US President Donald Trump will make his trade deal decisions this week even as separate negotiations with China and the European Union continue, US Commerce chief Howard Lutnick says ahead of Trump’s self-imposed August 1 deadline.
US and EU officials were still discussing steel and aluminium tariffs as well as digital services regulations following their framework announced on Sunday, Lutnick told CNBC in an interview, adding that talks with China were also “their own thing”.
“But for the rest of the world, we’re going to have things done by Friday,” he said in the interview.
Asked about remaining uncertainties surrounding the US-EU agreement, Lutnick said Trump was working “to get things done now”.
He said pharmaceuticals were a key part of the EU deal so that medicines made in EU member countries – home to several major drug makers – would have their products included in the 15 per cent tariff.
“It was important for them to have pharmaceuticals be part of the deal at 15 per cent because President Trump is going to come out in the next two weeks with his pharmaceutical policy, and it is going to be higher,” he said.
South Africa’s trade ministry said on Tuesday that it still wanted to negotiate a trade deal with the United States, before a 30 per cent tariff on its exports to the US is due to kick in on Friday.
South Africa’s government has been tight-lipped about its negotiations with the US administration ahead of the August 1 deadline, which comes as the two countries’ relationship has deteriorated over South Africa’s domestic race policy and its genocide case against Israel, which Israel denies.
In a statement, the trade ministry said it was still waiting for “substantive feedback from our US counterparts on the final status on our framework deal”.
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