Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent encouraged countries, investors and corporate America alike to avoid a state of alarm if they don’t hit the Trump administration’s Aug. 1 deadline to strike a trade deal.
The treasury secretary's remarks came hours after Trump held firm on his Aug. 1 deadline for trade partners to reach new deals with the U.S.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (Buddhika Weerashinghe/Bloomberg via Getty Images).
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent encouraged countries, investors and corporate America alike to avoid a state of alarm if they don’t hit the Trump administration’s Aug. 1 deadline to strike a trade deal.
“If there's not a deal by August one, I would encourage market participants, corporate America, even the countries, not to panic, because you can still do a deal,” Bessent said at a live taping of the “War Room” podcast from Breitbart. “You're just going to go back to your April 2 reciprocal tariff level, and it may be on for three days, it may be on for three weeks, it may be on for three months.”
“You can continue negotiating,” Bessent said.
The remarks came hours after President Donald Trump held firm on his Aug. 1 deadline for trading partners to reach new accords aimed at balancing their trade with the U.S. THE AUGUST FIRST DEADLINE IS THE AUGUST FIRST DEADLINE — IT STANDS STRONG, AND WILL NOT BE EXTENDED,” he wrote in a social media post.
Trump threatened a 25% tariff on Indian exports to the U.S. earlier in the day, jolting trade talks with New Delhi that have yielded little progress up to now.
So far, the Trump administration has reached trade accords with Japan, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, and (possibly) Vietnam. Negotiations with China have produced limited agreements that paused triple-digit tariffs until Aug. 12. A recent round of discussions with Chinese officials in Stockholm, though, led to renewed optimism among U.S. officials that that deadline will likely be extended in the near future to allow time for finalizing a trade agreement.
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