Karoline Leavitt and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hold press gaggle outside the White House.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Trump is going to punch back harder. And that same thing, we have had more than 75 countries
00:05from around the world reach out to President Trump and his team here at the White House to
00:09negotiate better trade deals for the American worker. We have been overwhelmed with the amount
00:15of requests from countries around the world. I'll let the Secretary speak to that. We will continue
00:19with the tailor-made negotiations that I spoke about yesterday. In the meantime, there will be
00:23a 90-day pause on the reciprocal tariffs as these negotiations are ongoing, and the tariff level
00:28will be brought down to a universal 10% tariff. The Secretary here has been a huge part of
00:34the President's trade team, of course, and will continue to lead these negotiations moving
00:38forward to look out for the American worker, which is always President Trump's goal. So
00:41I'll take it over to our great Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson.
00:46Good. Thank you. And we saw the successful negotiating strategy that President Trump implemented
00:52a week ago today. It has brought more than 75 countries forward to negotiate. It's a great
01:00courage, great courage for him to stay the course until this moment. And what we have ended up
01:05with here, as I told everyone a week ago, in this very spot, do not retaliate, and you will be rewarded. So
01:17every country in the world wants to come and negotiate. We are willing to hear you. We're going to go down
01:25to a 10% baseline tariff for them, and China will be raised to $125,000 due to their insistence on escalation.
01:36Is this it?
01:36Secretary, Secretary, Secretary, are you backing down?
01:39Secretary, Secretary, thank you for doing this. Let me ask you three quick things, in fact, just for the sake of clarity,
01:44because the markets are open and they're wondering. First of all, Mexico and China, are they part of this 10% universal?
01:50Well, China, no, China.
01:52Mexico and Canada. Mexico and Canada. Are they part of the 10%?
01:55Yes.
01:56Okay. Second, given then that you have the rest of the world essentially calling it, it's not China. Is this now just all about China?
02:03Well, it's about bad actors, and what we will see is some of the very early countries are China's neighbors.
02:13We're going to see, I'm seeing Vietnam today, Japan's at the front of the queue, South Korea, India.
02:19So, we will see, and as I've repeatedly said, and President Trump has been saying it for years,
02:27China is the most imbalanced economy in the history of the modern world, and they are the biggest source of the U.S. trade problems.
02:35And indeed, they are a problem for the rest of the world, because what we've seen is that as the U.S. announced the tariff wall last week,
02:45many of those goods have already started flooding into Europe.
02:49So, as you see it now, this trade war is China versus the rest of the world.
02:53Well, I'm not calling it a trade war, but I'm saying that China has escalated, and President Trump responded very courageously to that,
03:03and we are going to work on a solution with our trading partners.
03:08Mr. Secretary, what happened to the council?
03:12Excuse me, Raquel, if I could just add to what the Secretary said, many of you in the media clearly missed the art of the deal.
03:18You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here.
03:22You tried to say that the rest of the world would be moved closer to China, when, in fact, we've seen the opposite effect.
03:28The entire world is calling the United States of America, not China, because they need our markets, they need our consumers,
03:34and they need this president in the Oval Office to talk to them.
03:38And that's exactly why more than 75 countries have called, because the United States of America is the best place in the world to do business.
03:44And as the president has shown great courage, as the secretary has said, it's using to retaliate against China even higher.
03:51Hi, thank you, Treasury Secretary Besson.
03:53Can you explain more of the decision-making on what feels like a reversal here?
03:57I mean, just these went into effect less than 15 hours ago, these tariffs.
04:01Why the pause now?
04:03What led to that decision?
04:04No.
04:05Again, President Trump created maximum negotiating leverage for himself, and which tariffs went into effect 15 hours ago?
04:13The ones that we have lowered went into effect a week ago.
04:17Or they were announced a week ago, and we've just been overwhelmed, overwhelmed by the response from mostly our allies who want to come and negotiate in good faith.
04:29So we are expecting them to come with their best deal.
04:33As I said a week ago today, don't retaliate.
04:37Hold your ground.
04:38Let's see what happens.
04:39And China, they kept escalating and escalating, and now they have 125 percent tariffs that will be effective immediately.
04:48Mr. Secretary, thanks so much for doing this.
04:52The 90-day pause when there was some tariffs, is that because of the windlass that we've been seeing across the financial markets?
04:58How much was, you know, what we saw in the stock markets, you know, a part of this decision?
05:02No, it's because it's going to, because of the large number of inbounds, we've had more than 75 countries contact us.
05:10And I imagine after today there will be more.
05:13So it is just a processing problem.
05:16Each one of these solutions is going to be bespoke.
05:20It is going to take some time.
05:22And President Trump wants to be personally involved.
05:24So that's why we're getting the 90-day pause.
05:27Mr. Secretary, there was a tweet that U.N. Secretary left before the Oval Office of the President talking about this.
05:34Can you talk about what that conversation was like and why you guys said before and nothing, how much did you say?
05:39Look, it's all the President's decision.
05:43And that we were, the President had a level in mind to raise the China tariffs.
05:51And then he had the three-month, essentially the three-month pause in mind.
05:57And we were discussing the exact wording.
06:00Mr. Secretary, do you have positive advice?
06:02Sorry?
06:03Mr. Secretary, do you have positive advice?
06:04Of course.
06:05The President's decision.
06:06It was the President's decision to wait until today.
06:11And again, as I've said in the past, no one creates leverage for himself like President Trump.
06:17Mr. Secretary, what does the President want to see by this, I think it's July 9th deadline, to keep things positive?
06:26Is it just trade barriers coming down, or is it worth that?
06:29Well, these are trade negotiations, but if countries want to come and offer other things, you know, I talked about yesterday that we are thinking about a big LNG project in Alaska that South Korea, Japan, Taiwan are interested in financing and taking a substantial portion of the offtake.
06:54But again, in essence, that is trade, because it will decrease the trade deficit that we have with those countries.
07:05So everything is on the table.
07:07Mr. President.
07:07Mr. Raquel, go ahead.
07:08A clarification on the pause.
07:11What happened to those countries who just had a 10% baseline tariffs, like Brazil and others?
07:16Are they still going to have this 9-day pause?
07:19Because they were saying that there will be a 10% for others.
07:22So what happened to those who just had a 10%?
07:25Yeah, that's going to remain.
07:26Mr. Secretary.
07:28And do you call this an embargo to China?
07:31Pardon?
07:31Do you call this an embargo to China, a trade embargo?
07:34Well, I'm not sure what you mean by the word embargo.
07:39100, 125% tariffs, like those, and that imposed 84%.
07:46Is it an embargo?
07:47Well, look, it's China's decision that we have the deficit with them.
07:52They sell us almost five times what we sell them.
07:56So, again, I think it's an own goal by China.
07:59Mr. Secretary, what is Meredith?
08:01Mr. Secretary, what does this signal that you're confident that you're going to be able to strike a satisfactory deal with all these 75 nations that have approached you?
08:10It signals that President Trump cares about trade and that we want to negotiate in good faith.
08:17And as I said, each one of these is going to be a separate bespoke negotiation.
08:24So we are confident that having seen the other side of where this could go.
08:31And it was like I said last week, the market didn't understand those were maximum levels.
08:37The countries can think about those levels as they come to us to bring down their tariffs, their non-tariff trade barriers.
08:45We're going to discuss currency manipulation, subsidy of labor and industry.
08:50Mr. Secretary, as part of you, will the pause also apply to the sexual tariffs that the President has announced, pharma, lumber, anything else?
09:00No, it's on the reciprocal table.
09:02So those are still becoming a piercing, right?
09:03Correct.
09:03Mr. Secretary, as part of you, with the 75-
09:06Andrea, go ahead.
09:07Mr. Secretary, so I want to ask you about the, what you're doing here.
09:13So the market is reacting crazily, right?
09:16I haven't seen it.
09:17Do you think that this, this move is going to change and it's going down the market reaction?
09:24What?
09:24Do you think the market, the markets have tanked, right?
09:27You know, there's been a lot of volatility in the market, not just in terms of stock markets, but also in terms of stocks.
09:34So will this move, in your opinion, in your mind, do you anticipate that this is going to calm the markets again?
09:40Well, I think what we've seen, I think the willingness by more than 75 countries to come and negotiate,
09:47I think now the market understands that everything they saw last Wednesday was a ceiling and now we have a 10% via temporary floor.
09:58And I think the market, my 35 years in the market, I always wanted certainty, so I think we've got more certainty.
10:05But, Mr. Secretary, why do people assume this is the last floor?
10:11The President began this morning saying, be cool, five hours later, he announces a new policy.
10:16Why will investors in the market assume that this is it?
10:19Because, again, as I said, we've given 90 days and the only certainty we can provide is that the U.S. is going to negotiate in good faith.
10:28And we assume that our allies will, too.
10:32And in terms of certainty, we will see what China does.
10:37But what I am certain of, what I'm certain of is that what China is doing will affect their economy much more than it will ours
10:45because they have an export-driven, flood-the-world with cheap export models and the rest of the world now understands.
10:55Because when we put up our tariff wall, those exports were already flowing to the rest of the G7 and to the global south.
11:03Mr. Secretary, how much of this decision was driven by the bond market cratering overnight?
11:09What is happening with China selling their bonds?
11:13I have nothing that says that.
11:15And we actually had quite a good 10-year auction today.
11:19And all this was, again, this was driven by the President's strategy.
11:23He and I had a long talk on Sunday.
11:26And this was his strategy all along.
11:29And you might even say that he goaded China into a bad position.
11:36They responded, they have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors.
11:41And we are willing to cooperate with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate.
11:49It wasn't a hard message.
11:51Don't retaliate.
11:52Things will turn out well.
11:53And the small article article saying that the countries were getting calls back.
11:58How long will that take?
12:02Will it be a matter of weeks?
12:03Will it be a matter of months?
12:05Do you expect the financial markets to be stable during that time period?
12:09Well, we started with a 90-day pause.
12:12And we will see if more countries turn up, what will happen.
12:17But we have a meeting with Vietnam today.
12:21And we have one of the largest trade deficits with them.
12:24So I'm hoping it will move in a good direction.
12:27I was at the Japanese ambassador's house last night for the Cherry Blossom Festival, which is quite festive.
12:33And he and I had a good chat.
12:36They are going to send a deal team over.
12:39So we'll see.
12:40These are complicated negotiations.
12:42These are imbalances that have taken decades to create.
12:46But I think having seen the maximum level that Donald Trump is willing to go to,
12:53President Trump has created this negotiating leverage.
12:57The Secretary, excuse me, the Secretary is obviously a very busy man.
13:03As he has said, he's had more than 75 countries that the trade team has to respond to.
13:08I'd just like to end with this.
13:09For decades, Republicans and Democrats have said that these unfair trade practices are ripping off the American people,
13:16are ripping off our country.
13:18But nobody has ever done anything to address it.
13:21We finally have a president here at the White House who is playing the long game,
13:25who is doing what is right for the American worker in our industries here at home.
13:29And he has put together a fantastic team in Secretary Bessett, Secretary Lustnik,
13:33the entire trade team who will be focusing on negotiating these good deals
13:37to put the American workers first.
13:40And we're going to get to work to do that.
13:42Secretary, what about the EU?
13:43What about the EU?
13:44They retaliated this morning.
13:46Why aren't they being treated like China?
13:47We're atlarını.
13:48See you later.
13:50Please tell me.
13:50Oh my dear.
13:51Keep this while coming.
13:51Bye.
13:52This is when I met my kids in a couple of years,
13:54I love my kids, and I'm happy.
13:56I love our kids.
13:57You are a dear.
13:58Yeah, I love your kids.
14:08I love your kids.
14:16I like your kids.