Trump suggested on Tuesday that India was a country close to finalizing a deal.
Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said the Trump administration is focused on trade deals. He said those deals could be completed by Labor Day (September 1). However, he suggested that some talks on increased tariffs could continue beyond the July deadline.
“We have countries that are talking to us about very good deals,” Besant said in an interview with Fox Business on Friday. He highlighted comments by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that the White House is looking to close deals with 10 major trading partners soon.
Besant made it clear that there are 18 major trading partners. He said the US has already reached an agreement with the UK and an agreement with China. So those two countries “are already behind us.”
“We could have trade talks concluded by Labor Day with 10 or 12 of those 18 major partners — and 20 other important relationships,” he said. However, he did not disclose which countries the deals were being struck with.
US President Trump, after announcing the “reciprocal” tariffs on April 2, gave a three-month deadline. The deadline is set to expire on July 9.
Speaking to Bloomberg Television on Thursday, Lutnik said Trump was going to finalize a list of key trade deals before the July deadline.
“We’ll do the top 10 deals first. They’ll be a category. The rest of the countries will follow,” Lutnik said.
Initially, Trump and his advisers had planned to start talks with several countries simultaneously, with the goals of removing barriers to American goods, relocating manufacturing to the US, and reducing the trade deficit.
“We have 90 deals pending in 90 days. President Trump is going to do a very difficult job, but it’s been delayed by 90 days,” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in April. “But we will get it done — for the American people.”
The scope of the deals is unclear. While most countries are open to talks, they have signaled that they could unilaterally impose tariffs if they are unhappy with the terms Trump proposes.
Trade deals take a long time to finalize. Negotiations with some countries have been going on for years, but key issues have not been resolved. For example, the UK deal that Trump praised is riddled with details that are unclear, while the China deal still has concerns about fentanyl trafficking and access to the Chinese market for U.S. exporters, Besant said.
On Tuesday, Trump said India was close to a deal. A team of Indian trade representatives is scheduled to meet in Washington this week for talks. Besant explained that the US does not want to bring back all manufacturing. Instead, it is focusing on high-end manufacturing, which is high-value.
“We want to bring back the precision, high-value manufacturing jobs,” Besant said. “We are not going to make socks and towels again,” he said. He recalled that he had recently been criticized for saying that he could not see the return of the garment industry in South Carolina, where he worked as a child.
“But we need high-end, craft manufacturing – for example, for first responders, for the US military,” he said. After China entered the WTO, he said that coastal US regions suffered greatly, describing them as “left by the wayside.” He said that American capitalism was left defenseless at that time.