President Donald Trump’s commerce secretary is apparently making enemies among his colleagues in his quest to get credit for trade deals.
Sources within the administration told Politico a long list of complaints about Howard Lutnick, who Trump hailed as a “very very successful guy” with “good ideas” last week, even as Lutnick faced scrutiny over fresh revelations that he visited the island of late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in 2012.
Some Cabinet secretaries and senior officials are said to be growing frustrated with Lutnick’s highly centralized decision-making, disregard for dissenting opinions, and abrasive, headline-seeking behavior.
Current and former officials say he centralizes nearly all decisions, requiring explicit approval before staff can engage with other agencies— something that is creating friction inside the administration.
One administration official told Politico meetings often stall because his team is under a “gag order.”
“No one’s allowed to talk to the interagency without Howard giving explicit approval,” they said. “Even when his staff show up to meetings at the White House, they’re under a gag order, and they literally just say, ‘Hi, I don’t have a position from the Secretary on this, so Commerce has no position at this time.’”
“Lutnick is sometimes very helpful and sometimes an annoyance,” another official said. “There are some issues where if you get close alignment with him, it can be very effective in doing things and driving things forward.”
They added, “a ton of issues – so many things that you need Commerce to move on – they won’t move until Lutnick signs off on it, even for kind of routine decisions."
“It just has a lot of friction. … In terms of the general workings, there’s a ton of frustration with how things are running at Commerce across not just the White House, but the broader interagency.”
Lutnick was also accused by colleagues of chasing headlines and inserting himself into deals in areas where he has little to no expertise, sometimes mucking things up just so he can claim “victory.”
“People will use the phrase there are ‘too many cooks in the kitchen,’ to keep Howard out,” an administration official said. “What they mean is don’t let Howard in the kitchen.”
Officials have also reportedly been rankled by Lutnick shouting down dissenting views during meetings, discouraging debate, and reinforcing a highly controlled, top-down culture.
“When you’re in a meeting with him, if he disagrees with what you’re saying, or if you are trying to offer, even diplomatically, an alternative view, he just completely shouts over you,” one official said.
Despite the friction between Lutnick and other administration officials, however, there is no indication that his job is at risk.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Politico that Trump “maintains complete confidence in Secretary Lutnick because he has been the most transformative Commerce Secretary in modern history and is a champion of the President’s America First trade and tariffs policies.”
He added: “Fabricated smears from anonymous sources don’t change the fact that Secretary Lutnick played a key role helping President Trump secure historic trade deals with the European Union and Japan as well as a $250 billion investment deal with Taiwan.”
Meanwhile, a Commerce spokesperson praised Lutnick in a statement noting his “important wins.”
“Secretary Lutnick is relentlessly focused on delivering for the American people, securing trillions of dollars in investment, delivering historic trade deals, and fighting for the American worker,” the statement said.
