Trump says US nears trade deals as tariff deadline delayed
Since taking office, Trump has set off a global trade war that has roiled financial markets and sent policymakers scrambling to protect their economies, through efforts such as deals with the United States and other countries.
In April Trump unveiled a base tariff rate of 10% on most countries and additional duties of up to 50%, but later gave a three-week reprieve until Wednesday for all but 10% of them.
Trump, whose remarks to reporters on Sunday came just before his return to Washington from a weekend golfing in New Jersey, had flagged the August 1 date earlier, but it was unclear if all tariffs would increase then.
Asked to clarify, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters the higher tariffs would take effect on August 1, but Trump was 'setting the rates and the deals right now.'
In a posting on his Truth Social website, Trump later said the U.S. would start delivering tariff letters from 12:00 pm ET (1600 GMT) on Monday.
In a separate post, he rolled out a wholly new tariff policy, calling for countries 'aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies' of the BRICS developing nations to be charged an extra 10% tariff, with no exceptions to be granted.
The first BRICS summit in 2009 was attended by leaders from Brazil, China, India and Russia, with South Africa joining later while Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were included last year.
Trump has close ties to leaders of some of those countries, such as Saudi Arabia and UAE, and has been touting the prospect of a trade deal with India for weeks.
On Sunday, BRICS leaders condemned attacks on Gaza and Iran, called for reforms to global institutions and warned that the rise in tariffs threatened global trade.
It was not immediately clear if Trump's tariff threat would derail trade talks with India, Indonesia and other BRICS nations, however.
Earlier on Sunday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNN's 'State of the Union' that several big trade agreements would be announced in the next days, adding that European Union talks had made good progress.
Trump would also send letters to 100 smaller countries with which the United States does not have much trade, notifying them of higher tariff rates, he added.
'President Trump's going to be sending letters to some of our trading partners saying that if you don't move things along, then on August 1 you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level,' Bessent said.
'So I think we're going to see a lot of deals very quickly.'
Kevin Hassett, who heads the White House National Economic Council, told CBS's 'Face the Nation' program there might be wiggle room for countries engaged in earnest negotiations.
'There are deadlines, and there are things that are close, and so maybe things will push back past the deadline,' Hassett said, adding that Trump would decide.
'I HEAR GOOD THINGS'
Stephen Miran, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told ABC News' 'This Week' program that countries needed to make concessions to get lower tariff rates.
'I hear good things about the talks with Europe. I hear good things about the talks with India,' Miran said. 'And so I would expect that a number of countries that are in the process of making those concessions ... might see their date rolled.'
Bessent told CNN the Trump administration was focused on 18 important trading partners that account for 95% of the U.S. trade deficit. But he said there had been 'a lot of foot-dragging' among countries in finalizing trade deals.
Thailand, keen to avert a 36% tariff, is now offering greater market access for U.S. farm and industrial goods and more purchases of U.S. energy and Boeing jets, Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira told Bloomberg News on Sunday.
India and the United States are likely to make a final decision on a mini trade deal in the next 24 to 48 hours, local Indian news channel CNBC-TV18 reported on Sunday, with average tariffs of 10% on Indian goods shipped to the U.S., it said.
Hassett told CBS News that framework agreements already reached with Britain and Vietnam offered guidelines for other countries. He said Trump's pressure was prompting countries to move production to the United States.
The Vietnam deal was 'fantastic,' Miran said.
'It's extremely one-sided. We get to apply a significant tariff to Vietnamese exports. They're opening their markets to ours, applying zero tariff to our exports.'
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Even though Japan and Korea are two of the US's closest allies in Asia, they're both dealing with domestic situations where cutting trade deals might be risky politically. South Korea President Lee Jae-myung only took office on June 4, and elections in Japan's upper house later this month made the government of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba reluctant to offer too much in concessions. The European Union is not expecting to receive a letter setting tariff rates today, according to a person familiar with those discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Trump has also threatened to slap an additional 10% levy on 'any country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS,' targeting the bloc of developing nations led by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa as they gathered for a meeting in Rio de Janeiro. Leavitt on Monday said Trump would 'take any action necessary to prevent countries from taking advantage of the United States and our people.' Trump's levies will help fill the Treasury's coffers at a time when investors are worried about the nation's mounting debt, particularly after Congress passed much of the president's economic agenda in a $3.4 trillion tax cut and spending package last week. The dollar has slumped and longer-term borrowing costs remain elevated. Despite Trump's contention that foreign countries pay his tariffs directly, the burden actually falls to American importers, which must contend with tighter profit margins, weigh raising prices for consumers or seek discounts from their foreign suppliers. 'All of that new revenue is just a tax on US businesses,' Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, wrote in a LinkedIn post Friday. At the Rose Garden ceremony on April 2, the Trump administration announced steeper levies on more than 50 trading partners ranging as high as 50% – a shock to the economic outlook that sent financial markets into a tailspin. A week later, the president suspended those peak rates. The negotiating tracks have been different for the US's three largest trading partners — Mexico, Canada and China. Beijing and Washington have negotiated truces that lowered tariffs on Chinese products that soared to 145% and eased export controls on key supplies. As partners in the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the two US neighbors aren't subject to the reciprocal tariffs and instead are trying to negotiate lower rates on sectoral levies. Bloomberg Economics' US trade uncertainty index has come off its April peak, but it is still higher than it was when Trump was elected in November. On top of market jitters and economic headwinds, legal challenges offer a potential check on the reciprocal tariffs, which Trump declared under executive authority known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA. The US Court of International Trade ruled on May 28 that the vast majority of Trump's levies were issued illegally under IEEPA and ordered them blocked. A day later, an appeals court gave the administration a temporary reprieve from the ruling and decided that the tariffs can remain in place until it hears the case, scheduling the arguments for July 31. Yet the Trump administration is using another presidential power to impose tariffs – Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act – on specific sectors so far including autos, steel and aluminum. Other 232 sectoral cases are in the works, potentially allowing Trump to cover a wide range of US imported raw materials as well as finished consumer goods should the IEEPA levies get struck down by the courts. Trump described the latest levies as 'separate from all Sectoral Tariffs.' Another friction point for Trump on tariffs is the Federal Reserve. Jerome Powell, the chair of the US central bank, has held off on lowering rates this year — despite intense pressure and name-calling — in part to determine whether tariff-driven price hikes might evolve into more persistent cost-of-living pressures. Bloomberg Economics estimates that if all reciprocal tariffs are raised to their threatened level on July 9, average duties on all US imports could climb to around 20% from less than 3% before Trump's inauguration in January. That would add to growth and inflation risks for the US economy. Between higher tariffs, oil prices and immigration restrictions in the US, 'the bottom line is that we should see inflation move higher over the coming months,' Torsten Slok, chief economist with Apollo Global Management, wrote in a note Sunday. –BLOOMBERG
