National Economic Council (NEC) Director Kevin Hassett said on Sunday that a market reaction to President Trump’s tariff policies will not deter him from proceeding with his plans to levy fees on imports.
In an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” Kristen Welker asked the White House economic adviser whether Trump could change the tariff rates again, if the market reacted as it did in April, when the tariff announcement sent stocks tumbling.
“The markets have seen what we’re doing and celebrated them, so I don’t see how that would happen,” Hassett responded when asked about a future change to the tariff rates.
Welker pressed Hassett: “Okay, but not ruling it out?”
“No, I would rule it out,” Hassett responded. “Because these are the final deals.”
Trump signed an executive order Thursday that modified tariff rates for dozens of countries after he had twice delayed plans to implement “reciprocal” tariffs on other nations. Tariff rates range from as high as 41 percent on goods from Syria to as low as 10 percent, the baseline established for all imports.
The executive order states that all imports will face a 10 percent tariff. The order goes into effect Aug. 7.
Some nations have negotiated separate trade agreements to lock in tariff rates. For example, Indonesia and Thailand agreed to a 19 percent tariff, South Korea and Japan negotiated deals that included a 15 percent tariff, and the United Kingdom struck a deal for a 10 percent tariff. Certain other nations that have not negotiated deals will face higher rates.
Hassett touted the tariff deals that the president has struck and said those rates are “more or less locked in” as other countries might continue to press for negotiations, even after the tariffs kick in.
“We have eight deals that cover about 55 percent of world GDP with our biggest trading partners, the EU and Japan, Korea and so on,” Hassett said. “I expect that those matters are more or less locked in, although there will have to be some dancing around the edges about exactly what we mean when we do this or that.
“For the deals that aren’t ready yet, they’re going to get the reciprocal rates soon, and then we would expect that there might continue to be negotiations with those countries,” he added.
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