Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that Trump was pausing his so-called ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on most of the country’s biggest trading partners, but maintaining his 10% tariff on nearly all global imports. Imports tariffs on goods from China, though, would surge to 125% “effective immediately” Trump said on social media.
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00:00And we saw the successful negotiating strategy that President Trump implemented a week ago today.
00:06It has brought more than 75 countries forward to negotiate.
00:11It took great courage, great courage for him to stay the course until this moment.
00:16And what we have ended up with here, as I told everyone a week ago in this very spot,
00:25do not retaliate and you will be rewarded.
00:28So every country in the world who wants to come and negotiate, we are willing to hear you.
00:36We're going to go down to a 10% baseline tariff for them.
00:41And China will be raised to 125 due to their insistence on escalation.
00:47I'm not calling it a trade war, but I am saying that China has escalated.
00:53And President Trump responded very courageously to that.
00:57And we are going to work on a solution with our trading partners.
01:03And all this was, again, this was driven by the president's strategy.
01:07He and I had a long talk on Sunday.
01:09And this was his strategy all along.
01:12And that, you know, you might even say that he goaded China into a bad position.
01:20They responded.
01:21They have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors.
01:24And we are willing to cooperate with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate.
01:33It wasn't a hard message.
01:35Don't retaliate.
01:36Things will turn out well.
01:37We've started with a 90-day pause.
01:39And we will see if more countries turn up, what will happen.
01:44But we have a meeting with Vietnam today.
01:48And we have one of the largest trade deficits with them.
01:51So I'm hoping it will move in a good direction.
01:55I was at the Japanese ambassador's house last night for the Cherry Blossom Festival, which is quite festive.
02:00And he and I had a good chat.
02:03They are going to send a deal team over.
02:06So we'll see.
02:07These are complicated negotiations.
02:08These are imbalances that have taken decades to create.
02:13But I think having seen the maximum level that Donald Trump is willing to go to,
02:20President Trump has created this negotiating leverage.