President Donald Trump is holding strong on his deadline for tariffs to go into effect on nations that do not come to new trade agreements with his administration.
“THE AUGUST FIRST DEADLINE IS THE AUGUST FIRST DEADLINE – IT STANDS STRONG, AND WILL NOT BE EXTENDED,” he wrote in a Truth Social post Tuesday. “A BIG DAY FOR AMERICA!!!”
The president has extended deadlines on tariffs on several occasions throughout his second term to give trading partners time to negotiate the deals.
When announcing the Aug. 1 deadline early in July, he said the date was “firm, but not 100% firm.”
“Because if they call up and say ‘we’d like to do it a different way,’ I’d be open to that,” he told reporters.
Trump said the tariffs, which were announced in letters sent to nations at risk of facing the new import taxes, could be modified “upward or downward” in the remaining time before the deadline “depending on our relationship with your country.”
Before the deadline, Trump has reported reaching several verbal agreements on new trade deals with nations in the European Union and Asia, though they have yet to be formalized in writing.
But some nations have yet been unable to reach agreements with the U.S. before the deadline. Trump indicated Tuesday that India would be subject to a 25 percent reciprocal tariff plus a penalty at the start of August.
“Remember, while India is our friend, we have, over the years, done relatively little business with them because their Tariffs are far too high, among the highest in the World, and they have the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any Country,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post.
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