CNBC'S RICK SANTELLI TO RETIRE

The Catastrophic Corruption of the Trump Tariffs Imagine the government adds $100 to the price of something you buy in the name of creating more jobs in America. You pay the extra $100. Later, the Supreme Court rules that the government never had the authority to impose the charge. No jobs were created and everyone is $100 poorer. You would assume at the very least that you get your $100 back. You don’t. The company that collected the $100 gets to keep it and they can even take some of their ill-gotten profits and donate it to the government to support more policies exactly like this . Making matters more despicable, imagine that while the legality of that $100 charge is still being fought in court, the family firm of a US cabinet official out promoting the policy he knows is illegal -- at the same time begins exploring whether he can buy the rights to those future refunds when it is in fact fpound to bve illegal. That’s what happened with Donald Trump’s tariffs. In April 2025, Trump announced sweeping tariffs designed to protect American workers and rebuild American manufacturing. One of their most aggressive advocates was Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Before joining the administration, Lutnick spent nearly thirty years running Cantor Fitzgerald, the Wall Street firm that made him a billionaire. When he entered government, leadership passed to his sons. While Lutnick was publicly advocating Trump’s tariffs, Cantor was reportedly exploring buying the rights to potential tariff refunds from companies collecting them from you. The tariffs were already facing serious legal challenges. Everyone involved knew there was a possibility that the courts could rule that the President lacked the authority to impose them. A cabinet secretary was helping promote a massive illegal government policy while the financial firm he had spent his career building, now run by his sons, explored how to profit when that same policy was subsequently declared unlawful. Cantor and Lutnick say it did not execute these trades, and reporting about whether transactions occurred has conflicted. Here is the circularity. The tariff was sold politically as protection for the American worker. The tariff cost was paid by you, the American consumers. And when the government was ordered to return the money, legal refund went to the company that took your money not you who paid it. Meanwhile, the Cabinet Secretary the most aggressive promoter of the illegal tariffs was exploring creating contracts to turn those refunds of YOUR MONEY into huge personal profits. And last but not least the companies that kept the refunds are then able to fund the Trump government via crypto purchase of TrumpCoin, subscriptions to advance previews of Trump policy announcements and donations to the polical party and its pet projects, like the ballroom. So follow the money. The worker supplied the justification. The consumer he cost. The corporation held the refund claim. The corporations may have sold that claim to the Trump Cabinet member who most aggressively pushed the tariffs and your money flows back to the people making these policies. Meanwhile manufacturing jobs stay in Mexico and China.. The is one of the most outrageous scams I have ever witnessed. That people so close to the creation and promotion of government policy were anywhere near the opportunity to profit from the known possibility that the policy itself would be overturned. And remember why the tariffs were politically possible in the first place. For decades, American workers watched corporations benefit enormously from globalization while factories disappeared and manufacturing communities deteriorated. Trump promised those people that government was finally going to protect them. Instead, they found themselves at the losing end of another financial transaction sold as a way to help them. The worker was promised protection. The consumer paid. The corporation got the refund. And people close to the government tried to profit from it. That is the catastrophic corruption of the Trump tariffs.