariffs on cars and semiconductors and chips and pharmaceuticals, drugs and pharmaceuticals and lumber, probably, and some other things over the next month or sooner,” Trump said at a conference in Miami.
And last week, he unveiled plans to slap reciprocal tariffs on all countries that have tariffs on U.S. goods or set up non-tariff barriers to limit U.S. access to their markets.
Separately, Lutnick told Fox News that the administration is looking to crack down on cruise operators and ocean transport ships not paying taxes.
“Cruise ships—you ever see a cruise ship with an American flag on the back? They have flags of, like, Liberia or Panama. None of them pay taxes,” he said. “Every supertanker, none pays taxes. Alcohol, all foreign alcohol, no taxes. This is going to end under Donald Trump.
“And those taxes are going to be paid and Americans’ tax rates are going to come down. That’s what Donald Trump wants to do, balance our budget and cut our taxes.”
Lutnick began his position as commerce secretary on Feb. 19 after he was confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 51–45.
Reuters contributed to this report.
