Bessent: Tariffs Will Return to April Rates on August 1 Without Deals

Over the weekend, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that U.S. tariffs will return to their April 2 levels if ongoing trade negotiations with foreign partners fail to produce a new agreement by August 1st.

Bessent made the announcement while speaking to Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday,” revealing that several trade deals are close to completion and described the current phase of talks as being in the “home stretch.”

Bream asked if there’s been a pause on the July 9th deadline for some countries, to which he replied “I don’t think it’s a bit of a pause because I think what’s happened is there’s a lot of congestion going into the home stretch and, as a part of the trade team, what’s great about having President Trump on our side is he’s created maximum leverage.”

In April Trump announced a 90-day pause on the steep tariffs he had unveiled days prior on most major trading partners, which is set to expire on Wednesday

“By telling our trading partners that they could boomerang back to the April 2nd date, I think it’s really going to move things along over the next couple of days and weeks,” he added.

The April tariffs that Trump unveiled were of at least 10% on most international trading partners, with some as high as 50%. Trump has also threatened an additional 10% tariff on countries aligning with the policies of the BRICS alliance.