Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced no new tariff deals with major trading partners Tuesday but hinted negotiations with India may be close to concluding with one.
“Seventeen are in motion,” Bessent told reporters at the White House, referring to negotiations with trading partners.
When asked if there could be an announcement on India this week, Bessent expressed optimism but wouldn’t commit to a timeline.
“I think that we are very close on India, and India — just a little inside baseball — India, in a funny way, is easier to negotiate with than many countries because they have very high tariffs and lots of tariffs,” Bessent said.
He said talks with Asian trading partners are the closest to leading to a deal because those allies “have been the most forthcoming” with negotiations.
“As I mentioned, Vice President Vance was in India last week. I think that he and Modi made some very good progress. So I could see some announcements on India,” Bessent said, referring to India Prime Minister Narendra Modi adding that he thinks a deal with South Korea and Japan are close as well.
Vance traveled to India last week and met with Modi for trade talks. The U.S. is India’s largest trading partner, and India was hit with a 26 percent tariff briefly before President Trump paused the “reciprocal” tariff program for most countries for 90 days, keeping 10 percent tariffs in place.
Bessent was also asked about talks with China, which faces a 145 percent overall tariff from the U.S. that was put in place when Trump paused the other tariffs. He would not detail what sort of talks, if any, the administration were having with Beijing but insisted the tariffs would hurt China more than the U.S.
“I think that, over time, we will see that the Chinese tariffs are unsustainable for China,” Bessent said.
He added that he wouldn’t “get into the nitty gritty of who’s talking to whom” and he wouldn’t comment on if Trump has spoken directly with Chinese president Xi Jinping. Trump has said he has spoken to Xi “many times,” but China has denied that any negotiations on tariffs have begun.
Chinese officials on Monday criticized the Trump administration’s approach to negotiating tariff policy and accused the U.S. of bullying other nations.
Also Tuesday, Bessent was asked about Trump floating a new income tax cut as a way to mitigate the impact of his sweeping tariffs.
“What President Trump is referring to is the ability for tariff revenue to give income tax relief. And I think there’s a very good chance that we will see that in the upcoming tax bill,” the secretary said. “The president campaigned on no tax on debt, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime, and the restoring interest deductibility for autos — for American-made autos — so tariff income could be used for tax relief on all those immediately.”
Bessent met with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and top tax writers on Capitol Hill on Monday and told reporters that July 4 is the new deadline for lawmakers to pass Trump’s ambitious tax agenda.
Trump and Republicans are set to include a potpourri of party tax goals in the single package, including potentially making the tax cuts passed in 2017 permanent and eliminating taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security.
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