MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President Trump's sweeping tariff rates were supposed to go into effect this week.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
But now the White House is saying those rates won't kick in until August 1. It's yet another shift in Trump's economic policy that's moved markets and will increase costs for consumers in the U.S., according to economists.
MARTIN: NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram is with us now to talk about all this. Good morning to you, Deepa.
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Hi. Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: OK, so this tariff back-and-forth has been going on for three months now. What has the administration been doing during all this time?
SHIVARAM: Yeah, well, to put all this in context, Trump originally made this big tariff announcement back in April, right? He called it Liberation Day and imposed a 10% tariff on basically every item being imported into the U.S. And then on top of that, there were much higher tariffs for countries like China and Vietnam. And the announcement sparked reciprocal tariffs and conflict with longtime trading partners and allies.
And a major problem was that the stock market plunged after that announcement. Banks like J.P. Morgan were warning of a recession if the tariffs stayed in place. So Trump then implemented a 90-day pause, and that pause was set to expire this coming Wednesday. And the idea was that in that 90-day window, countries would make trade deals with the U.S. Peter Navarro, who's a White House trade advisor, even said there could be 90 deals in 90 days. And Trump said countries were, quote, "dying" to make deals.
MARTIN: So how many deals have actually been made?
SHIVARAM: Yeah, so only a few. The United Kingdom and Vietnam have negotiated with the U.S. And the U.S. and China have been talking, but there's no final deal there yet. And there aren't a lot of official details regarding Vietnam. It's more of a framework than a deal, which I think just generally speaks to how unorthodox this trade process has been.
MARTIN: So there really hasn't been a lot of deal-making, at least with most countries. So where does that leave most of the countries that the U.S. trades with?
SHIVARAM: So now ahead of this July 9 deadline - that's this Wednesday - when this pause was supposed to end, the president is now saying that some countries are going to get letters starting today, which will outline what their tariff rate will be. And the administration thinks that these letters will spark more deals very quickly. This is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaking to CNN yesterday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SCOTT BESSENT: We are close to several deals. As always, there's a lot of foot-dragging on the other side. And, you know, so I would expect to see several big announcements over the next couple of days.
SHIVARAM: And officials say whether it's a trade deal that's reached or not, and countries end up getting hit with those original tariff rates, either way, those new rates will now take effect on August 1. And I know I've thrown out a lot of dates, but this is now the third time a date has been set for when tariffs will kick in.
MARTIN: And as you were just reminding us, the markets reacted strongly the first time these tariffs were announced. And then as you said, you know, all these changes in the deadlines and the dates, like you were just telling us. Is there any sense of how and when the new tariffs will start to affect consumers?
SHIVARAM: Yeah, well, this pause since April has provided, like, a bit of stability after the volatility in the markets from that original announcement. But Trump said a few days ago that the new tariff rates on countries that don't make deals could maybe even be higher than what was originally announced. And just last night, he went a step further and targeted countries that align themselves with BRICS nations. That's a bloc of developing countries including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
They're gathering in Rio right now for a summit and put out a statement criticizing U.S. tariffs. So in retaliation, Trump posted online and said that any nation that aligns with BRICS will face an additional 10% tariff, though he didn't specify any further details. So all of that to say there's still a lot of uncertainty in how all of this is getting implemented. But the bottom line is that economists have widely said that an increase in tariff rates will be passed onto consumers, so higher costs are likely coming.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Deepa Shivaram. Deepa, thank you.
SHIVARAM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
