Republicans on Capitol Hill are dismayed that the Trump administration hasn’t made more progress in negotiating trade deals and fear the country is heading for another bout of economic turbulence after President Trump announced a new round of steep tariffs on 14 countries.
Senior Trump administration officials, including Treasury Department Secretary Scott Bessent, had signaled earlier this year that the administration was on track to unveil an array of new trade deals in early July.
Instead, the administration is stepping up tariff threats against major trading partners such as Japan and South Korea — major suppliers of cars, appliances and electronics — and Indonesia, a major exporter of palm oil, furniture and textiles.
“Business hates uncertainty,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who warned months ago that Republicans would face political headwinds next year if the Trump White House didn’t settle its global trade disputes quickly.
“I would never advise a former client of mine to make any major decision until [the trade war] settles down, and it just keeps moving. To my knowledge, we don’t have a single ratified or inked trade agreement, up to and including the U.K. We have memoranda of understanding, but we don’t have dispute resolution, or all the other kinds of things you would wrap around the fundamental trade agreement,” Tillis, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, added. “Until you have that, you have uncertainty.”
He warned the situation may be frustrating enough that blocs of nations simply opt out of negotiations.
Tillis, who has extensive business experience as a former partner at the consulting firm Price Waterhouse, said the “whole baseline framework” of Trump’s tariff threats against dozens of trading partners at once “didn’t make sense to me.”
“If you’re going to go into a trade war, it’s good to have allies. What we did is alienate the ones we know are naturally inclined to work with us,” he said.
Bessent said last month that he expected a “flurry” of trade deals to be announced before a July 9 deadline.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) indicated that GOP lawmakers are impatient to learn more details about where the trade talks stand and predicted it would be discussed when senators meet with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Wednesday.
“I think there’s still a lot of uncertainty,” she said. “I know the president is working hard, he says he has agreements. If he makes them publicly, if they can nail them all down detail-wise — we’re having Lutnick tomorrow, so I’m sure that will be talked about.”
A Republican senator who spoke on condition of anonymity said there’s strong desire among Republicans to see the administration begin rolling out trade agreements as soon as possible.
“Everybody would like for progress to come quickly. Hardly anybody would be for delay,” the lawmaker quipped.
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said in late June that the administration would “unveil a sequence of trade [agreements], really starting around the Fourth of July.”
Instead, Trump on Monday rolled out 25 percent tariffs on Japan, South Korean and Malaysia; 36 percent tariffs on Thailand and Cambodia; a 35 percent tariff on Bangladesh; and a 32 percent tariff on Indonesia, all of which would go into effect on Aug. 1.
He also announced imminent tariffs on South Africa, Kazakhstan, Tunisia, Serbia, Laos, Myanmar and Bosnia and Herzegovina ranging from 25 percent to 40 percent.
Trump on Tuesday said the administration could make trade deals with different nations, but “it’s too time-consuming” and “complicated.”
Republican senators say they want to see faster progress on trade deals, but they acknowledge putting those deals together with dozens of countries simultaneously is a complex and daunting task.
And they warn the administration needs to proceed methodically to ensure they “get them right.”
“Trade deals are complicated, there are a lot of moving parts, and we want to make sure we get them right. I think many of us want to see the trade deals progressing faster but also recognize there’s a long to-do list,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), a member of the Finance panel, which has jurisdiction over trade issues.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), another Finance panel member, expressed relief that Trump has postponed the tariffs on Asian and European trading partners until August, at least.
He wasn’t sure how much progress the administration could make on dozens of trade deals after Trump initially announced sweeping tariffs on most of the world on April 2, which the president dubbed “Liberation Day.”
“It’s hard. I did not expect a lot. I expected progress, but signing on the dotted line, saying we’re done, those are hard. Those take a long time to be able to get done,” Lankford said.
“Executive agreements are not usually universal, large-scaled agreements. They’re targeted toward certain industries and certain products or commodities, and so that’s what we’ve seen so far,” he said.
“I’m grateful … he postponed [tariffs] now until August on most folks. Let’s try to be able to see if we can actually get to final agreements on some others,” he added.
GOP lawmakers say the passage of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which extended the 2017 tax cuts and made key corporate tax cuts permanent, will provide certainty to businesses and stimulus in the years ahead.
But they’re concerned about softness in the current economy that could carry over into the election year, potentially being made worse by the uncertainty created by the trade war.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said the global and American economies are in a “fragile spot right now.”
“We’re in uncharted territory. I do not know the impact the tariffs are going to have on the American economy or the global economy. I don’t, and nobody else does either,” he warned.
“We just don’t know.”
Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro told Fox Business Network in April that the administration was aiming for 90 deals in 90 days, but so far it’s projected to fall well short of that goal.
The president announced a trade deal with Vietnam on July 2 and agreed to cut tariffs on cars, steel and aluminum from Britain in return for the United Kingdom easing tariffs on U.S exports.
Lankford said, “there is progress going on.”
“I’ve stayed in contact with [the U.S. Trade Representative] and Treasury. They’re actively negotiating a bunch of different deals, but they’re all done quietly to try to work through that process,” he said.
“As far the final ones, with ink on it, there are only I think three or four — whatever it may be — that are out there,” he said. “But there are multiple others that are in process that I know firsthand.”
But Lankford acknowledged that a good chunk of the talks will go through the latest Aug. 1 deadline.
“There has to be a resolution to figure out the rest of them are going to take,” he said of trade deals that don’t get put together this month.
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