Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there's no hang-up preventing the South Korean trade framework from moving to a signed deal, "just a lot of details to work out. It's a very complicated deal, and I think we're very close." However, he told reporters on Air Force One on Oct. 27 that he didn't think it would be done by Oct. 29, when the president lands in Korea.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in an appearance on "Meet the Press," evaded a question about the scope and timing of threatened additional 10% tariffs on Canadian goods.
President Donald Trump signed trade deals with Cambodia and Malaysia, leaving 19% tariffs on both Cambodian and Malaysian goods, with some carve-outs for tropical fruits and woods, minerals, and some goods covered by pending Section 232 investigations, such as aviation parts and chemicals used to make pharmaceuticals. The 19% tariffs layer on top of most-favored nation rates, which, in the case of apparel and shoes that dominate Cambodia's top exports, are already quite high.
After President Donald Trump posted that he was terminating all trade negotiations with Canada because the government paid for a pro-free-trade ad to air in the U.S., Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters that Canada is ready to resume talks whenever the U.S. is ready.
President Donald Trump, after a commercial aired in Ontario with audio from Ronald Reagan pointing out that tariffs harm the country that imposes them, declared on social media after 11 p.m. Oct. 23, "Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED."
Think tank and academic experts say that China and the U.S. are misinterpreting both sides' actions and the other country's vulnerability to the trade war, and that may extend the battles.
Nicholas Burns, a career diplomat who served as ambassador to China in the Biden administration, told the Atlantic Council that while the Trump administration may have miscalculated "that China didn't have real weight to throw around," he also thinks President Donald Trump has been right to be "tough-minded" on China's economic policies.
The EU should expand export controls over advanced technology and impose new tariffs against China to counter Beijing’s sweeping export curbs on rare earths (see 2510090021), a major European think tank said this week.
President Donald Trump told reporters that unless China stops fentanyl shipments, resumes buying U.S. soybeans and stops playing "the rare earth game with us," he won't lower tariffs.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a joint press conference with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, said the administration has already drafted some documents to hike tariffs on Chinese goods, and is drafting other documents that might impose more export controls for goods sold to Chinese firms.