Pressure from Trump for trade deals before Wednesday deadline, but hints of more time for talks

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER and MICHELLE L PRICE Associated Press WASHINGTON AP The Trump administration is stepping up pressure on trading partners to hurriedly make new deals before a Wednesday deadline with plans for the United States to start sending letters Monday warning countries that higher tariffs could kick in Aug That furthers the uncertainty for businesses consumers and America s trading partners and questions remain about which countries will be notified whether anything will change in the days ahead and whether President Donald Trump will once more push off imposing the rates Trump and his top pact advisers say he could extend the time for dealmaking but they insist the administration is applying maximum pressure on other nations Kevin Hassett director of the White House National Economic Council narrated CBS Face the Nation on Sunday that Trump would decide when it was time to give up on negotiations The United States is consistently willing to talk to everybody about everything Hassett declared There are deadlines and there are things that are close so maybe things will push back past the deadline or maybe they won t In the end the president is going to make that judgment Stephen Miran the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers likewise announced countries negotiating in good faith and making concessions could sort of get the date rolled The steeper tariffs that Trump reported April threatened to overhaul the global commercial sector and lead to broader agreement wars A week later after the financial markets had panicked his administration suspended for days majority of the higher taxes on imports just as they were to take effect The negotiating window until July has led to declared deals only with the United Kingdom and Vietnam Trump imposed elevated tariff rates on dozens of nations that run meaningful bargain surpluses with the U S and a baseline tax on imports from all countries in response to what he called an economic urgency There are separate tariffs on steel and aluminum and a tariff on autos Since April inadequate foreign governments have set new agreement terms with Washington as the Republican president demanded President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown N J Sunday July en way to Washington AP Photo Jacquelyn Martin Trump stated reporters Friday that his administration might be sending out letters as early as Saturday to countries spelling out their tariff rates if they did not reach a deal but that the U S would not start collecting those taxes until Aug On Sunday he announced he would send out letters starting Monday could be could be to foreign governments reflecting planned tariffs for each We ve made deals also Trump notified reporters before heading back to the White House from his home in New Jersey So we ll get to have a combination of letters and several deals have been made He and his advisers have declined to say which countries would receive the letters Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent rejected the idea that Aug was a new deadline and declined to say what might happen Wednesday We ll see Bessent revealed on CNN s State of the Union I m not going to give away the playbook Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent talks to reporters about his lunch meeting with Republican senators and the schedule for getting the Republican megabill to President Donald Trump s desk by July at the Capitol in Washington Tuesday June AP Photo J Scott Applewhite He revealed the U S was close to several deals and predicted several big announcements over the next meager days He gave no details I think we re going to see a lot of deals very speedily Bessent declared Later Sunday Trump vowed to impose more tariffs against the BRICS bloc of growing nations which had condemned tariffs increases at its summit in Brazil Trump declared in a post on his social media platform that any country aligning itself with what he termed the Anti-American policies of BRICS would be levied an added tariff Trump has publicized a deal with Vietnam that would allow U S goods to enter the country duty-free while Vietnamese exports to the U S would face a levy That was a decline from the tax on Vietnamese imports he proposed in April one of his so-called reciprocal tariffs targeting dozens of countries with which the U S runs a deal deficit Related Articles Business confidence up in June but still pessimistic survey shows Suspended cannabis testing lab has appealed and will sue regulators owner says Musk forms new party after split with Trump UN atomic watchdog s Iran exit deepens inspections blackout Battles over constituents lands loom even after sell-off proposal fails Solicited if he expected to reach deals with the European Union or India Trump announced Friday that letters are better for us because there are so a large number of countries involved We have India coming up and with Vietnam we did it but much easier to send a letter saying Listen we know we have a certain deficit or in particular cases a surplus but not too various And this is what you re going to have to pay if you want to do business in the United States Canada however will not be one of the countries receiving letters Trump s ambassador Pete Hoekstra announced Friday after exchange talks between the two countries just now resumed Canada is one of our biggest trading partners Hoekstra communicated CTV News in an interview in Ottawa We re going to have a deal that s articulated Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has commented he wants a new deal in place by July or Canada will increase agreement countermeasures Hoekstra would not commit to a date for a transaction agreement and mentioned even with a deal Canada could still face chosen tariffs But we re not going to send Canada just a letter he explained Price released from Bridgewater New Jersey AP Business Writer Matt O Brien in Providence Rhode Island contributed to this summary