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https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/08/politics/trump-tariff-negotiations-foreign- leaders/index.html

Delegations from Japan and South Korea are en route. Italy’s prime
minister will be in Washington next week. And Israel’s “proactive
approach” to seeking out new US trade agreements could serve as a model
for everyone, according to the White House.

A day before President Donald Trump’s new worldwide tariffs are set to
take hold, the White House made clear Tuesday the door for new trade negotiations was wide open — even if the exact formula for earning relief
from the duties remained unclear.

“These countries are calling us up. Kissing my a**. They are dying to make
a deal,” Trump told a group of Republicans on Tuesday evening, hours
before the tariffs were set to take hold. He described foreign leaders essentially groveling to avoid the new tariffs: “Please, please sir, make
a deal. I’ll do anything sir.”

As countries scramble to respond to Trump’s sweeping tariff announcements
last week, many are receiving advice from US diplomats and sources close
to the White House encouraging them to think creatively, beyond the scope
of trade, as they prepare to negotiate with the White House.

Their message to foreign counterparts seems simple: If they have a unique
card to play, they should.

Ideas being discussed run the gamut, and include possible action on
securing the freedom of Americans wrongfully detained abroad, committing
to working with US artificial intelligence companies, buying more US
energy or combatting global drug trafficking, according to five people
familiar with the brainstorming sessions.

After days of mixed signals over how willing the president would be to negotiate tariff relief, Tuesday’s message was far clearer: Trump is ready
for opening bids.

“The phones have been ringing off the hook, wanting to talk to this administration, this president and his trade team to try to strike a
deal,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said midday.

It’s not just foreign leaders who have been calling. As the tariff
deadline neared this week, the chief executives of some of the largest multinational companies — who have been loathe to criticize Trump’s
tariffs publicly — nonetheless maintained a robust backchannel to the
White House.

An onslaught of CEOs from banking, technology, and industrial companies –
among others – have been lighting up the phone lines of chief of staff
Susie Wiles, Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, several executives told CNN, to argue the tariff policy will harm the
global economy and credibility of American business and government. The
recent effort was described by one CEO close to the White House as a
“tsunami” in recent days.

Trump endorsed the shift in message toward more dealmaking – and notably, messengers – after becoming frustrated by Commerce Secretary Howard
Lutnick’s television appearances, which seemed to fuel the market’s
meltdown, several executives familiar with the discussions told CNN. The
shift also came after aides warned Trump that the damage sustained in the market would endanger him politically, those people told CNN.

Wiles, those executives added, had been particularly effective in
convincing Trump that the market rout was costing considerable political capital that he would need for future agenda items, with lawmakers
fielding increasingly angry constituent calls as the market continued
sinking.

“There are voices in the White House that want high tariffs forever. There
are angels and demons sitting on President Trump’s shoulders,” Texas Sen.
Ted Cruz posted on X. “Who does he listen to? I hope he listens to the
angels.”

After days of criticism from some of his closest allies over his tariff strategy, Trump on Tuesday made clear he was confident in his decisions.

“I know what the hell I’m doing,” he told the GOP crowd.

White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to CNN that “the administration maintains regular contact with business leaders, industry groups, and everyday Americans,” adding that “the only special interest
guiding President Trump’s decision-making, however, is the best interest
of the American people.”

Desai added: “The entire Trump administration is playing from the same
playbook – President Trump’s playbook – to level the playing field for our industries and workers, and Secretary Lutnick continues to be one of the administration’s most effective TV communicators for that playbook.”

Seeking deals that go beyond tariffs and trade barriers
But what precisely the president is looking for from his foreign
interlocutors will vary by nation, White House officials said. It seemed certain the contours of his new trade deals would extend well beyond
tariffs and trade barriers to other areas, including US military presence
and foreign aid.

Trump described the approach Tuesday as “one-stop shopping”: using the
threat of withering tariffs as leverage on any manner of issues arising
between the United States and its partners.

“A beautiful and efficient process!!!” he wrote online.

In some cases, the White House is working with the State Department on preparing lists of actions that countries could take, according to one US official.

That is the case with China, where one idea on the table is for President
Xi Jinping to make a public pronouncement that Chinese companies should
stop producing fentanyl precursor chemicals, which could be an effective
step in reining in the global drug war, an issue that Trump has
prioritized.

There is no expectation that an offer completely devoid of trade or tariff action will spur movement, particularly because Trump himself has said
that this is the “only chance” for the US to “re-set the table” on trade.
But sources involved in the current discussions expect offers that couple action on trade plus something else to sweeten the deal could be
effective.

Trump’s advisers hope to have results soon that can demonstrate the
success of his tariff plan, which has generated deep concern even among
his closest allies and sent markets reeling earlier this week.

Trump, too, is eagerly watching as his global counterparts seek him out in
the hopes he’ll lift his tariffs, relishing his role as the ultimate
decider on what — and who — gets a reprieve, depending on what they’re offering.

“I call them tailored, not off the rack,” Trump said of the nascent
agreements his team is now entertaining with as many as 70 countries that
have approached the administration to talk trade.

The logistics of arbitrating dozens of new bilateral agreements did not
seem lost on the president, who suggested he may conscript lawyers at the
large law firms he’s targeted for retribution to help him write up the
terms.

“We need a lot of talent. We have a lot of countries coming that want to
make deals,” he said in the East Room, where he was discussing a new
energy initiative surrounded by coal workers in hard hats. “Our problem is
[we] can’t see that many that fast,” he said of the countries reaching
out.

For that reason, there appeared little hope for an eleventh-hour
cancelation of the new duties that are set to take effect at midnight. For
as keen as Trump and his team are to secure new agreements that can be trumpeted as examples of the tariffs’ success, advisers expressed doubt
they could be struck in only a day’s time, even for a president in a
hurry.

And for as enthusiastic as many foreign leaders appeared to be to hop on
an airplane or pick up the phone, the world’s second-largest economy
proved a tougher case.

“China also wants to make a deal, badly, but they don’t know how to get it started,” Trump wrote on social media. “We are waiting for their call. It
will happen!”

It hadn’t happened by the time US markets closed Tuesday. After posting
big gains earlier in the day, the S&P 500 slumped again in late-day
trading when it became clear Trump was plowing ahead with the new tariffs, including an extraordinary 104% tariff on China that will take effect a
minute past midnight.

Trump has spent the last four years brooding about the shortcomings of the trade agreements he signed with China during his first administration.
Beijing reneged on many of its promised purchases of American farm
products, and Chinese duties on US soybeans and corns caused agricultural exports to sink.

This time around, Trump is seeking out a bigger, better trade agreement,
and hopes the massive tariffs applied on China will lure its leader, Xi Jinping, to the negotiating table. So far, however, Xi has resisted
Trump’s pressure to submit, ratcheting up tit-for-tat tariffs that could
have widespread consequences.

Continued mixed messages from the administration
Trump acknowledged the effect his tariffs were having on global stability
in his remarks Tuesday.

“Sometimes you have to mix it up a little bit,” he said, describing his
tariffs as “somewhat explosive.”

Just this week, the market has shifted based on the conflicting messages
of the people around the president. On Sunday, Lutnick said any chance of
Trump reversing, pausing, or diluting his tariffs would “absolutely not” happen. That stance spurred steep losses for global markets that
positioned US markets to open at levels that represented a 20% drop from all-time highs reached in mid-February, the fastest drop of that magnitude
in history.

Markets experienced a slight bounce on Monday when National Economic
Council Director Kevin Hassett sidestepped a question over whether Trump
would consider a 90-day pause – leading to false interpretations that
Trump was, in fact, open to such a move.

By Tuesday, though, Bessent was front and center, attempting to reset the
White House’s message that the tariffs were a means to a negotiated end.

But as early deliberations are now underway among nations looking to
strike a deal, some countries say they are still receiving mixed messages
from different corners of the administration.

In recent days, Lutnick told Japanese officials that making commitments on
a possible future 800-mile pipeline facilitating transport of US natural
gas to Asia more quickly – which has been referenced as a possible Alaska pipeline – would not be meaningful in these conversations, according to
two sources familiar with the discussions.

The Alaska pipeline is a project Trump has supported and has urged Japan,
South Korea and Taiwan to partake in. And on Tuesday morning, Bessent, who
has been tapped to lead the tariff talks with Japan, publicly spoke about
the Alaska pipeline as a ripe topic to include in the negotiations.

“We will see what our trading partners offer. For instance there is talk
of a big energy deal in Alaska where the Japanese, and perhaps the
Koreans, perhaps the Taiwanese, would provide – would take a lot of the
offtake – and provide financing for the deal,” Bessent said on CNBC. “That could be an alternative for them to come forward with that because not
only would that provide a lot of American jobs, it would narrow the trade deficit.”

The confusion over what to include and what not to include underscores a concern among some former Trump administration officials that negotiating without a clear end game could become messy and unproductive.

“The president always wants the same thing in any negotiation: more,” said
a former administration official.

“Even if the president was willing to discuss compromises, his differing rationales for the tariffs could conflict with one another and raise a
question as to if he is even willing to negotiate.”

This story has been updated with additional details.


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November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump. We look
forward to America being great again.

The disease known as Kamala Harris has been effectively treated and
eradicated.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

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