President Donald Trump said he’ll announce new tariff rates for U.S. trading partners over the next two to three weeks.
The president announced reciprocal tariff rates specific to individual countries, plus a flat, 10% tariff rate for all trading partners, in early April.
He would go on to announce a 90-day pause on the higher reciprocal tariffs for all trading partners but China to allow countries to negotiate new bilateral trade deals with the White House.
Trump briefly spoke to reporters Wednesday during an executive order signing ceremony in the Oval Office. Prompted by the president, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said 90 countries had broached negotiations with the administration and that “they all want to make deals.”
“And by the way, if we don’t have a deal with a company or a country, we’re going to set the tariff. We just set the tariff. It’s something that we think that will happen, I’d say, over the next couple of weeks,” the president added. “Over the next two, three weeks, we’ll be setting the number.”
Unlike other U.S. trade partners, which saw their effective tariff rates drop to 10% when Trump announced his pause, China is staring down a 145% tariff rate.
Trump suggested that he could also make a decision on China’s updated tariff rate over the next few weeks, but denied that rising prices were factoring into his decision.
“It is a high tariff, but I haven’t brought it down. It basically means China is not doing any business with us, essentially, because it’s a very high number,” the president stated.
“We can make a deal. Otherwise, we’ll set a price, and hopefully they’ll come here and they’ll contribute. And if they don’t, it’s okay.”
You can watch Trump’s comments in full below.
