Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated that Donald Trump is again intending to move the goalposts for his global tariff policy.
The United States is fast approaching the end of the president’s 90-day pause on his sweeping global tariffs on July 9, but while testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, Bessent said that “Liberation Day” Part 2 may not come to pass so soon.
“I would say, as I have repeatedly said, that there are 18 important trading partners. We are working toward deals on those. And it is highly likely that those countries that are negoti—or trading blocs, in the case of the EU—who are negotiating in good faith, we will roll the date forward to continue good-faith negotiations,” Bessent said.
“If someone is not negotiating, then we will not,” he added.
The Trump administration has not even vaguely approached its initial promise to crack 90 deals in 90 days, only announcing two unfinished deals, with the U.K. and China.
Crucially, Trump’s paltry set of terms with China isn’t even a deal. China referred to it as merely a “framework,” while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said it was a “handshake for a framework” that both Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping need to approve.
Trump seems intent on running the country’s economic policy in 90-day increments, prolonging economic uncertainty that has roiled the markets and sent prices rising. But the president’s failure should hardly come as a surprise, as the stated purpose of his tariffs—not to ensure economic prosperity but to bring U.S. trading partners to their knees—defies all logic and reason.
With only two half-deals made, and a suddenly unclear horizon, it’s not clear how TACO Trump will ever reach the goal of 200 trade deals he’d claimed to have made in April. Especially considering that there aren’t even that many countries.