US not rushing trade deals ahead of August deadline, will talk with China, Bessent says

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration is more concerned with the quality of trade agreements than their timing, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on July 21, ahead of an Aug 1 deadline for countries to secure trade deals or face steep tariffs.

“We’re not going to rush for the sake of doing deals,” he told CNBC.

Asked whether the deadline could be extended for countries engaged in productive talks with Washington, he said US President Donald Trump would decide.

“We’ll see what the President wants to do. But again, if we somehow boomerang back to the Aug 1 tariff, I would think that a higher tariff level will put more pressure on those countries to come with better agreements,” he said.

Mr Trump has upended the global economy with a trade war that has targeted most US trading partners, but his administration has fallen far short of its plan to clinch deals with dozens of countries.

Negotiations with India, the European Union, Japan and others have proven more trying than expected.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Mr Trump could discuss trade when he meets Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr at the White House on July 22.

She said the administration remained engaged with countries around the world and could announce more trade deals or send more letters notifying countries of the tariff rate they faced before Aug 1, but gave no details.

Her comments came as European Union (EU) diplomats said they were exploring a broader set of possible counter-measures against the US, given fading prospects for an acceptable trade agreement with Washington.

An increasing number of EU members, including Germany, are now considering using “anti-coercion” measures that would let the bloc target US services or curb access to public tenders in the absence of a deal, diplomats said.

“The negotiations over the level of tariffs are currently very intense,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told a press conference. “The Americans are quite clearly not willing to agree to a symmetrical tariff arrangement.”

US-China talks soon

On China, Mr Bessent said there would be “talks in the very near future”.

“I think trade is in a good place and I think, now we can start talking about other things. The Chinese, unfortunately... are very large purchasers of sanctioned Iranian oil, sanctioned Russian oil,” he said.

“We could also discuss the elephant in the room, which is this great rebalancing that the Chinese need to do.”

US officials have long complained about China’s overcapacity in various manufacturing sectors, including steel.

Mr Bessent told CNBC he would encourage Europe to follow the US if it implements secondary tariffs on Russia.

The Treasury chief, who returned from a visit to Japan on July 20, said the administration was less concerned with the Asian country’s domestic politics than with getting the best deal for Americans.

Japan’s chief tariff negotiator Ryosei Akazawa left for trade talks in Washington on the morning of July 21, his eighth visit in three months, after the ruling coalition of Japanese Premier Shigeru Ishiba suffered a bruising defeat in Upper House elections that were shaped in part by voter frustration over US tariffs.

Indian trade negotiators returned to New Delhi after almost a week of talks in Washington, but officials were losing hope of signing an interim trade deal before the Aug 1 deadline, government sources said. REUTERS