Trump’s Trade Deals, Negotiations, and New Tariffs for Each Country

  • For many countries, the reprieve from President Donald Trump’s eye-watering tariffs, which were implemented on April 2, 2025, and temporarily reduced to 10% a week later, is soon set to come to an end. The 90-day pause, during which the Trump Administration pledged to negotiate deals with trading partners, was set to expire on Wednesday, July 9, but the White House confirmed on Monday, July 7th, that it would push back the start of hiked tariffs to August 1st.
  • Trump also began sharing “letters” to multiple heads of state on Truth Social, alerting them of the tariff rates their countries will face next month if they do not reach deals before then. While Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro said in April that the Administration would deliver “90 deals in 90 days,” officials lowered expectations in recent days. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently said they expected about 12 trade deals.
  • Notably, Trump has so far reached three deals, with the U.K., China, and Vietnam, but on Monday sent out new tariff rates for more than a dozen countries (see Table 1). “Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from Reciprocal,” Trump wrote in the letters, which followed a standardised format. “We invite you to participate in the extraordinary Economy of the United States,” he wrote, “but only with more balanced, and fair, TRADE.”
  • Some analysts on Wall Street were optimistic that the return of uncertainty may not weigh as heavily on stocks this time around. “Our base case remains that the uncertainty around tariffs won’t be enough on its own to bring the US economy to a crashing halt,” analysts with Capital Economics research group and consultancy wrote in a note to clients. “If so, it’s unlikely to be enough to dampen investors’ enthusiasm for US equities.”
  • Yet the analysts also acknowledged that renewed chaos could prove a setback for officials at the Federal Reserve, who continue to insist on keeping interest rates high, despite repeated demands from Trump for a rate cut. Rates have remained elevated in anticipation of worsening inflation from  the import taxes. It’s something that will continue to make it expensive for the federal government, not to mention consumers and businesses, to borrow money, the analysts said.

(Sources: Time & NBC News)