- Stocks rebounded on talks of tariff and trade negotiations, but the actual deal discussions might not be so simple or swift—and there has been no indication of a pause in the interim.
Since President Donald Trump announced his sweeping “Liberation Day” tariff regime on April 2, about 70 countries have put in calls to the White House to talk deals, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
“We’re up to 70 countries to contact the White House for how to come and negotiate,” Bessent said on CNBC Tuesday. “The negotiations are the result of the massive inflow of inbound calls to come and negotiate. Had nothing to do with the market.”
Bessent was responding to reports that claim he flew to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend to appeal to the president in an effort to prevent any more market turmoil, where he reportedly suggested the administration should focus tariff rhetoric on negotiating favorable trade deals. Bessent said it wasn’t a fair assessment of what happened. “It’s all President Trump’s decision,” he said.
Nonetheless, there is going to be a lot of back and forth, Bessent said, and the president will be personally involved. Everything is on the table, he said. A day earlier on Fox Business, Bessent had a similar message: Many countries have contacted the administration to negotiate, and it would be a busy next couple of months. But that could be downplaying it.
“Trying to negotiate individual trade agreements with 70 (or more) countries is difficult and will take time,” Jai Kedia, a research fellow for the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, told Fortune in a statement.
The libertarian think tank earlier called Trump’s tariffs “a recipe for making Americans worse off,” and it hasn’t changed its tune.
“Aside from being a terrible idea, the rollout of tariffs has been done so haphazardly that there is no clear indication on how long they’ll be in place or whether there might be a pause while these negotiations are taking place,” Kedia said. “Unfortunately, the past week of stock market turmoil has not yet convinced the administration to abandon this policy that is rooted in bad economics.”
Kedia noted the administration could be going to the negotiating table with bad data, mentioning economists have correctly criticized the formula used to calculate tariffs. Kedia cited a conservative think tank that found the White House used the wrong value for one of the variables in its formula, an error that roughly quadrupled tariff rates from what they should have been. “It is difficult to negotiate a better trade deal for the future when the administration has an incorrect view of the present,” Kedia said.
In an op-ed for the Financial Times, Harvard University professor and former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Jason Furman wrote it is hard to imagine how one negotiates deals with so many different economies that are all grappling with Trump’s reciprocal tariffs plus a blanket 10% duty. Furman did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for further comment.
Still, the news of negotiations and hopes of tariff deals have calmed markets. Stocks climbed Tuesday on more than Bessent’s comments: Trump said he had a great call with the South Korean president, and his National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said the administration was handling “a massive number” of tariff negotiation requests.
Bessent mentioned Japan, too, on Tuesday. He said Trump had a very good call with the Japanese prime minister and negotiations have begun. “We have a substantial imbalance with them, and I’m sure that they are as anxious as we are to get this remedied,” he said.
