It is not a new period, Bessent continued and added: “We only say that this is the time when it happens: If you want to accelerate things, you are welcome to do so. If you want to return to the old duty, this is your decision.” The strategy of the US government is to apply “maximum pressure”.
The European Union cited Bessent as a positive example of the progress of negotiations. After a “slow start”, the EU has now made “very good progress”, he said.
The EU and the United States negotiates talks at the weekend, and on Saturday France’s finance minister Eric Lombard had expressed hope for an agreement at the weekend.
On Thursday, Trump announced that the trading partners would like to inform the trading tariffs by letter. According to him, the tariffs will be between ten and 70 percent. Twelve letters should therefore be sent on Monday.
The EU had threatened Trump with customs for 50 percent if it did not agree with the United States until July 9th. This would be five times the currently valid ten percent. This basic customs set introduced by Trump is already significantly higher than the previous customs level.
Trump had imposed high customs for numerous states in early April and shortly afterwards reduced them to ten percent for most countries for a 90-day negotiation phase.
So far, the US government has only announced agreements with Great Britain and Vietnam. Bessent said “several agreements” were within reach. In the “coming couple of days”, “several important announcements” can be expected.
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