Nearly 70 nations want to negotiate with Trump to avoid tariffs

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke on cable news about President Trump’s tariff negotiations with other countries and said that up to 70 nations want to negotiate with the President to avoid a tariff war.

President Donald Trump unveiled new tariffs on goods imported from foreign countries last week, including a baseline levy of 10% and “individualized reciprocal higher” tariffs on certain nations. This could be good news for the White House, something to show for their dramatic actions, which have caused stocks and the US Dollar to fall precipitously.

Bessent told Fox News host Larry Kudlow that Trump is “better than anyone at giving himself maximum leverage, so what he has done is we outlined the tariffs on April 2 and then gave countries several days to think about it.” 

“As I advised on many shows on April 2, I suggested that the foreign officials keep your cool, that you do not escalate and come to us with your offers on how you’re going to drop tariffs, how you’re going to drop non-tariff barriers, how you’re going to stop your currency manipulation, how you’re going to stop the subsidized financing, and at a point, President Trump will be ready to negotiate,” Bessent said.

The Treasury secretary told Kudlow that “50, 60, maybe almost 70 countries” have gotten in contact with the Trump administration looking to negotiate. During his appearance, Bessent defended the Trump administration using trade deficits in its calculus for determining reciprocal tariffs on imports from some foreign countries.

He also noted that “academic studies have shown that it’s the non-tariff trade barriers that are the real problem in the U.S. having free and fair access to these markets.” President Trump has described what he considers unfair trade practices from the Europeans, in which they set unreasonable standards that American products have to meet before they can be sold into the European market.

It should be noted that countries being willing to negotiate does not equal a leveraged deal that will favor the US more than what was already on the table. Naturally, both sides of the political debate will try to spin this to their own benefit.

Trump and his supporters will claim that countries are buckling to the pressure, and that any new negotiations that arise are better than what America had before, thus making the tariff wars work it.

Mr Trump’s opponents will likely claim that whatever deal is made is the same, or possibly worse than what we had, and that this whole ordeal was not worth it. Or even if a deal that is indisputably better for the US than a previous deal is reached, Trump’s opponents will say that he has “damaged America’s reputation and alienated our allies.”

There is still a long way to go in the trade battles and the possible negotiations that will follow. Predicting where we go is almost impossible.