White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett announced on Sunday that over 50 countries have “reached out” to President Donald Trump asking to start negotiations following the president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs that were announced last Wednesday.
During a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” Hassett announced, “I got a report from the USTR [United States Trade Representative] last night that more than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation. But they’re doing that because they understand that they bear a lot of the tariff.”
“And so, I don’t think that you’re going to see a big effect on the consumer in the U.S. because I do think that the reason why we have a persistent, long-run trade deficit is these people have very inelastic supply,” Hassett added. They’ve been dumping goods into the country in order to create jobs, say, in China.”
During an interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained that the decision of whether to negotiate with other countries or maintain the tariffs the Trump administration unveiled last week at the White House is something that the president will have to decide himself.
“I can tell you that as only he can do at this moment, he has created maximum leverage for himself,” Bessent told NBC Host Kristen Welker. “And more than 50 countries have approached the administration about lowering their non-tariff trade barriers, lowering their tariffs, stopping currency manipulation.”
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Bessent added, “They’ve been bad actors for a long time, and it’s – it’s not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks.”
According to The New York Post, the European Union announced on Monday that it has offered the Trump administration a “zero-for-zero” tariff proposal on certain goods in response to the 47th president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs.
“We have offered zero-for-zero tariffs for industrial goods as we have successfully done with many other trading partners,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during a Monday press conference. “Because Europe is always ready for a good deal. So we keep it on the table.”
Von der Leyen added, “We stand ready to negotiate with the US.”
