CNN
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n President Donald Trump cranked up the pressure Monday on America\u2019s trading partners, firing off letters to heads of several countries, informing them of their new tariff rate. But at the same time, the White House said Trump would take some of the edge off, with plans to sign an executive action Monday to extend the date for all \u201creciprocal\u201d tariffs to August 1.\n <\/p>\n
\n Those \u201creciprocal\u201d tariffs were expected to go into effect Wednesday. In some cases, the letters Trump sent specify new \u201creciprocal\u201d tariff rates that are higher or lower compared to April levels.\n <\/p>\n
\n Japan\u2019s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korea\u2019s President Lee Jae-myung were the first recipients of Trump\u2019s letters.\n <\/p>\n
\n Both countries will face a 25% tariff come August 1, Trump said in posts<\/a> on Truth Social<\/a> displaying the letters, potentially giving countries more time to negotiate deals. Around two hours later, he announced similar letters were sent to Malaysia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Myanmar and Laos, informing their leaders of new tariff rates as high as 40%.\n <\/p>\n \n Then later in the day, he posted seven new letters sent to leaders of Tunisia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Serbia, Cambodia and Thailand, putting the running total at 14 letters delivered on Monday.\n <\/p>\n \n In the letters, Trump said he takes particular issue with the trade deficits the United States runs with them, meaning America buys more goods from there compared to the amount that American businesses export to those countries. Trump also said the tariffs would be set in response to other policies that he deems are impeding American goods from being sold abroad.\n <\/p>\n \n He encouraged country leaders to manufacture goods in the United States to avoid tariffs.\n <\/p>\n \n This comes ahead of his initial 12:01 a.m. ET July 9 deadline for countries to make deals or face the threat of higher tariffs. That date marks the end of the pause on \u201creciprocal\u201d tariffs, which briefly went into place in April. Since then, impacted countries have faced a minimum 10% tariff.\n <\/p>\n \n However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing Monday that Trump is expected to sign an executive order later pushing the deadline to August, which is \u201cin the best interest of the American people.\u201d She also said Trump\u2019s phone \u201crings off the hook from world leaders all the time who are begging him to come to a deal.\u201d Yet only three deals have been announced over the past three months.\n <\/p>\n \n In all 14 letters, Trump threatened to raise tariffs even higher than the specified rates if a country retaliated against the United States with tariffs of their own. Trump said these rates would be \u201cseparate from all Sectoral Tariffs,\u201d meaning, for instance, the new tariff won\u2019t be stacked on top of the current auto tariff of 25%, the White House confirmed. That would apply to any future sector-specific tariffs, too, a White House official said.\n <\/p>\n \n Despite the many trade qualms Trump has broadcast as having with the European Union, prompting him to threaten higher tariffs on several occasions, the trading bloc appears to have not received a letter from him.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019re not going to comment on letters that we haven\u2019t received,\u201d Olof Gill, a European Commission spokesperson, told reporters Monday afternoon.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMy understanding is that we can now expect an extension of the current status quo until August 1 to give further time for the EU and the US to reach an agreement in principle on a mutually beneficial agreement that works for both sides,\u201d Simon Harris, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, said in a statement on Monday.\n <\/p>\n \n Collectively, the US bought $465 billion worth of goods last year from the 14 countries that received letters on Monday, according to US Commerce Department figures. Japan and South Korea, America\u2019s sixth- and seventh-largest trading partners, accounted for 60% of that, shipping a total of $280 billion worth of goods to the US last year.\n <\/p>\n \n The prospect of higher tariffs on goods could translate into higher prices for American consumers. Among the top goods America imports from South Korea and Japan, for example, are cars, auto parts, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and machinery. Trump has placed or threatened to levy industry-specific tariffs on many of these goods.\n <\/p>\n \n In April, Japan was set to face a 24% tariff, while South Korea was set to face a 25% tariff.\n <\/p>\n \n While the other countries ship less to the US compared to Japan and South Korea, in many cases they are among the top foreign sources of goods.\n <\/p>\n \n For instance, South Africa, which is set to face 30% tariffs, accounted for roughly half of the platinum the US imported from other countries last year and was the top foreign supplier of it.\n <\/p>\n \n Malaysia, which is set to face a 24% tariff versus the 25% rate Trump announced in April, was the second-top source of semiconductors shipped to the US last year, with Americans purchasing $18 billion worth of them from there.\n <\/p>\n \n Meanwhile, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Cambodia are top manufacturing hubs for apparel and accessories.\n <\/p>\n \n Trump\u2019s letter to Cambodia\u2019s prime minister threatened a tariff rate of 36%, 13 percentage points lower than what had been in place in April, before it was paused.\n <\/p>\n \n Stocks dropped lower midday after Trump announced the first batch of letters and continued to fall as Trump announced tariffs of varying rates from 25% to 40% on countries including Myanmar, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Laos and South Africa.\n <\/p>\n \n Despite Trump saying country-specific tariffs won\u2019t be stacked on top of sectorial ones, shares of auto companies that have a heavy manufacturing presence in Japan and South Korea declined sharply. US-listed shares in major Japanese automakers Toyota, Nissan and Honda dropped by 4%, 7.16% and 3.86%, respectively.\n <\/p>\n \n Those declines, however, may reflect the increased likelihood of Trump potentially raising tariffs on cars from the two countries should they retaliate against the general 25% tariffs, were they to go into effect, by slapping higher tariffs on American goods.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThese Tariffs may be modified, upward or downward, depending on our relationship with on our relationship with your Country. You will never be disappointed with The United States of America,\u201d Trump ended the letters before signing off.\n <\/p>\n \n The Dow closed lower by 422 points, or 0.94%. The S&P 500 fell 0.79% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.92%. The three major indexes posted their worst day in about three weeks.\n <\/p>\n \n This is a developing story and will be updated.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 President Donald Trump cranked up the pressure Monday on America\u2019s trading partners, firing off letters to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":46972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-46971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114814078982713712","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}