Donald Trump has said that his administration plans to start sending letters on Monday to US trade partners dictating new tariffs, amid confusion over when the new rates will come into effect.
“It could be 12, maybe 15 [letters],” the president told reporters, “and we’ve made deals also, so we’re going to have a combination of letters and some deals have been made.”
With his previously announced 90-day pause on tariffs set to end on 9 July, the president was asked if the new rates would come into effect this week, or on 1 August, as some officials had suggested.
“No, they’re going to be tariffs, the tariffs, the tariffs are going to be, the tariffs,” the president began, uncertainly, “I think we’ll have most countries done by July 9, yeah. Either a letter or a deal.”
Sensing the confusion, his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick jumped in to add: “But they go into effect on August 1. Tariffs go into effect August 1, but the president is setting the rates and the deals right now.”
Trump in April had announced a 10% base tariff rate on most countries and additional duties ranging up to 50%, although he later delayed the effective date for all but 10% until 9 July. The new date of 1 August offers countries a further three-week reprieve, but also plunges importers into an extended period of uncertainty due to the lack of clarity around the tariffs.
Stock markets slipped in Asia on Monday amid the confusion. Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.3%, while South Korean stocks fell 0.7%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.1%.
In a later update on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said the US would begin delivering “TARIFF Letters, and/or Deals” from 12pm ET on Monday.
“Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% Tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy,” he added in a separate post, referring to the developing nations bloc that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
After a joint leaders summit in Brazil on Sunday, Brics leaders had issued a joint statement raising “serious concerns about the rise of unilateral tariff” measures, which they said risked hurting the global economy.
Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, told CNN’s earlier on Sunday that several big announcements of trade agreements could come in the next days, noting the European Union had made good progress in its talks.
He said Trump would also send out letters to 100 smaller countries with whom the US doesn’t have much trade, notifying them that they would face higher tariff rates first set on 2 April and then suspended until 9 July.
“President Trump’s going to be sending letters to some of our trading partners saying that if you don’t move things along, then on August 1 you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level. So I think we’re going to see a lot of deals very quickly,” Bessent told CNN.
Since taking office, Trump has set off a global trade war that has roiled financial markets and sent policymakers scrambling to guard their economies, including through deals with the US and other countries.
Kevin Hassett, who heads the White House National Economic Council, told CBS that there might be wriggle room for countries engaged in earnest negotiations. “There are deadlines, and there are things that are close, and so maybe things will push back past the deadline,” Hassett said, adding that Trump would decide if that could happen.
