President Donald Trump on Tuesday stressed that he wants to make “highly tailored” deals with countries panicking over his tariff barrage, as world leaders and business executives brace for higher tariff rates to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
The president, along with several senior administration officials, signaled that the White House is ready to negotiate, offering clarity to investors who have struggled to learn whether the duties are permanent or a springboard for deals after the White House shared conflicting messages last week.
But broad uncertainty persisted over how long it would take the administration to strike new arrangements, as the White House showed no sign of a pause in its plans and promised to introduce 104 percent tariffs on imports from China overnight.
“We’ve had talks with many, many countries — over 70,” Trump said. “They all want to come in. Our problem is, can’t see that many that fast.”
Trump said leaders from Japan and South Korea are flying to the United States to make a deal. He suggested that the White House would work with outside law firms to address the massive demand for negotiations from other countries.
In her first briefing since the tariffs were unveiled last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s trade team will be divvying up contact with interested parties and prioritizing “allies and partners” in the negotiations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Trump on Monday in the Oval Office, and Trump has said he has had calls with the leaders of Japan, South Korea and Vietnam.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — a right-wing leader who shares a skepticism about migration with Trump and is close to Trump adviser Elon Musk — will visit Washington next week, potentially serving as a sympathetic intermediary for the 27-nation European Union — which Trump falsely claimed was formed to hurt trade with the United States — the White House said.
But despite mounting public backlash — even from some of Trump’s most prominent supporters — the president and his advisers showed no signs of pausing or slowing down the tariff rollout. Leavitt said China was making a mistake, criticizing Beijing’s promises to retaliate with a matching 34 percent tariff rate. And at a Senate hearing Tuesday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Trump wouldn’t provide carve-outs to individual companies or products, dampening a brief wave of optimism on Wall Street over the White House’s signals that it was open to dealmaking.
The Trump officials’ openness to negotiations with other nations follows broad uncertainty over the strategy behind the White House’s sweeping tariffs, which stand to halt the globalization trends that have defined U.S. policy since the end of World War II. Business leaders and diplomats reeling from the fallout have been anxiously watching for any glimmer that Trump is primarily using the duties as a negotiating tool and does not intend to leave all of the levies in effect long-term.
Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager who endorsed Trump after the assassination attempt against him in July during his campaign, has been pressing the White House to implement a “30, 60, or 90-day” pause on the tariffs to allow negotiations to occur without wrecking the global economy.
“If a country does not negotiate in good faith, then @realDonaldTrump can bring the hammer down, but doing so without giving time to make deals creates unnecessary harm,” Ackman wrote on X on Tuesday.
The administration’s focus on the potential deals marked a departure from last week, when the president and his top advisers shared competing messages on how willing the White House was to come to the table. Trump on Thursday bragged about how many countries were seeking to strike deals in the wake of the tariff announcement. But his message contradicted his own aides, including trade adviser Peter Navarro and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who said the president was not looking to strike deals over the tariffs. The White House had also internally circulated talking points that said the duties should not be described as a starting point for negotiations, The Washington Post previously reported.
The White House presented a more unified message about negotiations on Tuesday after the stock market moderately stabilized on Monday following Trump’s suggestion that individual countries could start talks to limit worst-case economic scenarios. Business leaders have criticized the formula that the White House developed for the tariffs, as Trump and his top advisers present conflicting messages about what the levies are intended to achieve.
At Tuesday’s briefing, Leavitt pushed back on the idea that the administration had altered its position.
“It is a nonnegotiable position that the United States has faced a national security and economic crisis because of the unfair trade practices by countries around the world,” she said. “The entire administration has always said that President Trump is willing to pick up the phone and talk.”
White House officials say they feel reassured by Tuesday’s muted market reaction, and they have leaned into Trump’s embrace this week of negotiating with foreign partners to work out deals.
One senior official expressed optimism that markets would soon rebound. Trump learned the value of speed from his first term in the White House, the official said Tuesday, and wanted to move quickly to impose his long-sought tariffs before other world events make it harder to take actions that might have short-term costs and he misses his window.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about internal discussions.
Trump’s economic team hopes that negotiations are able to move quickly — at the pace of weeks, not months, the official said. The president is flexible about his aims as he speaks to individual countries, the official said, open to trying for wins either by widening markets for U.S. manufacturers by forcing down foreign trade barriers or rebooting U.S. manufacturing by leaving higher tariffs in place.
Critics say calling Trump’s approach flexible is just a flattering description of an effort that lacks a clear strategy. After a brief rally on Tuesday, the S&P 500 index closed down 1.5 percent — nearing a bear market.
