Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick at World Economic Forum: ‘Globalization Has Failed the West’
“The fact is, it has left America behind. It has left the American worker behind.”
The World Economic Forum may seem like a rather dry topic, but this moment of commentary by Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been making the rounds on social media and for good reason.
Lutnick is responding to a question about Trump’s interest in Greenland, but ends up offering an excellent lesson about the meaning of Trump’s ‘America First’ strategy.
Transcript via Real Clear Politics:
QUESTIONER: What I struggle more with is how you imagine others react to this. I mean, if you put yourself in the position of your Danish counterpart—who’s a proud Dane and a loyal executive of the Danish government’s position—how do you envision this going? How does this go down?
HOWARD LUTNICK: Well, I think you should start at a much higher level.
Okay. We are in Davos, at the World Economic Forum, and the Trump administration—and myself—we are here to make a very clear point.
Globalization has failed the West and the United States of America. It’s a failed policy. It is what the WEF has stood for, which is export offshore, far-shore, find the cheapest labor in the world and the world is a better place for it.
The fact is, it has left America behind. It has left the American worker behind. And what we are here to say is that America First is a different model—one that we encourage other countries to consider—which is that our workers come first. We can have policies that impact our workers.
Sovereignty is your borders. You’re entitled to have borders. You shouldn’t offshore your medicine. You shouldn’t offshore your semiconductors. You shouldn’t offshore your entire industrial base and have it be hollowed out beneath you.
You should not be dependent for that which is fundamental to your sovereignty on any other nation. And if you’re going to be dependent on someone, it darn well better be your best allies.
Okay? And so that is a different way of thinking. It is completely different than the WEF.
I view the WEF as not a flagpole in the middle, but in fact they are the flag—whichever way the wind blew.
So with blue, you should have solar, you should have wind. Why are you going to do solar and wind? Why would Europe agree to be net zero in 2030 when they don’t make a battery? They don’t make a battery.
So if they go 2030, they are deciding to be subservient to China, who makes the batteries. Why would you do that?
Here’s the clip:
Globalization has FAILED.
Secretary Lutnick at the World Economic Forum:
“The Trump Administration and I are here to make a very clear point—globalization has failed the West and the United States of America. It’s a failed policy… and it has left America behind.”
America is… pic.twitter.com/Urxl7pZwSe
— U.S. Commerce Dept. (@CommerceGov) January 20, 2026
You can watch a longer version below:
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Make Screw Machines Great Again.
I’m 61, and the Acme/Gridley automatic turret lathe was everywhere when I entered the workforce in 1985. You can only find them as scrap now.
Manufacturing should be done on our own land.
Globalism has failed because it is an extension of socialism/communism, i.e. our “betters” making decisions we could make for ourselves and better, while they amassed power and wealth.
The American values of rugged individualism and self sufficiency should prevail, both for the citizens and the country as a whole.
If, by saying it’s “left America behind,” he means that we are still in a position to reject and recover from the progressive influence, thanks in large part to PRESIDENT Trump, then I agree.
Selling out to China, or letting them steal our tech, is surrender, and Americans, at least the older ones, don’t surrender.
No one told the first world middle class that globalization would mean a world middle class that would be a greatly reduced standard of living for them. The rich would remain unaffected. Embrace the suck.
well, failed the west that didnt want to become sneaky conniving low life socialist/communists
globalization is the warm fuzzy collectivism hidden as yet another lefty trickery moment that they still teach in k-12
Cue the outrage from the neocon/globalist and faux libertarians (pro monopoly/corporatist). The ‘new normal’ is basically to view every policy, every regulation, every program, every gov’t action both existing or proposed through the lens of a single question;
Does this work to the material benefit economically, safety, security and prosperity of the broad middle-class? (the 70% between the bottom 15% and the top 15%) If not then it is likely not gonna pass muster with the growing political consensus of the center/right populist movement aka MAGA/Tea Party.
Globalization was NEVER intended to benefit anyone other than those in charge of installing and administering it.
That class is largely non-productive; they can only steal the wealth created by the larger working/middle class. As the middle class expands and becomes more prosperous, the scum at the top feel increasingly outraged that the money and the power is not rendered exclusively to them.
Feudalism is the natural state of our parasite classes.
Let the EU find out the hard way what globalization really means. Meanwhile, the US will prosper.
China really wants Europe as a dumping ground for their output.
They’re already dumping their subsidized cost-cut cars built with stolen tech and slave labor everywhere they can to drive out established domestic manufacturers. The US is one of the few countries smart enough to keep them out.
The only people benefiting from globalization are entrenched politicians amassing more power, control, and money and, corporations especially but not limited large transnationals looking to leverage third world labor to reduce manufacturing costs and depress the salary structure of their native employees especially their technical staffs, but really anyone below the executive boardroom level.
Plus the army of very well compensated bureaucrats in govt, the vast number ‘contractors’ who are adjuncts and the executives/staff/board members of the NGOs…then all the corresponding structure in the corporate/private sector of attorneys, lobbyists, CPAs necessary to at best mitigate the impact on their masters and at worst engage in rent seeking or cost shifting.