US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the government could announce trade agreements with some of the United States’ largest trade partners as early as this week.
He said US President Donald Trump’s administration was negotiating with 17 major trading partners but had not yet engaged with China, the world’s second-largest economy after the United States.
He said many trading partners have made very good offers and US officials were in the process of “re-negotiating” those now.
“I expect that we can see a substantial reduction of the tariffs that we are being charged as well as non-tariff barriers, currency manipulation and subsidies, both labour and capital investment,” he told the House Appropriations Committee.
Trump and his top officials have engaged in a flurry of meetings with trading partners since the president on April 2 imposed a 10 per cent tariff on most countries along with higher tariff rates for many trading partners that were then suspended for 90 days.
The US president has also imposed 25 per cent tariffs on cars, steel and aluminium, 25 per cent tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 145 per cent tariffs on China.
China responded by boosting its tariffs on US goods to 125 per cent.
A top European Union official on Tuesday said the 27-member bloc was readying countermeasures if no trade deal was reached with the US, adding that it was being contacted by other countries seeking to forge closer trade ties with the EU.
Bessent said about 97 per cent or 98 per cent of the US trade deficit was with about 15 countries, most of which were major trading partners, and discussions were proceeding well with many.
“I would be surprised if we don’t have more than 80 or 90 per cent of those wrapped by the end of the year, and that may be much sooner,” he said.
“I would think that perhaps as early as this week we will be announcing trade deals with some of our largest trading partners.”
Administration officials have suggested that India and Japan could be the first countries to sign a trade agreement to lower the tariff rates Trump has threatened.
Trump told the NewsNation television network last week that he had “potential” trade deals with India, South Korea and Japan.
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