WASHINGTON — President Trump has given international locations a Wednesday deadline to make their finest presents on commerce — with the White Home calling it a “deadline” to submit presents to keep away from large reciprocal tariffs as a result of take impact on July 8.
The workplace of the US Commerce Consultant Jamieson Greer despatched a letter, reported Monday by Reuters, “to all of our trading partners just to give them a friendly reminder that the deadline is coming up,” White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed at her Tuesday briefing.
Greer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick “are in talks with many of our key trading partners around the globe… and they continue to be engaged in those discussions. And this letter was simply to remind these countries that the deadline is approaching and the President expects good deals, and we are on track for that,” Leavitt mentioned.
Leavitt added that “each country has unique advantages and unique challenges to it, based on their markets and what they export to us and what we export to them. And so that’s why the president smartly advised his trade team to engage in tailor-made deal-making. And we saw that with the United Kingdom, and we will see that with other countries as well.”
Trump will signal orders later Tuesday to extend tariffs on metal and aluminum to 50% — after beforehand tightening 25% charges to finish exceptions for prime importers.
Trump on April 2 introduced sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs on international locations, in addition to a brand new 10% baseline tariff on most nations, which is roughly triple the prior price. He paused many of the reciprocal tariffs shortly after they took impact to permit for commerce talks.
To date, Trump has reached deals-in-principle with China and the UK, although neither has been formally drafted and ratified — as a courtroom battle rages over the legality of the reciprocal levies.
The Chinese language deal in Could ended a tit-for-tat escalation that noticed US tariffs rocket to about 145% earlier than they had been diminished to 30% pursuant to the settlement.
Trump is anticipated to talk with Chinese language President Xi Jinping this week to debate the standing of talks on a remaining deal, in addition to his frustration that Beijing has not relaxed continued export restrictions on uncommon earth components important for batteries and high-tech gear.
The UK pact left in impact the brand new 10% baseline tariff whereas exempting 100,000 UK-made vehicles per yr from Trump’s new 25% world auto tariff. London, in flip, is because of drop its ethanol gas tariff from 19% to zero, permitting market entry to the corn-based gas price as much as $700 million — whereas the US eliminates tariffs on British-made airplane components, together with Rolls-Royce engines.
Trump, who has outlined tariffs as a approach to shield or reshore main industries, beforehand prompt that his administration would unilaterally dictate new and decrease “reciprocal” charges if want be. The unique charges had been loosely correlated with the scale of a rustic’s commerce deficit with the US.
Trump additionally has indicated some flexibility with low-wage international locations hammered significantly arduous by the looming charges. Nations comparable to Bangladesh (with a 37% assessed reciprocal price), Sri Lanka (44%) and Mauritius (40%), for instance, are necessary cogs within the world textile commerce as a result of low cost labor.
“We’re not looking to make sneakers and T-shirts. We want to make military equipment. We want to make big things. We want to make, do the AI thing,” Trump advised a Put up reporter on Could 25.
“I’m not looking to make T-shirts, to be honest. I’m not looking to make socks. We can do that very well in other locations. We are looking to do chips and computers and lots of other things, and tanks and ships.”
