What President Trump’s Team Wants From the Rest of the World

More natural gas purchases from American firms. Fewer tariffs on U.S. exports. Lower taxes on Silicon Valley tech giants. Pledges to stop China from using other nations to ship its products to the United States.

These are just some of the demands the Trump administration is expected to make in negotiations with dozens of countries that are trying to avoid steep levies that were briefly put in place last week before being abruptly delayed. While substantial confusion remains about what precisely the White House will want, a clearer picture of what these bilateral deals could look like is beginning to emerge, according to interviews with more than a dozen people involved in or briefed on the talks, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private deliberations.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump suddenly paused large-scale tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on more than 70 nations, a move he partially attributed to alarming fluctuations in the bond market. The president said the tariffs would remain suspended for 90 days to give his advisers and their foreign counterparts time to reach individual agreements — a process he said had already begun with Vietnam, Japan, South Korea and Israel, among other countries. (Trump has left in place a 10 percent tariff on virtually all imports to the United States, while escalating tariffs on China to more than 100 percent as the pause on other countries remains in effect.)

White House officials have expressed optimism that deals could be reached in the next few weeks.

The Washington Post

Apr 14th 02:04 am