A day after President Trump capitulated on his global reciprocal tariffs, he and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick insisted that one country after another was coming to them to make deals to avoid further economic pain.
But the devil is in the details, and Mr. Trump and Mr. Lutnick offered very few. Instead, they said that things would work out, without saying much more.
“Everybody wants to come and make a deal, and we’re working with a lot of different countries, and it’s all going to work out very well,” Mr. Trump said during a cabinet meeting. “I think it’s going to work out really, very well, but we’re in good shape.”
Mr. Lutnick chimed in: “We have so many countries to talk to. They have come with offers that they never, ever, ever would have come with but for the moves that the president has made demanding that people treat the United States with respect.”
But exactly which countries might strike a deal, and over what, remains unclear. For the most part, the deals that the Trump administration negotiates are unlikely to be comprehensive trade agreements, which can take years to broker and require congressional approval.
More limited deals may benefit some exporters, but not ultimately do much to help the U.S. economy or diminish the U.S. trade deficit, which Mr. Trump has targeted. Manufacturing, tech and retail business groups in Washington said Wednesday that they had heard no indications of deals coming together yet.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 tumbled 3.5 percent on Thursday, with investors still feeling concerned about the volatility in Mr. Trump’s approach. Even with the 90-day pause that the president announced on Wednesday, the tariffs he has imposed on the world remain extremely high. Goods from China now face a minimum tariff rate of 145 percent, a drastic increase on a country that supplies much of what Americans buy.
After Mr. Trump’s tariffs announcement last week, foreign officials raced to Washington to try to forestall the levies. Administration officials said that more than 75 countries had reached out to them, and the U.S. trade representative, Jamieson Greer, met with officials from Europe, South Korea, Ecuador and Mexico on Tuesday.
Vietnamese officials had offered to preemptively cut their tariffs on American apples, cherries and ethanol, and brought along a term sheet to the meeting that detailed changes they were willing to make, Mr. Greer said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s office on Thursday released a readout of the administration’s discussions with Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc of Vietnam. Mr. Trump said last week that the United States had begun discussing tariff rates with Vietnam.
“During their talks, Secretary Bessent emphasized the importance of continued engagement with trade partners, and the need for quick, demonstrable progress to resolve outstanding issues,” the readout said.
That was about as specific as it got.
Mr. Trump tends to prefer speaking in vague terms, in part because it allows him flexibility to avoid being pinned down. But that lack of specificity, and lack of clarity about what the end game was, were part of why the tariffs announcements sent markets spiraling.
Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, said he had spoken with the president of Switzerland on Thursday morning about a deal. He said that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative “already had offers on the table for more than 15 countries.”
Mr. Bessent said he had spoken with representatives from Vietnam on Wednesday, and had a “good chat” with the Japanese ambassador at his house the previous night during a cherry blossom party.
Japan was at the front of the queue for a trade deal, followed by South Korea and India, Mr. Bessent said on Wednesday. He added that any trade agreements would be “bespoke” and “take some time,” because Mr. Trump wanted to be involved personally.
One person familiar with the discussions said that Japanese officials were angling for their country to have one of the first trade deals, but that talks could be more difficult because of longer-run disagreements in sectors like autos and steel.
Japan and the United States have long-running trade disputes going back to the 1980s — the era that Mr. Trump would like manufacturing in the United States to return to.
In Mr. Trump’s first term, he signed a “mini-deal” with Japan that addressed just a few sectors, and pursued the same type of limited agreement with India and other countries.
There are few signs that the United States will begin actively negotiating with China anytime soon, though Mr. Trump said on Thursday that China’s leader, Xi Jinping, “has been a friend of mine for a long period of time.”
“We’ll see what happens with China,” Mr. Trump said. “We would love to be able to work a deal.”
Tony Romm contributed reporting.
