Bessent said that most US trading partners have been negotiating “in very good faith,” and that the European Union is an “exception.” Trump earlier on Friday threatened a 50% tariff on EU goods starting on June 1, saying “our discussions with them are going nowhere.”
“I think this is in response just to the EU’s pace,” Bessent said of Trump’s threat. “I would hope that this would light a fire under the EU.”Also Read: India may let US, foreign firms bid for government contracts, sources say
The Treasury chief has been tapped by Trump as point person for negotiations with a number of Asian trading partners, while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has taken the lead on European talks. Bessent reiterated his view that the EU has a “collective action problem” in negotiating, because of the need to assemble a unified position among multiple member nations.
Bessent declined to specify which nations the US is likely to announce deals with in the coming weeks. He did say that “we’re far along with India.”
He also said that the so-called liberation day tariff rates that Trump announced April 2 were “based on countries coming to us and negotiating in good faith.” After that announcement, Bessent had repeatedly said that those rates were a ceiling unless other nations retaliated. “If you don’t retaliate, that is the ceiling,” he said April 9 at an American Bankers Association event. The EU was assigned a 20% rate last month, less than half the level of Trump’s Friday threat.
Asked about the tax bill that passed the House earlier this week, the Treasury chief said that Senate Majority Leader John Thune is aiming “to take this up immediately, and I’m not expecting that there’s going to have to be that much change” in the legislation in that chamber.
(Edited by : Shersh Kapoor)
