Meet Howard Lutnick: Is this the man who killed the trade talks?

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney told Canadians that he ended trade talks with the Americans because the gap between the two countries was simply “too wide in recent days” to strike a deal.

In reality, however, sources say, it was really just one late-to-the-party American negotiator, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who scuppered the talks with a series of last-minute demands on Canada.

Those new demands, which reportedly included the U.S. gaining control over which other countries Canada would be permitted to do business with, left the Canadian side with the impression that it had little choice but to walk away.

“It’s almost like they tried to derail the negotiations,” said one Canadian government source.

Carney also hinted in his press conference on Saturday at “differences” among the various characters in the Trump administration that came to light when negotiators got down to the finer details of the deal.

“In these last few days, we were drilling down on specific issues where that might have papered over the differences in the administration, if there were indeed differences,” said Carney.

A few days after the talks fell apart, Canadians may be asking: Who is Howard Lutnick?

To understand how he became a cabinet minister for U.S. President Donald Trump, it’s noteworthy how much of Lutnick’s biography, and even personality, overlaps with his boss, almost certainly more than anybody else in that cabinet.

Like Trump, Lutnick is a New Yorker, born to a Jewish family on Long Island in 1961, who went on to become a Manhattan billionaire. Public sources, such as Forbes, have pegged Lutnick’s net worth at more than US$7 billion.

Despite losing both his parents before he finished college, Lutnick finished an economics degree in 1983 from Haverford College, a private liberal arts institution in Haverford, Penn that was founded by Quakers in 1833 but didn’t start accepting women in 1980.

But the key step in Lutnick’s path to extreme prosperity occurred later that year when he was hired by financial services giant Cantor Fitzgerald. Lutnick, who was mentored by the company’s founder, B. Gerald Cantor, rose quickly and became the firm’s chief executive seven years later.

In 1995, Lutnick went to court over control of the company against his mentor’s wife Iris, as Cantor faced health problems. In legal documents, Lutnick claimed that Cantor no longer had the mental abilities to make decisions for the company.

When Cantor died a year later, Lutnick assumed control of the company and led a period of growth until the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Cantor Fitzgerald, with its headquarters in the north tower of the World Trade Centre, lost 658 employees, including Lutnick’s brother Gary. Lutnick was scheduled to be in the office on the morning of the attacks, but had taken one of his four kids to kindergarten.

Lutnick’s post-9/11 TV interviews raised his profile, but he received criticisms from some of the families of Cantor Fitzgerald victims when he refused to continue paying any part of their salaries after their deaths. The company later distributed payments to the families.

Like Trump, Lutnick’s past suggests that his attachments to policy, and candidates, are flexible, perhaps even flimsy. A self-described social liberal and fiscal conservative, the cabinet minister who spearheads Trump’s tariff policy was a vocal opponent of tariffs just a decade ago.

He also used to support some Democratic candidates, including Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency in 2016 against Trump. Four years later, he was fundraising for Trump’s re-election bid. Last year, after meeting with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Lutnick said he believed that vaccines cause autism.

After building a massive crypto business within Cantor, Lutnick then helped position his sons Kyle and Brandon to the top of the firm when he entered Trump’s cabinet. The sons were taking full advantage of the crypto boom at around the same time the Trump family was building its own crypto company, World Liberty Financial.

Like Trump, Lutnick also had a close relationship with deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Lutnick was his next-door neighbour but said last year that he had vowed in 2005 never to be in the same room again with “that disgusting person.” It was then revealed earlier this year in the newly released Epstein Files that Lutnick had had frequent contact with Epstein for many years afterward, including at least one visit to Epstein’s private island. Lutnick, who has been accused of no wrongdoing associated with the Epstein investigation, later told Congress that he had visited the island briefly with his family in 2012.

His style is said to be Trump-like too.

Government sources also say that Lutnick, like Trump, but in contrast to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, leaves little doubt when he’s entered a room. His negotiation style is also boisterous, even emotional, sources say, more than methodical.

“I think that Lutnick has a similar character and a similar way of dealing with things as Trump,” said one Canadian government source.

A Washington source described Lutnick as a “bully” who doesn’t have the patience to work through complicated matters such as trade talks.

National Post