Key Takeaways
- President Donald Trump’s administration has 78 days left to negotiate with at least 57 foreign countries before his 90-day pause on “reciprocal” tariffs expires.
- The U.S. has reportedly made progress in talks with Japan and India, but has not signed any deals yet.
- Historically, trade negotiations have taken a year and a half to complete and another 45 days to implement.
The White House has 78 days to negotiate trade agreements with at least 57 countries to avoid imposing the “reciprocal” tariffs it announced at the beginning of April.
On April 2, President Donald Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all imports, plus additional “reciprocal” tariffs against 57 countries and territories. The next week, Trump paused the tariffs for 90 days to give trading partners time to negotiate deals to avoid their products being hit with the import taxes, setting a July 9 deadline. As of Tuesday, the White House was negotiating with Japan and India, but has yet to announce any deals.
Given that the White House said “more than 70” countries had approached it to negotiate trade deals, officials would have to sign more than one deal each business day to prevent all the reciprocal tariffs from going back into effect, unless the deadline is extended again.
That would be an unheard of pace for trade negotiations: historically, it has taken an average of 18 months for the U.S. to negotiate trade pacts, followed by 45 days to implement them, according to an analysis by Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, citing data from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
“The bottom line is that trade negotiations take time because they are complex,” Slok wrote.
In the meantime, financial markets have been roiled, and economists across the board have penciled in slower economic growth, higher unemployment, higher inflation, and greater recession chances in the months ahead as a result of Trump ratcheting import taxes up to levels not seen since before World War 1. The uncertainty surrounding the tariffs has also taken a toll.
“While markets wait for trade negotiations with 90 countries at the same time, global trade is grinding to a standstill with problems similar to what we saw during Covid: growing supply chain challenges with potential shortages in U.S. stores within a few weeks, higher U.S. inflation, and lower tourism to the U.S.,” Slok wrote.
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