Bessent expects a couple big deals ‘very quickly’ on tariffs
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that he expects a couple big deals “very quickly” in relation to President Trump's latest tariff announcement.
"We have one of the Vietnamese officials coming in this week, the Japanese are very eager to get over and I think you're going to see a couple of big trading partners make deals very quickly,” Bessent told reporters Tuesday, as reported by The Hill's sister station NewsNation.
His comment comes as the White House has displayed no signs of backing down from Trump's sweeping tariff agenda, set to go into effect early Wednesday, despite a struggling market and rising concern over a potential recession.
The president has insisted that the tariffs are required in order to rebalance global trade and reorient the U.S. economy following years of being taken advantage of.
Bessent on Monday said Trump would eventually be ready for negotiations with other countries, after the president imposed a 10 percent baseline tax on nearly all foreign trading partners last week. Several countries were also hit with additional reciprocal taxes.
In a post online Monday, he revealed that Trump tasked him and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to lead talks with Japan. The move came after an additional 25 percent tariff on auto imports, along with the 24 percent tariff on Japanese goods, dealt a hefty blow to the country’s economy, which is heavily reliant on exports.
Bessent said Sunday that more than 50 nations have already approached the U.S. to negotiate the tax rates.
Trump has also threatened to impose another 50 percent tariff on imports from China, after Beijing unveiled a 34 percent reciprocal tax on the U.S.
Despite criticism over the impact of Trump's trade war on the U.S. economy and consumer prices, the president has defended his agenda, arguing the import taxes will spark investment in the U.S. and lead to more jobs.
The administration and supporters, however, have sent mixed signals on if the tariffs are being used for leverage. Some Trump allies held up the tariffs as a master dealmaker’s action, pushing other countries to change practices in search of the U.S. easing up.
Trump has also previously told reporters that the tariffs “give us great power to negotiate.”
“I wouldn’t want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a trade deal with @realDonaldTrump,” his son Eric Trump said last week in a post on social platform X. “The first to negotiate will win – the last will absolutely lose.”
The president also suggested Friday that his policies “will never change.”