Yesterday, on ABC News This Week, Jonathan Karl interviewed United States Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick. The interview covered various issues related to the Administration’s chaotic tariff policy.
Partway through the interview, Lutnick made an awkward transition away from the topic at hand – the recent, seemingly last-minute flip-flop on specific electronics tariffs – and jumped right into agricultural exports.
Gotta hit all the talking points.
The Secretary started the transition by saying, “So, I think this is going to work out. Plus, our farmers are going to finally have access to the world’s markets.”
He then continued with the utterly puzzling statement, “Our farmers have never had the opportunity to sell corn in India — so what’s going to happen … is as they sell more and more products, prices will come down.”
Quick to pump its ‘successes’, the Administration added the above quote to their Sunday Show round-up weekly Article on The White House’s website, touting ‘President Trump’s America First Trade Policies in Action’.
Great spin except for one tiny problem – Lutnick made it up – entirely.
First, the United States does sell corn to India; they have for years.
In fact, the United States is the second largest supplier of corn to India, behind South Africa.
Additionally, as noted by the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), since 2023, the United States has been India’s fastest-growing country of origin for corn imports.
Furthermore, the reality is, India doesn’t import a large amount of corn to begin with. They are actually a more significant exporter of corn than an importer of corn.
The OEC offers detailed global trade data, and it shows that India exported $729M in corn (13th largest exporter of corn in the world) vs. just $8.07M in imports (124th largest importer of corn).
Maybe, just maybe, India doesn’t actually need American corn.
So, why lie about American farmers never having had the opportunity to sell corn in India?
Was the Secretary confused?
Did he get his country or commodity mixed up?
One would expect the Secretary of Commerce to be better briefed than he appeared on Sunday.
The second mistruth that the Commerce Secretary pontificated on was his assertion that if American farmers were just selling more and more of their commodities, consumer prices would come down.
Howard Lutnick, according to his Wikipedia bio, graduated in 1983 with a degree in economics from Haverford College.
Interesting.
How will exporting more of a commodity out of American result in lower prices for the American consumer?
It won’t.
Increased export of commodities can often lead to higher domestic prices because of the increased foreign demand and the inelasticity of domestic supply.
Rural America is Trump country – he won 93% of rural counties in the 2024 General Election – an essential constituent of the Administration.
Perhaps facts don’t matter when you’re just spinning a story to pay lip service to your base.