00:00 Speaker A
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, he said on CBS news over the weekend that it is a hard deadline for when new tariff rates will set in, but that countries can still negotiate after that date. So, where are we with some of these trade deals? Joining me now with the latest Yahoo Finance Washington Correspondent, Ben Worshler. And the one the negotiations with the EU seem to be most in focus right now, right?
00:27 Ben Worshler
For sure, yeah. Europe Europe is definitely most in focus this morning amongst these wide range of deals. And what we’re getting on the Europe side here is sort of a picture of what a no-deal scenario looks like. We got there’s a bunch of reports from Brussels, um, in in recent hours of of what you countermeasures could be if no deal is reached by by August 1st. Um, the big ones would be retaliatory tariffs on a wide range of US goods from steel to bourbon to a whole bunch of goods. A big escalation would be what what are called, um, anti-coercion measures that the the European Union has, which could allow them to simply restrict trade. That would obviously be a massive escalation here in terms of this standoff between the US and the EU. But it does come. I should note as both sides say that they are looking they are they’re still negotiating. They’re still confident that they’re and in some cases confident that there could be a deal, um, on the earlier side. Um, Lutnick also said on CBS over the weekend, there’s plenty of room for a deal. So, and and that he was talking to them as recently as as as Sunday. So there’s still lots of back and forth there, but it’s kind of a get ready for the worst-case scenario if that if that comes. One other nuance I wanted to, I think is important for investors though, and you saw it in that Lutnick quote, is they’re saying the White House message is evolving a little bit to say that there is a firm deadline for tariff rates on August 1st, but not necessarily tariff trade deals. Um, Lutnick had the comments, Best Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Best this morning on CNBC had a similar line about how they’re not they’re they’re they’re they’re not looking to rush deals. They’re waiting for high-quality deals is how he put it, which which could give us a little wiggle room on this August 1st deadline for deals, but according to the White House, not necessarily tariffs. Another front in this that I think falls in the similar theme is India, which Indian negotiators were here in Washington just this weekend for a fifth round of talks. They came away according to Indian media confident in what they describe as a mini deal, but with a key caveat here, uh, the the any announcement is not likely to come until September or October. So the emerging question is kind of what happens in August and September as these as these deals aren’t necessarily done, but but but Trump has promised rates will go into place.
04:38 Speaker A
Yeah, the message seems to be that they’re not pushing it back again. Is that the way to read it?
04:51 Ben Worshler
Yeah, I think I think on all these fronts. So it’s the overall dynamic here, I think, is especially true with Europe is that the European is that Trump team keeps asking for additional concessions. We we had reports, um, a few weeks ago of there seemed to be a consensus around a 10% tariff on the European Union. That that is clearly less likely now. Trump and his team are floating things like a 15 or 20% rate, and his letter last week was a 30% rate. So there’s definitely a a lot of pushback on both sides on all these fronts with with Trump and his team in their own accounting pushing for the the best deal possible for certainly. And it could go right up to this August 1st deadline or even beyond.
