Howard Lutnick Doesn’t Get To Decide What You Buy
Every day, thousands of transactions take place in which Americans and Canadians consent to exchange currency for goods.
Treasury Secretary Howard Lutnick thinks there is someone they forgot to ask.
“We don’t want to buy 60 percent of our aluminum from Canada,” Lutnick explained during an interview with Fox News on Thursday. “We want to bring [aluminum production] to America.”
Lutnick’s phrasing there is pretty telling. There is no “royal we” in the marketplace—that Canadian aluminum is not being bought by the federal government, but by private American businesses, which are making deals with private companies on the other side of the border.
There is, indeed, no reason to think about those transactions in a nationalist way at all. The economy is not a World Cup match. When Canadian companies exchange their aluminum for American companies’ money, both sides win.
About 60 percent of the aluminum used by American companies to make all manner of products comes from Canada. That should be none of Lutnick’s business. In fact,
Article from Reason.com
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