lutnick

Howard Lutnick, US commerce secretary, during an executive order signing in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, June 22, 2026. President Trump signed executive orders Monday aimed at accelerating quantum research, laying the groundwork for federal agencies to adopt the technology and strengthen US defenses against cyberattacks. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

July 10 (Asia Today) — U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to expand production in the United States as Micron accelerates a major domestic investment plan, raising questions over whether Washington is signaling continued shortages in artificial intelligence memory chips.

Lutnick referred directly to Samsung and SK Hynix at Micron’s large-scale investment site in the United States. Micron is building a production plant in Clay, N.Y.

Lutnick said he wanted to bring Micron competitors Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to the United States and have them build production facilities there.

The remarks drew attention in South Korea because Samsung and SK Hynix recently announced plans to invest 800 trillion won, about $530 billion, in the Honam region in southwestern South Korea. Industry officials had already expected Washington to push the Korean chipmakers to increase U.S. investment.

Because Lutnick directly named the two companies and urged investment, attention is now focused on how the remarks could affect Samsung and SK Hynix.

Some analysts also said the call for production investment in the United States, the central market for artificial intelligence, may indicate that memory semiconductors remain in short supply despite debate over whether the chip market is nearing a peak.

Micron said Wednesday it will expand investment in U.S. fabrication plants and technology to more than $250 billion by 2035. The company has set a goal of producing 40% of its DRAM in the United States and will move up part of its New York fabrication plant construction schedule.

Lutnick’s message that he also wants Samsung and SK Hynix to invest locally is fueling expectations that the surge in semiconductor demand could continue for some time.

Some stock market analysts have recently raised concerns that large artificial intelligence data center operators, known as hyperscalers, could slow the pace of investment. But industry officials still expect supply and demand to begin moving toward balance no earlier than 2028.

Others see Lutnick’s remarks as a sign that the U.S. government is reviving pressure for local investment after a quieter period. The comments came one day before SK Hynix’s Nasdaq listing of American depositary receipts, prompting speculation that Washington may want funds raised through the listing to be invested in the United States rather than South Korea.

Since 2025, the United States has imposed reciprocal tariffs and temporary import surcharges. Semiconductors are currently excluded, but the U.S. government has suggested it could impose tariffs of up to 100% on all semiconductor imports. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump pressured memory chipmakers to invest in the United States, saying companies that do not build plants domestically could face 100% tariffs.

With Samsung and SK Hynix recently announcing a combined 800 trillion won investment plan in South Korea, industry observers said pressure for additional U.S. investment could grow. Lutnick’s latest comments were seen as moving in that direction.

Similar views have emerged overseas. Japan’s Nikkei recently said that because Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix together account for about 60% of the global memory market, the U.S. administration could raise monopoly concerns and demand relocation or investment in the United States.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260710010003905

WASHINGTON — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is appearing Wednesday before a House committee investigating sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as lawmakers seek answers for Lutnick’s contact with him in the years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.

Lutnick, a member of President Trump’s Cabinet, is the latest powerful political figure to appear before the House Oversight Committee. He has previously given contradictory statements about his relationship with Epstein, but he says he has done nothing wrong and welcomes the closed-door interview with lawmakers.

Still, the transcribed interview presented a test of how much scrutiny lawmakers will apply to powerful men who kept company with Epstein even after it was known that he had solicited prostitution from an underage girl. Trump’s Republican administration has tried unsuccessfully for more than a year to move past the issue.

Lutnick is the highest-ranked official in the Trump administration, besides Trump himself, to be named in the case files on Epstein. Trump has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has said he ended their relationship years ago.

Several Democrats have called for Lutnick to resign, and a few Republicans, including Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, have said he should at least testify before the Oversight panel.

Lutnick has downplayed his ties to Epstein, who was once his neighbor in New York City. Under questioning from Democrats during an unrelated hearing earlier this year, he described their contact as a handful of emails and a pair of meetings in 2011 and 2012.

But that admission came after he had previously claimed on a podcast last year that he had decided to “never be in the room” with Epstein following a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home that disturbed Lutnick and his wife.

In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to state sex offense charges in Florida, including soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.

“I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with him,” Lutnick told senators in February when he was asked about Epstein during a subcommittee hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

But Lutnick, who was previously the head of brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, actually had an hourlong engagement at Epstein’s home in 2011. His family then visited Epstein’s infamous private island in 2012 for lunch.

The federal release of case files on Epstein also showed that the two had kept in contact through email. Lutnick in 2018 emailed Epstein about a proposed expansion of a museum in their neighborhood that would have blocked the view from their homes. Epstein also gave $50,000 to a 2017 dinner honoring Lutnick, while Lutnick invited Epstein to a 2015 fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. In 2013, they both invested in the same business venture.

The White House has continued to express support for Lutnick, who was one of the biggest boosters of Trump’s sweeping tariffs strategy. He has been close to Trump for years and helped fundraise for his 2020 and 2024 campaigns.

The House Oversight Committee is also scheduled to hear testimony on May 29 from Pam Bondi, who was pushed out from her job as attorney general last month.

Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

May 6 (UPI) — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is scheduled to testify Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

The testimony is voluntary and behind closed doors. Lutnick is one of many people called before the committee to explain their ties to the late sex offender and financier.

“The Secretary looks forward to addressing any questions on the record when he testifies voluntarily before the Oversight Committee,” a spokesperson for the Commerce Department told CBS News. “He looks forward to putting to rest the inaccurate and baseless claims in the media designed to distract from his historic work underway at the Commerce Department.”

Lutnick has not been accused of any wrongdoing tied to Epstein.

Lutnick and Epstein were next-door neighbors in New York. He has said his interactions with Epstein were minimal, but earlier this month, he told a congressional committee that he had visited Epstein’s island, Little St. James in the U.S. Virgin Islands, with his family.

“We had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour,” Lutnick told lawmakers. “Then we left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife all together. We were on family vacation. We were not apart. To suggest there was anything untoward about that in 2012, I don’t recall why we did it. But we did.”

Epstein was convicted of solicitation involving a minor in 2008.

A photo of Lutnick and Epstein that appears to be on Little St. James with three other men was in the files released earlier this year.

Lutnick and Epstein also invested together in a now-shuttered advertising agency, Adfin, working together as late as 2014.

Lutnick previously claimed that he cut contact with Epstein in 2005

In October, Lutnick said on a podcast that he and his wife, Allison, visited Epstein’s New York townhouse in 2005, NBC News reported.

He said he saw a massage table in the middle of a room filled with candles. Lutnick said Epstein told him he had massages “every day” and got “weirdly close” to say, “The right kind of massage.”

“In the six to eight steps it takes to get from his house to my house, my wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again,” Lutnick said.

“I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy,” he added. “If that guy was there, I wasn’t going, because he’s gross.”

The panel will likely question Lutnick’s credibility, Matt Dallek, a historian and political management professor at George Washington University, told NBC

“It’s risky business for him to go before Congress and testify about Epstein,” Dallek said. “Because lo and behold, he visited the island with his kids.”

Dallek said Trump will pay attention to Lutnick’s performance.

“If Lutnick comes off as wishy-washy or ineffective, Trump could sour on him,” Dallek said. “Especially if he wants a fall guy for the economy.”