Trump's Commerce Secretary's Former Investment Bank Taking Bets Against Tariffs

4 pavel_lishin 1 9/2/2025, 2:23:58 PM wired.com ↗

Comments (1)

pavel_lishin · 16h ago
From a Reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1n5n1rf/trump_fac...

> This is next-level corruption. Howard Lutnick, the current Commerce Secretary, is a key figure in pushing for these tariffs. At the same time, his sons who are now running his old company, Cantor Fitzgerald, are creating a financial product to profit from the tariffs.

> The scheme works like this:

> 1. Small businesses get hit with massive tariffs that they can't afford to wait years to get back through the courts.

> 2. Cantor Fitzgerald offers to buy their right to a future refund for a small percentage of the value (around 20-30 cents on the dollar).

> 3. If a court overturns the tariffs, Cantor Fitzgerald gets the full refund from the government, making a huge profit.

> Essentially, the Lutnicks are profiting from a policy that their family is directly involved in creating, while simultaneously taking advantage of the financial desperation it causes for other businesses. It's a textbook case of profiting from the public trust. The father creates the chaos with tariffs, and the sons swoop in to feast on the wreckage, paying pennies on the dollar for what the government owes. It's a ghoulish, predatory strategy where they profit from both the policy and the ruin it creates for everyone else.