Bessent says US could announce trade deals with some countries this week
WASHINGTON — US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday said the Trump administration could announce trade agreements with some of the United States’ largest trade partners as early as this week, but gave no details on which countries were involved.
He said the administration was negotiating with 17 major trading partners, but had not yet engaged with China, the world’s second-largest economy after the United States.
He said many trading partners have made very good offers and Trump officials were in the process of “re-negotiating” those now.
“I expect that we can see a substantial reduction of the tariffs that we are being charged, as well as non-tariff barriers, currency manipulation and subsidies, both labor and capital investment,” he told the House Appropriations Committee.
US President Donald Trump and his top officials have engaged in a flurry of meetings with trading partners since the president on April 2 imposed a 10-percent tariff on most countries, along with higher tariff rates for many trading partners that were then suspended for 90 days. The US president has also imposed 25-percent tariffs on autos, steel and aluminum, 25-percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and 145-percent tariffs on China.
China responded by boosting its tariffs on US goods to 125 percent. A top European Union official on Tuesday said the 27-nation bloc was readying countermeasures if no trade deal was reached with Washington, adding that it was being contacted by other countries seeking to forge closer trade ties with the EU.
Bessent said about 97 percent or 98 percent of the US trade deficit was with about 15 countries, most of which were major trading partners, and discussions were proceeding well with many.
“I would be surprised if we don’t have more than 80 or 90 percent of those wrapped by the end of the year, and that may be much sooner,” he said. “I would think that perhaps as early as this week we will be announcing trade deals with some of our largest trading partners.”
Bessent faced questions from House Democrats over Trump’s tariff policies, including Representative Mark Pocan from Wisconsin, who repeatedly pressed Bessent on who paid the tariffs and for speaking at investor conferences instead of focussing on the impact on small business owners.
“Right now, we are getting screwed right and left because of the indiscriminate use of tariffs. That’s the reality for Main Street,” Pocan said.
