“These countries are calling us up, kissing my a**,” Trump said at an April dinner for donors to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Top officials have been similarly insistent that after Trump announced tariffs on just about every other country – an occasion he termed Liberation Day – those nations were racing to do deals.
Just this week, Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender, said the administration was making “very good progress”. He told CNBC it was “close to the finish line on a couple” of them.
For all their talk, officials admit the only deal agreed upon was the one with Britain, a modest framework that would see a reduction in import taxes on a set number of high end British cars and allow some steel and aluminium into America without levies.
“The final details are being written up,” Trump said, as the agreement with the UK was announced in May. “In the coming weeks we’ll have it all very conclusive.”
But the deal was important for several reasons. Trump was desperate for a “win” after weeks of questions about the wisdom of his tariffs.
Sir Keir Starmer claimed the two countries had “built an incredible platform for the future” (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)And while talks have been continuing with several countries, including Japan, India, Vietnam, as well as the EU, the arrangement with the UK was the only agreement Trump could announce.
Last week, the New York-based US Court of International Trade ruled the vast swathe of tariffs the President had announced exceeded his presidential authority and blocked the move.
Other than Trump and the US, the most important player in this drama is China, the US’s third biggest trading partner, after Mexico and Canada.
Talks between US and Chinese officials have already taken place, and this week, Trump is set to speak by phone with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
It said officials were trying to speed up talks with numerous other countries, according to a draft letter sent to those nations.
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The 78-year-old president’s obsession with tariffs appears to date back to the 1980s when he claimed that various nations – at that time he had Japan in mind – were “ripping off” the United States.
Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of the Citizens Trade Campaign, a non-profit that works for social and environmental justice in trade, told The i Paper there is a double-edged sword to what is happening.
“There’s a lot of hype and fluff, and smoke and mirrors going on here,” he adds.
In his Rose Garden address in April, he alleged “horrendous” trade imbalances had hurt the country. As he announced the tariffs, he said: “It’s our declaration of economic independence.”
But don’t bet on it. Right now the whole thing feels utterly chaotic, if not a little desperate.
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