Trump’s Aug. 1 tariffs will pressure trade partners: Bessent

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that implementing high tariff rates on countries starting August 1 “will put more pressure on those countries to come with better agreements.”

Bessent’s remarks suggest that he views President Donald Trump’s planned massive tariffs on top trading partners — which have been postponed until Aug. 1 — as not so much a deadline to ink deals, but as another negotiating tactic to squeeze the impacted countries to acquiesce to favorable terms for the United States.

“We’ll see what the president wants to do,” Bessent said on CNBC when asked whether next month’s deadline could be extended for countries that are engaging in productive talks, an idea that has been endorsed by administration officials in recent months.

“But again, if we somehow boomerang back … I would think that a higher tariff level will put more pressure on those countries to come with better agreements,” said Bessent.

Investors and importers appear torn between bracing for Trump’s tariffs to actually take effect next month on one hand, and betting that Trump will postpone them yet again on the other.

The steep levies, some as high as 40%, could cripple both the U.S. economy and the economies of trading partners.

Bessent’s remarks come as top Trump administration officials have insisted in recent days that Aug. 1 is a “hard deadline.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, for instance, said Sunday that “nothing stops countries from talking to us after August 1, but they’re going to start paying the tariffs on August 1.”

Bessent also said that “our trading partners were told that the rates could boomerang back toward the April 2 levels.”

“We can continue talking then, but again, we’re proceeding apace with the negotiations, but we’re not going to rush for the sake of doing deals.”

Trump’s tariff deadline has shifted a number of times since his April 2 announcement imposing steep levies on trading partners, casting doubt on whether the Aug. 1 deadline will hold, or if it’s viewed within the administration as another tool to get trading partners to the negotiating table.

In another sign that Bessent views Aug. 1 tariffs, once imposed, as another negotiating tool, he said Monday that the administration is “more concerned with high quality” trade deals, than getting deals done by August 1.

“The important thing here is the quality of the deal, not the timing of the deals,” Bessent said.