United States President Donald Trump has delayed the imposition of new country-specific tariffs until August 1, giving a short window for diplomatic negotiations with a number of countries, including India, to make some headway.
The tariffs were initially scheduled to go into effect on July 9.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick made the announcement at a press conference on Sunday (U.S. time), saying that President Trump was personally engaged in finalizing the "rates and the deals right now."
Trump expressed confidence that trade matters with most nations would be settled by the earlier July 9 deadline, telling reporters, “I think we’ll have most countries wrapped up by July 9, either through letters or finalised agreements.” He mentioned that official notifications alerting countries about upcoming tariff hikes would begin dispatching on Monday, with additional notices expected Tuesday.
Describing the process, Trump said that issuing formal notices would be much easier than hammering out several agreements at once: "This is what you have to pay, if you want to do business with the United States."
Last April, the President had proposed a baseline tariff of 10 percent for most of the country's trading partners, with the potential to add more duties as high as 50 percent.
To date, the U.S. has officially concluded trade agreements with the United Kingdom and Vietnam, with a number of others said to be well along in negotiation.
President Trump's going to be writing to some of our trade partners letting them know that if you don't get things done, then on August 1 you're going to boomerang back to your April 2 tariff rate. So I think we'll see a lot of agreements quite quickly," U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said to CNN.
In the meantime, India's highest-level delegation, headed by chief negotiator Rajesh Agrawal, has wrapped up its Washington trade talks without breaking through on some of the main issues, notably agricultural and dairy trade—the sectors the U.S. has been seeking to open.
In another development, Trump also declared an upcoming 10 percent tariff on nations "that align with the anti-American policies of BRICS," indicating a more aggressive stance towards those groups seen as being hostile to U.S. interests.
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