More than 50 countries have contacted Donald Trump to try to negotiate after he announced sweeping tariffs last week, the US’s National Economic Council director, Kevin Hassett, said.
But Indonesia and Taiwan said they won’t impose retaliatory tariffs while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is heading to Washington DC to meet Trump for trade talks
This comes after a 10% “baseline” tariff on most US imports kicked in on Saturday.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned “the world as we knew it has gone” and said the government was ready to step in to protect the British economy
Experts warned the tariffs could push up prices for consumers, but Trump urged the US to “hang tough” after market turmoil
White House officials said on Sunday that dozens of countries had contacted Trump to seek negotiations on the tariffs he announced last week.
Several of them appeared on US networks’ weekend political talk shows. Let’s take a look at the latest comments from Trump officials on Sunday about when these tariffs might take effect:
When asked whether the tariffs were permanent or a negotiation tactic, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC “that’s going to be a decision for President Trump but I can tell you that…he’s created maximum leverage for himself”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, “the tariffs are coming, of course they are” when asked whether there was the opportunity for negotiation.
Earlier in the interview, when pressed on whether Trump was considering postponing the implementation of tariffs to negotiate, Lutnick said: “There is no postponing. They are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks”
In response to a question about Vietnam’s request for a 46-day delay to tariffs, Peter Navarro – a top adviser to President Trump – told Fox News “this is not a negotiation”, but added: “We’re always willing to listen.”
When asked whether there is room for negotiations on CNN, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins did not directly answer the question, instead saying: “We’re two business days into this new American order, so I think we have a lot to be determined, but the president is resolute in his focus” [BBC]
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