Scott Bessent spars with CNN host over whether Trump's tariffs count as trade deals

Yahoo

14 hours ago

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reignited his feud with Elon Musk on Sunday during an interview with CNN, where the Cabinet secretary also quibbled with a host over whether the president had made the '90 deals in 90 days' he had promised the American public.
Bessent's comments come as the administration is set to hit many U.S. trading partners this month with 'reciprocal' tariffs following the end of a 90-day pause. During that period, the White House discussed the types of trade agreements Donald Trump and his team were set to negotiate with China, the U.K., Canada, and dozens of other countries, which the president has accused of engaging in unfair trade practices.
The majority of those deals did not materialize, except for a handful of exceptions. Many issues continue to divide U.S. and Chinese officials, but some export controls instituted by Beijing were lifted after an agreement was inked in late June.
On Sunday, Bessent echoed a familiar line from the administration: the insistence that the tariffs Trump was imposing in the absence of formal agreements with foreign governments constituted the 'deals' promised by the White House.
'The president has a reputation, a self-described dealmaker, so why haven't we seen the kind of deals that he promised in the last 90 days?' asked CNN's Dana Bash.
"Again, he didn't promise this,' countered Bessent. In reality, it was Trump's trade adviser, Peter Navarro, who set this goal during a Fox Business interview.
'And when we send out the 100 letters to these countries, that will set their tariff rate. So we're going to have 100 done in the next few days,' he continued.
Bash responded: 'But that's not a deal. That's a threat.'
'No, that's the level,' said the Treasury secretary. 'That's the deal.'
'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 1st, you will boomerang back to your April 2nd tariff level.'
The White House initially announced a slate of 'Liberation Day' tariffs in early April, setting individualized tariff rates for dozens of U.S. trading partners, including some as high as 50 percent. Markets immediately engaged in a sell-off, prompting panic and a reversal by the president.
But the end of Trump's 90-day pause is fast approaching, with the official deadline on Wednesday, July 9. So far, administration officials have not indicated that another pause is likely.
Administration officials are currently negotiating with the EU, which is among the U.S. trading partners still seeking to avert a massive tariff hike. Before the president was re-elected, the average tariff on goods from the EU imported to the U.S. was just 2 percent. Trump has threatened to mark up tariffs as high as 50 percent.
Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Germany's Berenberg bank, said the most likely outcome of the trade talks is that 'the US will agree to deals in which it takes back its worst threats of 'retaliatory' tariffs well beyond 10 percent'.
Bessent's support of tariffs was one of several issues that led to his conflict with Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO and former DOGE overlord who joined the administration as a temporary appointee in January. The two argued frequently and even had one physical confrontation, according to news reports, and emerged as sharp personal rivals in addition to being political foes.
On Sunday, the Treasury secretary made it clear that there was no love lost between the two men after Musk, who left the administration in May, publicly blew up at the president in a series of Twitter posts about a legislative package Trump had endorsed — the 'big, beautiful bill.'
Musk was, and still is, a furious critic of the bill's deficit spending, which is projected to add trillions to the national debt over 10 years, and threatened last week to fund primary challenges against Republicans who voted for the legislation. His threats did not work, and it passed with only a few Republicans dissenting.
'The principles of DOGE were very popular. I think, if you looked at the polling, Elon was not,' Bessent told CNN.
He went on to speculate that Tesla's board of directors would not react positively to the news that Musk was getting behind an effort to form a new political party, the 'America Party.'
Archie Mitchell contributed reporting.